Ballettkörper werden : materielle Involvierungen, Verflechtungen und Differenzierungen im Üben klassischer Tanztechnik

Recently, sociological theory has criticized the concept of the ‘rational actor’ from two sides: Practice theory has emphasized the cultural shaping of bodies, Actor Network Theory has promoted artifacts as non, - human, but equal actants. This paper argues for exploring ‘bodies’ and ‘things’ in one integrative perspective. It focuses on the becoming of ballet bodies – asking how other objects are involved here and how they are practically brought into being together with the singular, highly skilled ballet -bodies. The author argues that such processes of ‘becoming together’ depends on particular practical involvements, as well as on entanglements transversal to, and differentiations of everyday units like ‘the body’. In ballet class, wooden bars, music and mirrors play ‘body parts’ as substitute limbs, as temporal and energetic regulator and media. The mirror, moreover, is central to how inhabited bodies are dissected into a shapeable object and a shaping artisan who forms a new unit with the teacher as a manufacturing team. Thus, body parts situationally become things here. The paper shows how an open, symmetrical account of social materiality can be achieved by empirically unfolding both sides of the binary fixation human/non - human.