Choreography as an Axiological and Embodied Cultural Practice: Theoretical Foundations for Understanding Dance Beyond Aesthetic Representation

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to substantiate a cultural-studies interpretation of choreography as an axiological and embodied practice that functions not only as an aesthetic form but also as a mechanism of cultural memory, identity formation, social communication, and symbolic processing of collective experience. Particular attention is paid to choreography within the contemporary Ukrainian wartime context, in which dance practices acquire additional significance as instruments for maintaining cultural continuity, collective solidarity, and symbolic self-expression. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary combination of cultural-studies, axiological, semiotic, hermeneutic, phenomenological, and cultural-anthropological approaches. The study also incorporates the concepts of cultural memory, social choreography, and culturally mediated embodied forms of experiencing and processing traumatic experience. The scientific novelty lies in the development of a six-level cultural-studies model of choreography as an embodied and axiological practice. The proposed model distinguishes semiotic-hermeneutic, axiological, phenomenological-embodied, ritual-liminal, socio-ideological, and therapeutically relevant levels of analysis, which are interpreted as interconnected dimensions of a single cultural phenomenon. The conclusions prove that choreography cannot be reduced exclusively to stage aesthetics or physical activity because it represents a complex multi-level cultural practice integrating symbolic, bodily, social, and axiological dimensions. Ukrainian choreographic culture in wartime conditions performs an important function in preserving collective memory and identity, particularly through regional dance traditions and forms of communal synchronisation. The prospects for further research are connected with empirical investigations of culturally grounded choreographic practices in rehabilitation, education, and the symbolic processing of cultural trauma.