Rythmomimism and Dance Gesture
One of the characteristics of dance performance is that it focuses the attention on the movement itself and induces a sharp proprioceptive consciousness. As such, it has the potential to manifest in its realization the double action of human gesture to incorporate and dilate, as identified by Marcel Jousse, as well as the mimetic relation of the individual to the world realized in this action. This argument is explored in reference to ikoku dancing in Congo-Brazzaville. In this fertility celebrating dance an alternating movement between male and female dancers gives way to a moment of collective animation and then to a couple dance. By giving full attention to the body that moves in a specular relation to the other, i.e. the dancer and the community supportive water spirit, this performance enacts the rythmomimic process and accomplishes the internalization and externalization of the Punu sociocosmic universe based on notions of gender complementarity and maternal containment.