About Dance and Philosophy, Following the Manuscript The Choreographic Training of the Actor Signed by Vera Proca-Ciortea

Vera Proca-Ciortea was a leading expressionist and structuralist choreographer in Romania and, at the same time, an internationally renowned researcher in ethnochoreology and dance theoretician. This study is an attempt at revealing some significant philosophical implications of dance while following her ideas from the manuscript entitled The Choreographic Training of the Actor, which can be found as a typed document in the library of The National University of Theatrical Art and Cinematography „Ion Luca Caragialeˮ from Bucharest. The metaphysical importance of dance springs from its necessary bondage with corporality and movement, thus being relatable to contemporary philosophical orientations like Martin Heidegger’s ontology from Being and Time (1927) or Alfred North Whitehead’s process metaphysics from Process and Reality (1929). Yet, my text will focus on theoretical implications that modern – and, implicitly, contemporary – dance techniques and principles have regarding issues such as: space-construction in movement; the dynamic-qualitative effects of movement; the (re)discovery of organicity; the (e)motional exploration of the body through dance. With this aim, I will use Vera Proca-Ciortea’s six principles of modern and contemporary dance and Rudolf Laban’s insights from his 1966 Choreutics.