Spectacle, world, environment, void:understanding nature through rural site-specific dance

I set out four different ways, or epistemes, in which we can understand how rural site-specific dance produces knowledge of nature. They are “spectacle”, “world”, “environment”, and “void”. In effect, these epistemes exist on a continuum between, at one extreme, aesthetic theories and dance practices that understand “nature” as merely a human construction to, at the other extreme, theories and practices that confront nature’s sheer alterity and unmasterable magnitudes. I define and exemplify each episteme in relation to the natural sciences, the aesthetics and ethics of nature, and the function of language in articulating nature. I also give examples of rural site-specific dance, putting, as I move along the continuum, more emphasis on methods of work than finished site-specific works. For the sake of comparison I refer to works and practices concerned with birds, beaches and grasslands. Finally, I review the four epistemes and demonstrate the ways in which they can overlap through a discussion of Jack Scout (Sap Dance and Louise Ann Wilson Company 2010) and Jack Scout Redux (2013).