Ecologies of dance. Reflections by Prof. Nigel Stewart on the role of performing arts

The lecture was a great opportunity to reflect on the role of performing arts and contemporary humanities in the age of ecological crisis. Using the example of artistic strategies present in the environmental dance, we deepened our reflection on posthumanist ethics, the central element of which is response-ability, which opens the way to alternative ways of understanding and learning about the more-than-human world.

Professor Nigel Stewart’s seminar “The Four Epistemes of Environmental Dance: Spectacle, World, Dwelling, Void” highlighted the different ways of knowing the more-than-human world. Dance is a great way to understand our place in the world and the relationships we have with other living beings. Professor Nigel Stewart presented numerous examples illustrating the complexity of this process. We will definitely continue our discussions at future sessions.

Nigel Stewart – a dance artist and scholar. He is Artistic Director of Sap Dance and is presently Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University, UK, and a Visiting Professor of Dance at the University of Gdańsk. He has danced for various European choreographers, including Thomas Lehmen, and as a solo artist. Apart from his choreography for Sap Dance, he has worked as a choreographer, director, and movement director for Louise Ann Wilson Company, National Theatre Wales, Odin Teatret, Theatre Nova, Theatreworks Ltd., Triangle and many other companies. He is currently developing a performance exploring the relationship between the pipe organ, the human body, and breath; and a solo choreographed from improvisations in the forests of California, Czechia, England, and elsewhere. Nigel is the author of many articles and chapters on contemporary dance, dance phenomenology and environmental dance; and is co-editor of Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts (Peter Lang 2005). He is currently completing two book- length series of essays. The first theorises environmental dance, including his own rural site- specific dance works, in terms of environmental aesthetics and values. The second uses phenomenology and hermeneutic ontology to explore the relationship between choreography and the visual arts in dance works by several twenty-first century choreographers.

The event was organised on the initiative of Dr Irena Chawrislka, coordinator of the More-Than-Human Studies Lab (Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Gdańsk), and Dr Katarzyna Pastuszak (Between.Pomiędzy Research Lab). Prof. Nigel Stewart’s visit to the University of Gdańsk is part of the University’s ‘Visiting Professors’ programme.