Niche Controversy exposes the Precarity of dance Philosophers in France 

Callysta Croizer

In January, French journalist Alexandre Lacroix published a book that sparked an outcry in the small world of dance research. The journalist claimed to be the pioneer of dance philosophy, erasing the work of scholars who make it their field of study. In light of this controversy, CN D magazine met with three dance philosophers to decipher the structural challenges of their niche but vibrant discipline at the crossroads of academia and art.

It only took one publication for writer Alexandre Lacroix to become the object of dance researchers’ ire. Following the publication of his book La danse: Philosophie du corps en mouvement [Dance: Philosophy of the Body in Movement] (Allary, 2024) this past January, a small group of scholars denounced the “invisibilization” of their work, absent from the book’s bibliography, in an opinion piece published in Libération. Then an investigative report in the same newspaper detailed the troubling similarities between the text written by the director of Philosophie magazine and the existing works of several academics, including Julia Beauquel’s Danser. Une philosophie [Dancing: A Philosophy] (Carnets nord, 2018).

To justify the supposedly innovative nature of his approach, Lacroix pointed to a certain lack of interest among philosophers for dance and explained how dance is a “blind spot” in philosophy. “If there are few philosophers of dance, there are not just a few philosophical reflections on dance,” insists Aude Thuries, whose PhD dissertation in the arts was inspired by the work of American philosopher Susanne K. Langer. Though after the time of Plato and Aristotle thoughts about dance were “often hidden” in philosophy, says Thuries, in the 20th century, dance inflected Friedrich Nietzsche’s aphorisms and Erwin Straus devoted an entire article to it. This gives a historical perspective to the recent controversy, which, while shedding light on the field of dance research, also raises questions about the current conditions under which this niche discipline is practiced.

In France, dance studies took off thanks to a philosopher, Michel Bernard, who founded the Dance Department at Université Paris 8 in 1989. As Thuries points out, this research center has the particularity of being conceived on the model of Anglo-Saxon dance studies, which were developed in the 1960’s. This holistic and transversal approach was unique in a French university system where social sciences disciplines are traditionally highly compartmentalized. Today, the situation is reversed: dance is taught in several universities across the country within performing arts curricula dominated by history, anthropology and sociology. Philosophy, on the other hand, is dealt with only between the lines.

As a result of this fragmentation, the philosophical study of dance requires solid transdisciplinary knowledge. But as Lola Maridet-Coulon, a PhD student at the University of Strasbourg, points out, acquiring this fundamental knowledge, most often during extra-curricular studies, requires a “long and possibly costly investment.” Thuries, who completed two MA degrees – one in theatre studies, the other in philosophy of science – before embarking on her PhD, notes that part of the work has to be done “by yourself, as an autodidact.” For her PhD in analytic philosophy, Beauquel combined a variety of readings “on emotions or action,” upon the advice of her supervisor Roger Pouivet, whose “dance experience” was nurtured by a “mentor” – dancer Sidi Graoui. She also took part in number of training courses, complimented by a stay at an American university.

“It’s true that we work in a field that is often unrecognized and invisible, and that booksellers don’t necessarily know which shelf to put us in” from an opinion column in the French newspaper Libération

After defending a PhD, a career in research is another journey whose success depends on complex financial, strategic, and political choices. Whether they apply to departments of philosophy or arts, dance philosophers rarely obtain a position as a lecturer – a permanent contract and the Holy Grail for academics – which fosters rivalry. But the precariousness of the profession has a lot to do with the fact that a majority of researchers in this discipline are female, and as a result, dance is looked down on as a “girly” art form. The success of Lacroix’s book, which takes up the man-thinker/woman-muse duality, is all the more “infuriating for female thinkers who are trying to break out of the patriarchal and exoticizing gaze,” laments Thuries.

Many are distancing themselves from the world of research. Faced with an “exhausting” lack of recognition, Beauquel preferred to teach “in a design school with undergrad students, even if the pay isn’t great,” while Thuries became a documentary film screenwriter. While their professional activities have broadened, they both still manage to stay in touch with their primary research interests though writing projects and attending conferences. But this dispersal complicates the networking of researchers, which, as Maridet-Coulon points out, often depends on “chance encounters, in the absence of institutions that put [them] in touch.”

In this respect, Beauquel points out that the “Alexandre Lacroix controversy” had at least one positive effect: it encouraged dance philosophers to come together to defend their work. Initiated by Christine Leroy and Elsa Ballanfat, the grouping of aggrieved researchers led to the creation of a Wikipedia page dedicated to the philosophy of dance, and gave new impetus to publication projects. Beyond the challenges of popularizing their work, Maridet-Coulon insists on the importance of integrating artists in the conversation, as they are often “eager and happy” to share the “intelligence of their practice” and their “empirical knowledge”. All this proves, if proof was indeed needed, that dance is far from being a blind spot.

Former student at the École normale supérieure of Paris (ENS-PSL), Callysta Croizer is now a doctoral student in history at the Université Paris 8. Her research, conducted within the IFG Lab, focuses on the construction of ballet in Brazil in the second half of the 20^th century. Since 2023, she has been writing theatre and dance reviews for Les Echos, Mouvement and Springback Magazine, an English-language web media specialized in contemporary dance and initiated by Aerowaves.

Danser. Une philosophie (Dancing: a Philosophy)
Julia Beauquel
Carnets nord
Published in 2018

L’apparition de la danse (The emergence of dance)
Aude Thuries
L’Harmattan
Published in 2016

Méthodes en mouvement, pour une histoire décentrée de la danse
(Methods in motion, for a decentered history of dance)
Volume 1
Marie-Hélène Delavaux-Roux, Florence Poudru and Aude Thuries (dir.)
L’Harmattan
Published in April 2024

Motion et émotion chez Rudolf Laban
Lola Maridet-Coulon
MA thesis, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University - Philosophy department
HAL dumas
Published in 2022