Embodied knowing: Foregrounding the multi-sensoriality of the body as epistemological site

In this session Dr Elsa Urmston will consider the body as a site of knowledge as well as a tool for generating knowledge.Embodiment is a complex construct with varied meanings in different fields. What unifies research on embodiment is its emphasis on the body, where embodied knowledge production challenges Cartesian privileging of mind over body as the locus of knowledge. Drawing on phenomenological understandings of embodiment where the body is proposed as an epistemological site, and movement, alone and with others is the “originating ground of our sense-makings” (Sheets-Johnstone, 1999), this presentation is grounded in research exploring students’ and teachers’ embodied pedagogical experiences in vocational dance education. In this session, participants will be invited to consider filmic data gathering and analysis approaches which move beyond documentation and (re)presentation, to instead evoke complex, multi-sensorial, subjective positions and experiences. To do this, we will explore the visual, sonic and sensory affordances of data gathered from body-mounted cameras as a means to get close to research participants’ embodied experiences. There will also be time to reflect on whether such data can be analysed without an over-reliance on reductive written and linguistic documentation, to question whether embodied knowledge can ever adequately capture and reflect its ontological position when it is disseminated.Sheets Johnstone, M. (1999). The primacy of movement. John Benjamin Publishing. Dr Elsa Urmston is a UK-based dance educator and researcher with interests in vocational education, community practice, dance science, and the impact of arts participation. Her PhD in Education focussed on the implications of periodisation for dance education. Elsa is artist-in-residence at Copperdot Studio, Norwich and works at numerous Higher Education Institutions including London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS). She consults on educational change, having written several UK dance degree programmes, and recently supported LCDS’s curriculum development. She co-leads the institution’s health and wellbeing research, and co-facilitates the institution’s Learning Exchange Programme for teaching artists. Elsa is also an evaluator, exploring dance participation and its impact on people’s lives from social, psychological and health perspectives with companies such as Dance Umbrella, Royal Ballet and Opera and East London Dance. Elsa is Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin for Dancers and Teachers published by the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS). She is also Chair of Dance Network Association, a dance for health organisation based in Essex. Elsa was the winner of the IADMS Dance Educator Award in 2025.