{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.018193424832428983, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.061895551257253, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
CORD – Goucher Conference Honors Lillian Moore

All of this effort raises anew the question, "Why should the humanities be involved with dance?" Why in particular, should a philosopher-aesthetician be commissioned to work with a performing dance company? And what can philosophy offer to dance, and vice versa? In my case, the critic's first-hand observations combine with precise training as a philosopher to serve as a basis for writing and speaking about dance. Philosophy allows me to put in abstract terms the things that I see and provides categories of thought for understanding dance in relation to other human endeavors. Philosophy allows dance to be seen as a genuine art form, rather than simply as sport or entertainment. If I were viewing painting or sculpture, for example, I would try to relate these arts to existing philosophical theories of art. This project attempts, in a modest way, a similar thing for dance. There are mutual benefits to both the dance and to the humanities. Dance gains in public acceptance as humanist scholars are able to interpret to the public and to the scholarly community its significance as a creative art in past and contemporary societies. In the past, respected philosophers and literary figures treated dance as a matter of course. Plato wrote, for example, that dance was an essential part of education and community life. Philosophers and essayists in every generation have affirmed this view. Humanists today are perhaps less aware of the dance than in previous centuries when, for example, literary giants such as the French writers Gautier and Mallarme wrote at length on the dance. There is now a growing interest on the part of philosophers and other scholars in the humanities in thinking and writing about dance, coinciding with an increase of popular interest in dance performances. Compared to aesthetic theories of art or music, however, dance aesthetics, philosophy and history are relatively neglected, as are the crossdisciplinary relationships of dance to studies in literature, history of civilization, the sciences, and the other arts. The Des Moines Ballet project is especially important as a model for initiating cooperation between humanities scholars and the art of dance. It is important to consider briefly how such projects might continue. One suggestion would be to develop similar projects in other sites, revising the public format based on the experiences of this project. The project might be further refined and offered as a model for use with other dance companies. A second step would be to encourage schools from the universities to elementary classrooms to concentrate on approaches to scholarship and curriculum that develop the interrelationships of humanities disciplines to the study and performance of dance. All of these efforts will help to break down artificial barriers that presently divide our experiences of dance unnecessarily into arbitrary compartments such as "Performance" and "Scholarship," and they will enable us to build upon the natural interrelatedness of the humanities and the arts. Curtis L. Carter Marquette University