Professor Dr. ChatGPT, Ph.D. in Dance Theory

In order to be cruel to MIT students, tortured daily with math and physics problems that make them feel stupid, the flight planning lecture of our FAA Ground School class covers a hypothetical trip from MIT to Bennington College in Vermont. Every year I try to pick what seems like the easiest class at Bennington and remind them that, had they chosen a school more wisely, they could be getting credit for it. This year I picked “Ghostly Body- The Art of Absence”:

I stressed that they’d need to “develop new understanding of the presence of absence” (the class requires no previous dance experience so it is unclear what the students’ old understanding of the presence of absence might be).

Before I highlighted this as an example of the presence of absence of academic and intellectual rigor, I questioned ChatGPT 5.2: “Please explain to me your understanding of the presence of absence as it relates to dance.” What came back was, I think, worthy of a Ph.D. in Dance Theory:

In dance, the “presence of absence” names a paradox: what is not physically there can be as perceptible, meaningful, and active as what is. Absence is not emptiness; it is a charged field that shapes attention, sensation, and interpretation.

Here are the main ways this idea operates in dance.

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1. The Body as a Trace, Not Just a Fact

Dance exists only while it is happening. Once a movement ends, it survives as afterimage, memory, or expectation.

• A lifted arm leaves a trace in the viewer’s perception even after it lowers.
• A dancer who exits the stage continues to “occupy” space through memory.
• Stillness is not neutral—it holds the residue of previous motion and the promise of what might come.

In this sense, dance is always haunted by what has just happened and what is about to happen.

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2. Negative Space as Active Partner

Absence appears physically as space:

• The gap between dancers
• Empty areas of the stage
• The air carved by movement

Choreography often makes absence legible by framing it:

• A duet defined by distance rather than touch
• A solo surrounded by emptiness
• Movement that gestures toward, but never reaches, another body

The audience reads these voids as intentional, emotionally loaded presences.

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3. Stillness and Non-Movement

Not moving is one of the clearest embodiments of the presence of absence.

Stillness can signal:

• Withheld action
• Resistance
• Grief or loss
• Listening or readiness

Because dance trains us to expect motion, the absence of motion becomes loud. The body remains present, but movement is absent—creating tension and meaning.

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4. The Absent Body

Dance frequently invokes bodies that are not there:

• A partner imagined but never visible
• A former dancer referenced by repetition of their choreography
• Cultural or ancestral bodies remembered through gesture

This is especially powerful in works dealing with loss, exile, trauma, or memory. The dancer becomes a conduit for someone else’s absence.

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5. Temporality and Ephemerality

Unlike visual art objects, dance disappears.

• You cannot fully “return” to a dance—only to documentation or memory.
• Each performance replaces the last.
• The dance’s absence after the performance is part of its meaning.

The presence of absence here is existential: dance is disappearance made visible.

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6. Audience Perception: Filling the Void

Absence activates the viewer.

When something is withheld:

• The audience projects meaning
• Memory and imagination complete the work
• The viewer becomes a participant

What is absent invites interpretation more strongly than what is fully shown.

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7. Philosophical Undercurrent

Philosophically, this idea resonates with phenomenology:

• We perceive bodies not just as objects, but as intentional beings
• Absence is felt through expectation and anticipation
• Meaning emerges in the gap between perception and completion

In dance, this gap is continuously exposed.

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In Summary

The presence of absence in dance means that:

• What is missing can be felt
• What has disappeared still acts
• What does not move still speaks
• What is not shown still shapes meaning

Dance is not only about bodies in motion, but about what motion leaves behind.

If you’d like, I can also explore this through:

• A specific choreographer (e.g., Cunningham, Pina Bausch, Forsythe)
• Somatic practice or improvisation
• Performance philosophy
• Or how absence operates differently in ballet vs. contemporary dance