Ihu märgid: tantsulava semiootika ja fenomenoloogia kohtumispaigana
Signs of flesh: Dance as a meeting point for semiotics and phenomenology

Summary/Abstract: Bodily presence is the precondition for all meaning, while our bodily perception is already made meaningful by our previous cultural experiences. The present article aims to examine the ideas of Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, especially those of Juri Lotman, and make them dance with the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his followers, using the dance production “Bet” (“Panus”, 2005) by Fine5 Dance Theatre as a dancefloor for theoretical discussion. In the discussions on the crisis of representation, semiotics has often been equated with structuralism and seen as an outdated method for the study of contemporary theatre (including dance), while phenomenology has been regarded as a somewhat more appropriate approach, particularly in cases where the human body is the object of study. The notion of “binocular vision” by Bert O. States that would join semiotics and phenomenology on equal grounds is widely known by now. Yet, the latest studies focus on phenomenology (performativity) significantly more than on re-thinking semiotics. The present article aims at establishing the “binocular vision” on even grounds.

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