On Your Head Be It

I am currently in an all-too familiar situation. A dancer on the training course of the company I work for recently tested positive for COVID-19. Hence, we have not been in the studio since last Saturday, and yesterday we all had to independently get tested (the cost of which was reimbursed by the company). Throughout this experience thus far, aside from experiencing fear and anxiety, I have been reflecting on the idea of individual versus collective responsibility, and how they intertwine. This idea was reinforced by my own reading, where Nicholas Ridout examines the philosophical ideas of Kant, ‘In particular, he replaced a philosophical emphasis on ‘being’ with a dedication to an ethics based on the existence of the ‘other’’. 

 

If we take the unfortunate real-life example of COVID-19, the lines between individual and collective responsibility are somewhat blurred. Following the guidelines, i.e. wearing a mask where required, maintaining social distance, disinfecting your hands regularly are all individual actions that we partake in not only to keep ourselves safe, but also to protect our family and other members of society. These actions of responsibility, if emulated by all, serve to lower the infection and eventual death rate of the virus. However, if some members of society ignore these rules (putting themselves at risk of both health and legal consequences), the impact of the actions of others decreases. Therefore, if many people ignore the rules, and the infection rate goes up, then the preventative measures and possibility of a second major lockdown increase, alongside the danger of the virus, consequently affecting everyone. This is where I believe that personal and collective responsibility interlink, you are personally responsible for protecting yourself and following the rules, yet this feeds into a larger system of responsibility that protects the entire country. 

 

I feel that there are a lot of corollaries between this situation and professional dance practice. For example, you are personally responsible for warming up properly before class and rehearsal, and failure to do so could negatively impact you and your colleagues. Say you are rehearsing for a performance, and you do not warm up properly for the rehearsal, meaning you injure yourself. This takes you out of the show, but also means that the rest of the cast has to essentially re-create the show without you, causing stress and potentially confusion. If this happened, for example, the day before the show, and there were no suitable understudies available, the quality of the performance could be compromised. On the other hand, however, one could argue that it is the responsibility of the other dancers to make sure the show is stage-ready, even at such short notice, implying it is more a collective responsibility than an individual one. 

 

This is only one example, but there are many other areas of practice where responsibility is both collective and individual. One area in particular I am keen to explore is that of creating a safe and welcoming environment for all, both in training and in professional environments. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the director of the school/company to put in a place a policy of inclusion and equal opportunity, however it is the responsibility of the teachers/dancers/choreographers to implement it. Ultimately one ignorant comment from a teacher/dancer/choreographer or even pupil has the power to unravel the whole system and harm the school or company’s reputation. Hence it is the responsibility of all the people associated with that school/company to behave appropriately, making it a collective responsibility, yet everyone must police themselves, rendering it also an individual responsibility. 

 

We could even look at this as a microcosm of the whole arts industry, say one prolific member makes a mistake or expresses a harmful view, this naturally would draw attention to the industry, and could paint it in a negative light, potentially affecting future ticket sales and funding. 

 

Ultimately through all these examples I’m moving towards a conclusion that in professional practice individual and collective responsibility are rarely mutually exclusive. I am keen to keep exploring this idea and how I can represent it and discover it within my own practice, whilst hopefully gaining insight into how I could use the concept of responsibility to progress my practice and understanding further. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ridaut, N. (2009). Theatre and Ethics. 

MacMillan Education UK