Before the First Step: Embodied Knowledge and Somatic Transmission in Kunqu Yunbu and East Asian Performance
Abstract
This study investigates how embodied knowledge is generated during the training of Yunbu—the foundational gliding step in Kunqu Opera. Departing from conventional emphases on movement execution, the study examines the micro-phase before visible action, where breath, gravity, and perception converge.This pre-movement threshold is analyzed as a critical site of somatic cognition and nonverbal transmission.Drawing from ethnographic observation, high-resolution video analysis, and reflective somatic engagement, the research isolates the first step as a dynamic event of internal alignment and cultural encoding.To describe this somatic learning process, the paper introduces working concepts such as the “Micro-Embodied Epistemic Unit” (MEEU) and “Recursive Embodied Pedagogy” (REP), used heuristically to articulate how knowledge arises through recursive bodily calibration rather than through verbal instruction or pre-established forms.The paper further explores how Kunqu footwork embodies symbolic logic, aesthetic principles, and philosophical values, offering a model for understanding the body as both performer and producer of tradition. A preliminary comparison with suriashi in Noh Theatre highlights converging and diverging somatic epistemologies across East Asian performance cultures. Ultimately, this study reframes the act of stepping not as a technical beginning, however as an epistemological emergence rooted in embodied experience.
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