Through the Back: Situating Vision between Moving Bodies seeks to articulate the potential of contemporary dance as a critical force in today’s visual regime. It discusses the work of several choreographers (Alexander Baervoets, Boris Charmatz, Meg Stuart, Benoît Lachambre, Vera Mantero, Philipp Gehmacher, Jennifer Lacey and Nadia Lauro, and deufert & plischke) who develop physical expressions vulnerable and permeable to the world. Their critical and experimental approach challenges and expands spectatorship, including the corporeal, technological and cultural elements that support the ways we see, hear, sense and imagine.

‘Reading this book gives me the sense of fiction without narrative in that I am aware of the author’s artistry and clarity of vision but nothing is being proven to me through causality. The collection of light tethers through reference to other times and other artists, thinkers, spectators, writers – the delicate stirring of the sedimented knowledge we watch through – both engage my memory and inspire me to watch again and this time, again, without placing myself at the center of the story. I don’t need to get It, but there is an It and It is not me but It matters to me.’ (Chrysa Parkinson in Contact Quarterly)