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Original Articles

Vol. 3 No. 2 (2025): Revista Estud(i)os de Dança 6

The Sensitive Body and the Visible Body: Somatic Practices, Embodiment, and Artistic Identity in Dance Education

DOI
https://doi.org/10.53072/RED202502/00208

Abstract

This article examines the processes of bodily construction and artistic identity formation within the context of dance education. Grounded in a qualitative methodology developed as part of a PhD study, the research involved ten students from the Escola Superior de Dança of the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon. The fieldwork included the implementation of a Somatic Movement (SM) course, consisting of twenty practical sessions complemented by interviews and reflective journals. The results reveal processes of transition and identity reconfiguration among the students, marked by tensions between the body as object and the body as subject of experience. These tensions reflect the confrontation between the habitus acquired during vocational training and the new technical and pedagogical approaches encountered in higher education. The participants’ narratives expose the presence of internalised aesthetic ideals and highlight the impact of the new educational context in questioning and deconstructing these patterns. The SM course fostered sensory awareness, encouraging the discovery of new ways of moving and perceiving the body, thereby supporting a more subjective and self-reflective appropriation of movement. It is concluded that the integration of somatic practices in dance education, by promoting sensitive and reflective learning, enhances the articulation between the experiential, performative and representational dimensions of the moving body, contributing to the artistic identity of dance students.

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