"Bodily Presence": On the Embodied Moral Function of Dance in Ideological and Political Education

Abstract

This paper aims to systematically address the persistent dilemma of the "disconnect between knowing and doing" in ideological and political education. It proposes and elaborates on the core thesis that "bodily presence" serves as a key pathway for the deep internalization of values. Critiquing the traditional moral education paradigm based on "disembodied cognition," the study pivots to establish a new paradigm of "embodied moral education," grounded in the philosophical foundations of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body and embodied cognition theory. This paradigm emphasizes that value identification can only be achieved through embodied experience and habitual practice. The research focuses on the unique and irreplaceable moral function of dance art. Through a combination of theory and case studies, it analyzes how dance, by shaping the "disciplined body" to forge a sense of discipline and order, stimulating the "expressive body" to achieve emotional empathy and value resonance, and constructing the "communicative body" to practice communal ethical relations, can "inscribe" abstract values into bodily memory and emotional structures. The article further incorporates cutting-edge practices from institutions such as the Beijing Dance Academy and Shandong Youth University of Political Science to dialectically discuss the principles for handling three core relationships within "Dancing Ideology and Politics": skill vs. value, individual vs. collective, and aesthetics vs. orientation. Ultimately, the paper argues that dance should not merely serve as an artistic aid to ideological and political education. Rather, it should become an ontological path for moral education that touches upon deep-seated identification and cultivates a new generation capable of unifying knowledge and action, thereby providing a fundamental practical solution for enhancing the effectiveness of ideological and political education.