1. Carroll, Noël and Banes, Sally, “Working and Dancing: A Response to Monroe Beardsley's ‘What Is Going on in a Dance?’” Dance Research Journal 15/1 (Fall 1982): 37–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Beardsley, Monroe, “What Is Going on in a Dance?” Dance Research Journal 15/1 (Fall 1982 a): 31–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Beardsley 1982 a, 35.

4. Scott, Gregory, “Banes and Carroll on Defining Dance.” Dance Research Journal 29/1 (Spring 1997): 7–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Carroll, Noël and Banes, Sally, “Expression, Rhythm and Dance: A Response to Gregory Scott.” Dance Research Journal 30/1 (Spring 1998): 15–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Scott, Gregory, “Transcending the Beardsleyans: A Reply to Carroll and Banes.” Dance Research Journal 31/1 (Spring 1999): 12–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Scott 1999, 13.

8. Scott 1999, 13.

9. Carroll and Banes 1998, 16.

10. Scott 1999, 13.

11. Since our use of Room Service was aimed at problematizing Beardsley's requirement of a superfluity of expressiveness, we do not understand how Scott's attempted erasure of it from the discussion really addresses our debate with Beardsley. Scott is complaining about a counterexample designed to challenge a theory whose specific formulation he is not actually defending. Undoubtedly, Scott will accuse us of being overly preoccupied with what Beardsley said. But that, after all, is what we were objecting to.

12. Scott queries our description of the movement in Room Service by means of the locution “for its own sake.” According to Scott, this is an error because the phrase only appropriately applies to “creatures, like animals.” We are not convinced of Scott's philology here. People speak of valuing art objects for their own sake. Furthermore, since we are applying the phrase to movements that are human actions, our usage would appear to meet Scott's desiderata. See Scott 1999, 14.

13. Scott 1999, 15.

14. Scott 1999, 17.

15. We should add that we do not believe that the concept of expression is as unstable as Scott appears to believe. We think that there is a rough consensus among aestheticians that it applies primarily to anthropomorphic qualities. For a discussion of expression, see Carroll, Noël, Chapter 2, Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (London: Routledge, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Beardsley, Monroe C., “What is an Aesthetic Quality?” in Beardsley, Monroe C., The Aesthetic Point of View: Selected Essays, edited by Wreen, Michael J. and Callen, Donald M. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982 b), 93–110.Google Scholar

17. Beardsley 1982 b, 109.

18. In order to bolster his claim that Beardsley's concept of expressiveness can encompass Room Service, Scott cites some of Beardsley's examples of regional qualities. These include momentousness, mystery, majesty, abruptness, looseness, heaviness, decisiveness and languidity. We think that Scott's point here is to suggest that not all of Beardsley's examples are expressive in the sense of involving anthropomorphic qualities and that, therefore, Room Service may have some regional properties like these, thereby satisfying Beardsley's definition in terms of his notion of expressiveness.

However, first it pays to note that many of these terms are straightforwardly anthropomorphic—languid, decisive, majesty, an air of momentousness. Secondly, the ones that appear as purely structural—heavy, loose, abrupt—are psychologically charged in the context where they are applied as comments on Anna Sokolow's Rooms. There, for instance, “heavy” means “psychologically fraught.” If these labels were purely structural descriptions, they would not count as regional or aesthetic qualities for Beardsley. And, in any case, even if Room Service were said to be expressive because the relevant movements were heavy, that would still not disarm it as a counterexample to Beardsley's definition because they do not evince a superfluity of heaviness, beyond that required practically for mattress-moving.

19. Scott 1999, 17.

20. Scott 1999, 14.

21. Carroll, Noël, “Post-Modern Dance and Expression,” in Philosophical Essays on Dance, edited by Fancher, Gordon and Meyers, Gerald (New York: Dance Horizons, 1981), 95–104.Google Scholar

22. Scott also complains that Carroll's overview of dance expression is flawed because it only allows attributions of expressive qualities to dance comparatively, not absolutely. This is not exactly right. Carroll acknowledges that certain anthropomorphic qualities in dance are possessed absolutely, for instance, in virtue of physiognomic features. But he also claims that some other expressive properties, like those associated with the propositional content of the work, may be based on homologies. Yet it does not seem problematic to us to contend that some expressive properties obtain comparatively. See Scott 1999, 16, and Carroll's response to Ziff, , Philosophical Essays on Dance, 85.Google Scholar For a general discussion of attributions of expressiveness, see Carroll, Noël, Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (London: Routledge, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Scott 1999, 15.

24. Carroll and Banes 1982, 38.

25. Beardsley, Monroe C., “Intentions and Interpretations,” in The Aesthetic Point of View, 1982b, 195.Google Scholar

26. Scott 1999, 18.

27. Scott 1999, 12, 18.

28. Scott 1999, 18.

29. Antimasques were an important genre in the seventeenth-century English courts of James I and Charles I. These dances were created specifically to contrast with the ordered movement of masques. Parodying and subverting all the virtuous qualities (especially the values of grace and harmony) championed in the masques, the antimasques often employed grotesque (sometimes even convulsive) movements and chaotic floor plans. (See International Encyclopedia of Dance, s.v. “Masque and Antimasque.”)

30. In “Transcending the Beardsleyans,” Scott (1999) says that earlier we misinterpreted his use of the notion of criterion. We said that he was using the specialized philosophical notion, whereas he says he meant no more by it than “good indicator.” But in “Banes and Carroll on Defining Dance,” Scott attacked our putative “criteria” by treating them as necessary and/or sufficient conditions. For example, on page 12, Scott says “the Dantoesque approach in no way delimits Room Service necessarily as dance….” (emphasis added). Clearly, here we are in the neighborhood of the technical notion of criteria. And note that Scott does not address the issue of whether the considerations we raise are generally good indicators of dance. He repeatedly goes for the “philosophical jugular,” interrogating our proposals on the model of necessary and sufficient conditions.