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Rudi Laermans is professor of social theory at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Leuven, Belgium. He is also a regular guest teacher in theory at P.A.R.T.S., and has written extensively on contemporary dance. What makes dance contemporary? This lecture will address this question in a multi-faceted way. From a historical point of view, contemporary dance started in the 1960s with the Judson movement, which notably widened the definition of the danceable. This resulted in a situation in which dance acts as a proper name that may be contingently associated to a performance. Contemporary dance, moreover, stresses through various strategies its contemporary nature, or the coming into presence of movements within the situational co-presence of a public. Within this artistic genre, one can also detect a marked trend to incorporate ideas within choreographic practice ('conceptual dance'), to include non-human movements ('dance in general'), and to opt for diverse forms of artistic collaboration ('commonal dance'). Laermans will discuss these features with reference to recent performances.