“Points of View”: Exploring and Reflecting Embodied Gazes in the Performer Training Space

In dance, ‘apperception is grounded not just in the eye but in the entire body’, thus necessitating reconsideration of the static, filmic concept of the objectifying male gaze (Daly 2002: 307). This paper proposes that such reconsideration can be deepened through exploration of the gazes, which are developed within the psychophysical performer training space.

Focusing specifically upon Phillip Zarrilli and Sandra Reeve’s psychophysical trainings, I begin by examining the disembodied gaze and self-conscious response to observation frequently initially evident in these practices. I argue that the multiple embodied gazes that participants subsequently develop, and the possible embodied forms of writing about and through these gazes, can challenge and move beyond alternative paradigms to the binarised concept of the singular male gaze. Such challenges are placed in dialogue with Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous’ theoretical explorations of gazing.