Abstract

The thesis analyses dance as artistic profession and bodily work. The aim is to explore the social foundations of a performative, bodily and kin(aesth)etic doing, the purpose being to untie some of the knots that, in manifold ways, link together corporeal experience, (sense of) society, knowledge and identity. The considered dance, thus, is first of all a performative art, to be (re)presented on stage during particular social occasions. The work of dance professionals can be defined as artistic doing. In this sense, the thesis aims to contribute to arts sociology and creativity studies, through, first, the analysis of the process bringing from 'nothing' to the artwork, considering the choreographic creative process and the continuum improvisation-composition, the everyday collective work practices, and the collaboration and negotiation characterizing them. Secondly, I present an analysis of the relations between different entities – institutional, commercial, cultural, etc. – that inhabit Italian dance field. Finally, I propose an analysis of artistic, and particularly dancer's, identity. Focusing on a performative art also means to focus on the body, and the impermanence of its doing. Dance, indeed, is a profession based on corporeal practices and embodied knowledge; it's a bodily doing. From this point of view, the thesis represents a contribution to sociology of the body and embodiment, as well as to sociology of knowledge, as an analysis of a case of teaching/learning process of bodily and performative expertise. Such a case enlights some dimensions of teaching/learning-to-perform activity, and could be usefully compared with other practical (artistic or 'simply' human) activities. Finally, I focus on dance as a professional doing. In this sense, the thesis contributes to the sociology of prefessions and semiprofessions, because it analyses the processes of socialization to the culture, knowledge and knowhow of the considered occupational community; the training paths and trajectories undertaken in the field; the social organization of everyday work and the ways in which dance professionals coordinate with one each other as well as with other kind of professionals; the recruitment mechanisms; the master and alternative narratives that sustain and (re)produce the community, and that dancers exploit in their biographies and identies construction.