Metaphors in Motion
The Dance Between Cognition, Communication, and Symbolization
Abstract
The essay explores the identity of artistic metaphor through the lens of dance, understood not merely as a symbolic object but as an embodied practice of meaning-making. Challenging traditional linguistic-semantic models, it proposes that dance constitutes a form of operative metaphoricity, where significance arises directly from the body’s movement in space and time. The analysis develops along two intertwined axes: firstly, dance as a metaphor for a fluid, processual existence, engaging with theories of nomadism and becoming (Braidotti; Deleuze & Guattari), as well as Nancy and Badiou’s reflections on dance as immanent transcendence and a metaphor for thought; secondly, as a non-verbal language and embodied mode of communication, informed by Rudolf Laban’s movement theories. In dialogue with Nietzsche, Rilke, and Valéry, the essay argues that dance provides theoretical resources for rethinking metaphor cognitively and communicatively, thereby reinforcing its imaginative and transformative role in aesthetic experience.
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