This paper explores
the ‘hidden’ dynamics of embodied agency within the performative context of
ballet. Specifically, this paper seeks to investigate how ballet dancers use
not only their embodied agency – their physical bodies, movements and gestures
– but crucially also their ‘embodied
imagination’ offstage to perform for others onstage. By doing so, the dancers widen
their personal leeway at work. Theoretically,
we conceptualize embodied agency as a relational, on-going process that entails
symbols, gestures and bodily movement. As a sense of self-assertion, embodied
agency grows in line with one’s experience – it is an ability to break the
limits and question at work and in life if needed. Empirically, we focus on how ballet dancers rehearsing behind
the scenes offstage towards onstage performances of perfection continuously
negotiate their ambivalent relationship with the audience and its
(self)disciplining ‘invisible gaze’. This is a theoretically and empirically
intriguing aspect of work, as less is known about how embodied agency is
choreographed and practiced in relation to the audience in the more ‘hidden’
off stages. This paper shows how the dynamics of the ‘invisible’ gaze negotiated
in-between the hidden offstage and the visible onstage meticulously shapes the everyday
work of these professionals. Moreover, our study gives insights into
those fine-grained characteristics of everyday work, such as the attempts to
break free from the existing work practices and norms in order to have
possibilities to make one’s own decisions apart from the formal leader(s) of
the company. Finally, our paper provides a nuanced understanding of the partly
‘hidden’ sensations and work practices of professional dancers, and by so
doing, opens up novel possibilities for developing all kinds of organizations,
their personnel and welfare.