Aesthetic Habits in Performing Arts

Abstract

This article explores the connection between habits and the performing arts, arguing that habits are not only fundamental to the practice and appreciation of these arts but also inherently performative in nature. Drawing on insights from various philosophical traditions (including cognitive science, pragmatism, and phenomenology), it examines how habits function within artistic processes as resources for creativity and adaptation. Engaging critically with Noë’s interpretation of the entanglement between art and life, this article highlights the dual nature of habits: as routine practices that scaffold artistic expression and as dynamic, transformative elements responsive to specific cultural and performative contexts. By focusing on key notions such as gesture, style, and rituality in the performing arts, this article discusses the role of habits in aesthetic experiences, highlighting how habits shape both artistic performances and audience engagement. This perspective challenges traditional views that oppose habits to creativity, defending instead the idea that habits are creatively operative in both the performing arts and their reception.

1. Introduction: Noë on Arts and Habits

Drawing on pragmatist and phenomenological insights, Alva Noë argues, on the one hand, that human beings are “creatures of habit” [1] (p. 97)1—that is, human behavior is largely guided by routine practices—and, on the other, that the arts display, modify, and disrupt our habits [3] (p. 20), potentially emancipating us from them.

It remains unclear whether Noë believes that the arts merely challenge and change our habits or whether they also reorganize them. In Chapter 2, Noë asserts that the “business of art”, as a “reflective activity”, is not organization, i.e., “the establishment of new habits” [3] (p. 20). However, in Chapter 6, he claims that art offers “the opportunity for different patterns of organization” [3] (p. 103). Hence, it remains unclear whether the arts merely challenge and disrupt existing (old) habits or actively contribute to shaping and organizing new ones. Nevertheless, Noë’s key argument appears to be that artworks—which, in an earlier book [4], he interestingly defined as “strange tools”, meaning activities or objects that do not fulfill ordinary functions but instead disrupt customary ways of doing things—serve to transform habits. According to Noë, the “aesthetic work”, or the task of art, is to un-habit and re-habit us by intervening in and transforming our habitual patterns.

One of the examples Noë uses to illustrate this point is dance, or more precisely, choreography. People may perform dance as an ordinary activity, dancing at everyday events such as parties or nights out at clubs without needing to display exceptional skills or follow a formal choreography. This kind of dancing is fundamentally different from Dance (with a capital “D”) or “choreography”, which is not an everyday practice but is rather an art form ([3] (Chapter 3)). Ordinary dancing is a habitual activity in two senses: first, it is something we perform regularly, and second, it is something we perform not in a reflective or planned way, but spontaneously, as an embodied expression of our personal style. In this sense, ordinary dancing is akin to walking: it is a habitual activity that nonetheless is an expression of sensitivity, coordination, intelligence, and attentiveness (to rhythm, others, and context). By contrast, Dance as choreography represents or displays ordinary dancing: it is a second-order activity that both alters and informs ordinary dancing.

There is no doubt that Noë’s thesis is intriguing. However, while he rightly emphasizes the intelligence and sensitivity inherent in habits, his understanding of the relationship between art—as a second-order activity—and habitual activities remains unclear. Beyond the previously mentioned ambiguity (does art merely challenge and disrupt our habits, or can it also reorganize them?), Noë appears to consider art and aesthetic experience as non-habitual and independent of habits. It is, instead, crucial to clarify that both art and aesthetic experience are deeply nourished by habits.

In this context, the performing arts—music, dance, theater, and performance art—serve as paradigmatic examples because, due to their processual nature, they showcase habits in action, so to speak. In other words, I propose that even Dance—following Noë’s example—can be understood as an artistic practice fundamentally rooted in and reliant upon habits. This alignment with habits connects dance not only to other performing arts but also to ordinary, non-artistic forms of behavior2. Thus, the concept of habit becomes essential for understanding the actual functioning of performance practices. Furthermore—and crucially—by relying on habits, the performing arts reveal the inherent tension within the dual nature of habits: on the one hand, their creative and transformative potential; on the other, their routine, repetitive character and their susceptibility to manipulation (both within artistic and extra-artistic aesthetic contexts as well as in non-aesthetic domains).

While a more in-depth exploration of this latter issue must be addressed elsewhere, the specific aim of this article is to analyze the roles of habits in the performing arts3. To this end, I adopt Dreon’s [11] perspective, which suggests that the arts, far from being alien to habits, are fundamentally scaffolded by them.

2. Artistic Habits and the Avant-Garde

The notion that habits enable the arts might initially seem problematic. As exemplarily highlighted by the traditional conceptions of Kant [12] and Croce [13], aesthetics has overlooked, when not outright rejected, the role of habits in nurturing artistic creativity. Moreover, contemporary performing arts have been driven by an explicit critique of both ordinary behavioral habits and traditional artistic habits. Certain artistic movements and tendencies have made disrupting habitual norms an aesthetic ideal or even an imperative [14]. Denouncing and opposing the artistic conventions of traditional art, as well as the appreciative and behavioral habits of the audience, are undoubtedly a crucial aspect of the practices of 20th-century avant-garde art.

In the realm of the performing arts, artists like Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999) and Tino Sehgal (b. 1976) have developed aesthetic methods specifically aimed at transforming habits [15]. Their performative practices—respectively in theater and performance art—are based on techniques of physical training and behavioral discipline. These approaches aim not only to decondition and recondition the gestures, expressions, and movements of performers but also to bring about changes in the habits of spectators. For Grotowski, this process involves dismantling ingrained social practices, while Sehgal achieves it by designing settings that encourage unconventional uses of the body, prompting audiences to unlearn familiar skills and instead respond to the unique demands of specific situations.

Similarly, in music, composers such as Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and Anton Webern (1883–1945) introduced atonal compositions—musical works no longer based on scalar functional harmony—which challenged deeply rooted compositional and listening habits. A comparable dynamic can be observed in the “wrong notes” introduced by jazz (wrong, that is, according to the rules to which Western ears had grown accustomed [16]), the distortion of the electric guitar in rock music, practices of so-called “free improvisation” [17] that discard harmonic frameworks and melodies, and the inclusion of noise—what had traditionally been considered non-musical—into avant-garde music, starting with Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) and John Cage (1912–1992). All these examples are cases of changes in musical habits with relevant aesthetic consequences.

In the same vein, contemporary dance practices such as the Japanese avant-garde dance Butoh [18]; Steve Paxton’s (1939–2024) contact improvisation; or site-specific performances by artists like Trisha Brown (1936–2017), Anna Halprin (1920–2021), Pina Bausch (1940–2009), and Sasha Waltz (b. 1963) have challenged the habits of traditional figurative ballet. This has been achieved, for instance, by incorporating ordinary gestures as elements of the performance, encouraging spectators to focus on those habitual movements and postures that are typically performed unconsciously, or by appropriating ordinary urban spaces usually designated for other purposes [19] (pp. 75–77) [20].

To summarize, one of the most significant trends in contemporary performing arts—both historically and in the present—is the deliberate questioning of habits. This applies both to habits governing ordinary behaviors and to those rooted in traditional aesthetic conventions (on the concept of “aesthetic habit”, see [21]). In the latter case, avant-garde movements, motivated not only by aesthetic concerns but also by a desire to assert the social and political roles of art, have actively challenged established artistic norms. These norms, internalized by artists as performative routines and by audiences as unconscious guides to their aesthetic appreciation, were deliberately disrupted. In the former case, this interrogation of habits has resulted, on the one hand, in the rejection of fossilized performative and appreciative habits. On the other hand, it has led to a rapprochement between the artistic and the ordinary, thereby “artistifying” the banal, often unconscious routines of daily life. This is particularly evident in Pop Art and its associated performances—such as Happenings—which sought to reframe the ordinary, increasingly populated by non-artistic, consumerist, and commercial imagery, as an aesthetic domain.

The relationship between avant-garde movements and habits (both aesthetic and non-aesthetic) is, therefore, complex. However, the most crucial point is that, as I contend, this questioning of habits not only generates and produces new habits but also constitutes a habit in itself: a habit that underpins a broad stylistic framework for artistic creativity, extending from the avant-garde movements of the 20th century to the present4. As Howard Becker [22] taught, even in the most revolutionary artistic manifestations, the questioning of artistic conventions and aesthetic habits is never absolute: on the one hand, artistic novelty requires reliance on at least some shared practices, customs, and conventions; on the other hand, it requires becoming itself a new shared convention and aesthetic habit. Thus, the fact that the arts innovate habits does not imply at all that art excludes habits altogether. Accordingly, the view I want to articulate here specifically focusing on the performing arts is that the arts do not only challenge habits but are based on (various kinds of) habits. In particular, the points I wish to discuss here are twofold:

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Habits are crucial both for making (Section 3) and for appreciating art (Section 4).

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In the performing arts, habits hold aesthetic significance in connection with notions such as gesture, style, and ritual (Section 5).

3. Habits for Artistic Performance

Engaging in performing arts—whether through playing music, acting, dancing, or other activities—not only requires but actively fosters the incorporation of specific behavioral and mental habits. For instance, the ability to sing or play a musical instrument demands far more than the development of technical skills. It necessitates the habituation of the body to particular postures and movements [11] (p. 140), along with sustained dedication in terms of time and resources. Moreover, it profoundly influences a wide range of mental habits related to cognitive and affective faculties, such as attention, imagination, expression, and creativity [23].

Both acting and artistic dance illustrate the dynamic interplay of habit activation and deactivation. When theatrical actors or dancers begin their practice, they deactivate everyday gestures and expressions, replacing them with the behavioral habits specific to their respective artistic disciplines [24] (p. 95). These habits, though specialized and deliberate within artistic contexts, become “ordinary” within the scope of acting or dancing practices themselves.

This process is neither extraordinary nor uncommon. In everyday life, individuals activate various habitual routines depending on changes in environment, context, or situation. They adopt various roles and “wear different clothes” (in Italian, the word “abito” means both “habit” and “garment”) based on the specific demands of the situation and the practices in which they are engaged—for instance, physical or mental work tasks, sports, culinary activities, domestic chores, driving vehicles, and so forth. Through these activities performed in response to specific environmental and social circumstances, individuals physically and mentally shape themselves, acquiring behavioral and mental habits (that, in turn, scaffold technical skills) through reiterated practice.

As Goffman [25] explained, when we follow the “script” of a given situation—such as a casual dinner with friends at a local tavern, a formal dinner with colleagues at an upscale restaurant, or a family meal—we activate the habits relevant to that context, responding to the situational affordances. Our behavior is adapted—more or less effectively, traditionally, or innovatively—to the specific circumstances. Similarly, an actor or dancer, by shedding their ordinary attire, adopts the role-specific habits required by their craft. The situation necessitates the exercise of appropriate habits, both in everyday life and in the arts. Thus, when individuals engage as professional performers in artistic endeavors, they must adhere to the conventions of their practice—internalized as behavioral and mental habits—while mastering the tools and techniques customary to their art, in order to effectively coordinate with fellow artists, their craft, and the audience.

Moreover, just as every dinner with friends or colleagues follows common patterns while remaining unique in its specificity, requiring an adaptation of relevant habits to the singular context through adaptive improvisation, so too does the specific performative situation demand and afford the artist’s adaptation of relevant behavioral patterns. This requires the development of refined perceptual and appreciative sensitivity capable of grasping the nuances of the unique performative context. It necessitates, in Dewey’s [26] terms, the intensification of the intelligence of habits—that is, their sensitivity to the concrete case, their readiness to respond to novelty, and their adaptive plasticity.

Arguably, this is an aesthetic capability that performers demonstrate in their artistic practice (to varying degrees of success) and one that all humans must exercise to behave appropriately in everyday contexts. It could thus be argued that, while the ordinary exercise of habits requires an aesthetic sensitivity—in this sense, as Dewey [27] suggests, every successful experience is aesthetic—the arts, understood institutionally as second-order practices in Noë’s [3] terms, highlight this (more or less) aesthetic (sensitive and intelligent) exercise of habits. Moreover, the performing arts explicitly showcase habits in action: they reveal the engagement of habits within the performing processes displayed to the audience.

To achieve artistic excellence, performers must cultivate both their mental and physical abilities through training, which involves habituation through practice. This habituation of technical skills enables performers to accomplish complex operations with fluidity and coordinate with other performers, while saving energy and cognitive resources in demanding tasks [2] (pp. 114–115). Such training involves a sustained commitment to shaping one’s attitudes and skills. Success occurs when this effort transitions from a conscious goal to a (meta)habit of organizing one’s existence—a spontaneous rhythm of engaging with one’s practice—eventually becoming “second nature” [28].

This topic has garnered extensive scholarly interest (see Gallagher [29] for an excellent overview). The central insight is that performers cultivate habits that not only structure their actions within various artistic practices but also exhibit (to varying degrees) intelligence and creativity. Performing habits are not rigid or mechanical automatisms; rather, they are—and must be—attuned to the demands of the performative situation and the specific cultural or aesthetic context (e.g., the artistic tradition or the particular work being performed)5.

While acting under the guidance of habits can—and arguably should—lead to profound absorption in one’s practice [31], this does not entail mechanical rigidity. Nor does it suggest that intelligent work is a detached, top-down process divorced from the attentive engagement inherent in the performative act. Instead, skilled and habitual movements in artistic performances can be forms of “intelligent sense-making” [29] (p. 75) [32,33,34].

The effortless quality of habitual behavior does not imply a lack of or reduced intelligence. The flow state [35]—often described as “being in the zone” and enjoying this experience [36]—emerges when performers effectively and seamlessly perform musical passages, choreographed movements, or theatrical actions without hesitation or disruptions caused by inexperience or overthinking. This state is not the result of mechanically repeating pre-learned routines; rather, performing routines can be adjusted or redirected by deliberate, intelligent control. This control is not detached from habitual behavior but deeply ingrained within it [37]. When habits operate in a sensitive, intelligent manner, flow arises from a cultivated responsiveness to both the specific performative context and the cultural and normative constraints of the artistic practice.

Adherence—whether faithful or transgressive—to these cultural or behavioral patterns (such as following an artistic canon) does not inhibit the performer’s attentiveness or responsiveness. On the contrary, this “twofold attunement” is essential for achieving excellence in performance. It forms the (meta)habit necessary to transition from merely mastering a technique to employing it in a creative and expressive way. Put differently, the performance of habits is itself an act of intelligence: context-sensitive and adaptive, rooted in the interplay between mastery, creativity, and the performative moment.

Without delving into the complex debate on “skilled performance” (see [38,39,40,41,42]), it seems highly plausible to assert that habitual movements and practices embody “enactive intelligence” [29]. This type of intelligence, characterized by sensitivity, responsiveness, and attentiveness, can be understood as a form of “mindedness” that bridges the gap between detached rational awareness (mindfulness) and unreflective mindlessness (a state where intelligence is disengaged from embodied action).

On the other hand, it seems incorrect to distinguish between habits and skills by claiming that the former are merely mechanical while the latter are solely intelligent, as argued by Douskos [43]. Rather, habits scaffold skills—including artistic ones—and sustain them, thereby altering the affordances that emerge in various performative situations [29] (pp. 95–96). For example, the habit (and corresponding way of life) of playing the saxophone, in different contexts and situations, nurtures both the technical abilities and the aesthetic resources of a saxophonist. This allows the performer to perceive aesthetic affordances in the performance context based on accumulated experience.

The crucial point is that habit is not opposed to artistic creativity; on the contrary, it makes creativity possible: “In order to become more creative one needs not to ‘break’ with habit, as commonly thought, but to advance in mastering it” [44] (p. 79). Mastery of habit allows an artistic performance to remain sensitive not only to the tradition of an aesthetic practice but also to the specific circumstances of the performance itself. In this regard, improvisation represents a particularly paradigmatic practice [19]. However, even those performative practices that emphasize fidelity to traditional cultural artifacts (such as musical or theatrical works) cannot fully realize this ideal of fidelity without the careful and responsive adaptation of multiple elements to the situational demands of specifically concrete performances. These include musical instruments, costumes and scenic designs, performance spaces, performers, techniques, and interpretive styles, all tailored to the specific circumstances at hand. During a performance, skilled musicians, dancers, actors, and other performing artists draw upon the knowledge and techniques internalized through extensive practice, while remaining adaptable to the ever-changing situational demands and contingencies that arise in the performative context. Importantly, performing habits—that is, the habits scaffolding artistic performance—are themselves impacted by the performances in which they are adapted to specific situations. Thus, habits scaffolding artistic practices should be understood as processes of change, rather than as fixed structures. One of the key characteristics of skilled performance scaffolded by aesthetic habits is its capacity for self-transformation, enabling the very abilities that allow it to evolve and adapt to new contexts and challenges.

Of course, habits scaffolding composers’ and performers’ artistic capabilities are largely inherited from the cultural environment in which they operate. Composers and performers rearticulate and transform them through their creative use. Still, in the realm of the performing arts as in other domains, it can happen—as already noted by Dewey [26]—that a habit becomes rigid, ceasing to adapt plastically to new demands and affordances. It may become a stifling limitation that inhibits novelty and it may ossify into a mechanical routine. This occurs when the artist (or, on a broader scale, an artistic movement or genre) merely repeats stale clichés, failing to achieve aesthetically felicitous results. Conversely, a great artist or performer—historically referred to as a “genius”—is capable of renewing their patterns by reinventing the rules of their practice across different performative situations.

In this sense, an artist may seek to surprise their habits and bodily memory through the deliberate imposition of obstacles or constraints designed to afford unforeseeable responses, thereby making their performance more aesthetically inventive. Examples of such strategies include the decision by some jazz musicians to play in uncomfortable keys, or the constraints—such as chance-based movement sequences or unusual spatial arrangements—that a choreographer (e.g., Merce Cunningham, 1919–2009) may impose to challenge dancers to explore unconventional bodily gestures and postures. Similarly, unusual and deliberately non-conventional techniques adopted by directors and performing artists, such as the already mentioned Jerzy Grotowski and Tino Sehgal, serve to foster innovation. These cases can be understood as specific applications of the broader practice of “learning to unlearn” [45]. Once an artist has mastered a technique, internalized a theoretical convention, or adopted an aesthetic style, they may begin to perceive what they have learned as limiting, seeing its creative potential as exhausted. The unlearning of embodied behavioral and mental habits can, therefore, become an expressive and creative necessity. As Becker [22] (p. 204) writes, “To produce unique works of art that will be interesting to audiences, artists must unlearn a little of the conventionally right way of doing things they have learned. Totally conventional pieces bore everyone and bring the artist few rewards. So artists, to be successful in producing art, must violate standards more or less deeply internalized”. Yet, this inevitably requires and affords the acquisition of new habits.

Within this framework, the avant-garde’s drive for change can be understood as an expression of dissatisfaction with inherited habits, which are perceived as stagnant and creatively stifling, and as a desire to explore unconventional territories. However, the intentional disruption of habits does not negate the crucial role that habits play in artistic performances, nor does it lead to a state of perpetual novelty. On the one hand, it appeals to the adoption of habits capable of responding to new cultural demands; on the other hand, over time, such disruption often stabilizes into new habitual patterns, forming a renewed technical foundation upon which further innovation can occur.

Moreover, the creative engagement with a genre or artistic movement—understood as a habitual aesthetic practice characterized by the shared adoption of specific patterns that acquire normative value and shape the expectations of audiences—is not exclusive to the avant-garde. In music, for example, Mozart (1756–1791) demonstrates innovation relative to Haydn (1732–1809). While Haydn undoubtedly influenced the younger composer—a fact explicitly acknowledged in Mozart’s dedication of the Six Quartets, Op. 10 (1785), to Haydn—Mozart’s innovations, in turn, influenced Haydn’s later works. This illustrates a process of creative transformation, in this case occurring within continuity rather than rupture.6

4. Habits of Appreciation

Habits are essential for aesthetic appreciation of the performing arts, as well. The process of acquiring habits through practice—which involves reorganizing one’s behavior and adapting to new situations and practices—applies equally to appreciators. As the Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) [46] argued, aesthetic appreciation requires a process of habituation through exposure to artistic practices, the cultivation of appropriate perceptual skills (for musical appreciation, see [47] (pp. 208–212); for Leopardi and aesthetic habits, see [48]), and the assimilation of shared aesthetic and artistic conventions that underpin and sustain these practices. Even seemingly elementary aesthetic capacities, such as grasping the depictional content of a painting or following the melodic structure of a musical piece, depend on the development of perceptual habits. Through exposure to art and the training of appreciative practices, listeners and spectators develop habits that enable them to respond appropriately to different types of performances. These include habits related to where, when, and how to direct perceptual attention, as well as how to regulate imagination and emotions in response to what unfolds on stage.

A lack of appropriate aesthetic capacities often stems from the absence of proper habits. For instance, the untrained ear’s inability to perceive quarter tones prevents many Western listeners from fully appreciating Indian music, which relies heavily on quarter tones—unlike Western tempered systems, which are based on semitones. Similarly, a lack of exposure to a particular genre of dance or theater may hinder an individual’s ability to grasp the specific meaning or expressiveness of a dialogue, a scene, or a movement.

Many artistic practices—such as atonal music or free improvisation—often challenge the perceptual habits of audiences, making them appear aesthetically “indigestible” because they conflict with established tastes. However, these same practices also encourage the acquisition and refinement of perceptual and appreciative habits, fostering the cultivation of the audience’s taste. In this way, provocations or transgressions of an audience’s aesthetic habits, which often serve ethical, social, or political objectives aimed at challenging conservative mindsets, can give rise to artistic movements. Once these movements gain traction, they may establish themselves as practices that evolve into new collective aesthetic habits.

This phenomenon highlights what routinely occurs with creative works and performances: while they must resonate with an audience’s expectations—shaped by existing habits—to be appreciated, they can simultaneously challenge or “play” with those expectations. This dynamic strikes a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar, habit and novelty, order and unpredictability. The diverse appreciative habits cultivated in response to varying forms of artistic expression create distinct “aesthetic niches” [21,49], each defined by shared patterns of taste among its adherents. For instance, we find enthusiasts of electric blues versus those devoted to traditional acoustic blues, fans of electronic music versus rap aficionados, admirers of classical ballet contrasted with supporters of improvisational dance, or audiences drawn to Brecht’s (1898–1956) theater as opposed to those favoring Pirandello (1867–1936). These niches, formed around common aesthetic preferences, play a vital role in shaping the broader cultural landscape and contribute to the ongoing dialogue between tradition and innovation in the arts.

This illustrates that habits of appreciation are not static but are continually shaped and reshaped through interaction with artistic practices. While these habits provide a framework for aesthetic engagement, they remain open to challenge and transformation, allowing for both continuity and renewal in cultural and artistic domains.

More broadly, this applies to taste, understood both as an individual’s (or community’s) set of preferences and as the ability to appreciate aesthetics based on those preferences. It can be argued that taste, in this sense, is the habit of appreciation cultivated within various aesthetic practices. While it develops and changes through experience, through perceiving and discerning subtle differences in artworks and other aesthetic phenomena, it constitutes the habit (or set of habits) that organizes, guides, and regulates the aesthetic experiences of art appreciators (see [50]).

Nonetheless, one might counter this view by endorsing an argument articulated by Hogh [51]. While habits pertain to the experience of art—given that the experience of art itself constitutes a habit (a repeated, ordinary experience)—habits and conventions regulate the enjoyment of art, yet they are argued to be inadequate for grasping the uniqueness of artworks and performances. According to this view, appreciative habits (and taste as the habit of aesthetic appreciation) cannot apprehend the singular as singular, while artworks and performances are inherently and uniquely singular.

This critique assumes, however, a mechanistic conception of habits, treating them as incapable of sensitivity and adaptation. While it is true that singular artworks and performances may challenge appreciative habits—and great artworks and performances often do exactly that!—such challenges can, in fact, be met precisely through a refinement of aesthetic capacities in terms of sensitivity, attentiveness, and responsiveness.

This involves creatively shaping aesthetic habits and taste or even re-habituating oneself to novel and unexpected affordances. Of course, this process is far from automatic and is not guaranteed to succeed: it is always possible that artistic practices and performances fail to satisfy our taste or to transform it, even if, for some reason, we might wish for that change to occur [50].

Another important aspect of this issue is the way attendance at performative arts fosters behavioral habits and inclinations. Performative artistic practices are inherently social events. Attending such events requires adopting attitudes appropriate to the situation, adhering to the social norms that govern these occasions—an adaptation that involves the internalization of specific behavioral habits.

For instance, during a classical music concert, audience members habitually refrain from applauding until the conclusion of the entire piece, avoiding expressions of approval (or disapproval) after the end of a single movement. Conversely, jazz concert audiences develop the habit of applauding solos that earn their appreciation, even as the performance continues, in accordance with the conventions of the genre. Other artistic genres demand either more detached or more engaged attitudes, depending on the context. In each case, they necessitate the incorporation of habits suited to the specific situation. At a pop or rock concert, for example, audiences typically cultivate habits such as singing along with performers, lighting up their phones during romantic ballads in outdoor venues, or dancing enthusiastically in response to more “groovy” or upbeat songs. These habitual behaviors reflect both the expectations of the event and the shared cultural practices surrounding it.

Moreover, performing arts—due to their social and temporal character (similarly to other events such as sports matches)—appear to exert a particularly strong influence on how appreciators organize their time and lifestyle, often shaping individual and collective behavioral patterns. In other words, behavioral habits emerge as byproducts of engaging with and appreciating a performative practice.

A passion for a specific art form, genre, or artist can significantly reshape everyday behaviors, aligning them with the appreciation of that practice. Consider, for instance, the dedicated fans of the Californian rock band Grateful Dead, known as “Deadheads.” Between the 1960s and the 1980s of the 20th century, they famously transformed following the band on tour into a lifestyle, creating a unique community of shared musical dedication. Their lives and routines were structured around the group’s performances. Similarly, jazz enthusiasts frequently develop routines of attending jazz clubs or annual festivals, practices that not only define their cultural engagement but also impose a rhythmic structuring on their personal and social lives. In reference to dance, one might think of ballet aficionados who regularly attend classical ballet seasons or fans of improvisational dance, tango, or salsa who arrange their schedules around performances and workshops. Each of these examples illustrates how engagement with a specific performative art form not only fosters aesthetic appreciation based on perceptual, imaginative, affective, and cognitive habits, but also generates habitual behaviors and lifestyle patterns.

5. Habits Shape Performance: Gesture, Style, and Ritual

The aesthetic role of habits in the performing arts can be explored in a particularly fruitful way through three interconnected notions: gesture, style, and ritual. While these concepts by no means exhaust the complexities and nuances of aesthetic habits in performative practices, they offer a compelling framework for understanding their unique characteristics.

Or so I contend. Each of these notions highlights a specific dimension of how habits operate within the realm of performing arts: gesture emphasizes the embodied aspects of habitual actions and their role in mediating or displaying artistic meaning; style reveals how habits shape the distinctive identity and expressiveness of artistic performances; and ritual underscores the social and symbolic contexts in which habits are embedded, particularly the interplay between the ordinary and the extraordinary that these contexts entail.

5.1. Gestures

There is a reciprocal relationship between gesture and habit, and an essential aesthetic role of habit in the performing arts is realized through gesture. Art presents gestures as media of aesthetic appearance and expressive display. In the performing arts, this relationship is particularly pronounced, as the dynamism of gestures is exhibited in their formative process.

A gesture is a bodily movement or action with a beginning and an end that carries (from Latin: “gerit”) meaning: it produces understanding (it makes something comprehensible) while simultaneously displaying and communicating it [52]. According to Fabbrichesi [53] (p. 346), a gesture is the matrix of habit, “the gestation of a habit”. In this sense, gestures are dispositions in two key ways. Firstly, they are dispositions as dynamic and energetic patterns—spatial–temporal organizations from a beginning to a conclusion. Secondly, gestures, as recognizable patterns, are inherently reproducible. Similarly, a habit is an organization of behavior that forms through the sedimentation and incorporation of past actions and inclines or “disposes” individuals to reactivate such behaviors. Hence, “[t]he gestural act is first and original: each behavior stems from a gesture which is to be considered as the germinal nucleus of any habit. The habit is embodied in the gesture […]” [53] (p. 349]. However, as Fabbrichesi notes, referencing Mead [54] (p. 49), a gesture performed in response to an environmental stimulus may not always develop socially or stabilize symbolically.

Conversely, the habit born of a germinal gesture develops, articulates, and stabilizes the gesture and its meaning through its social reactivation and exposure. Viola [55] (p. 98) observes that repeated gestures generate habits, while habits regulate the social reproduction of gestures: “On the one hand, gestures shape our habits. That is, the formation of a habit often occurs through the repetitive performance of the same gesture over time. I learn how to perform a skilled action, for instance, by repeating the same gestures over and over again. This further implies that, as gestures become ingrained in our behavior, they tend to solidify into habits” [55] (p. 98).

Yet, as I argue, it is crucial to specify that a movement or behavioral pattern fully becomes a gesture only when it manifests a meaningful unity as a disposition for reproduction and transmission. For instance, one repeatedly performs the “same” gesture to acquire a skill because the skill itself consists in that gesture: in the optimal performance of that gesture according to a specific circumstance. Be that as it may, Viola rightly adds that “On the other hand, habits shape our gestures. That is, once formed, habits determine how we execute specific gestures and engage in various kinds of bodily actions” ([55] (p. 98)). In other words, the habit reactivates the gesture, transforming a mere movement into a meaningful, exhibited, and recognized unit. Viola concludes that “These two directions—gestures shaping habits and habits shaping gestures—are not mutually exclusive and may coexist in a circular process where particular actions interact with general rules. Habits are general rules of behavior that govern particular actions, but they are also governed by particular actions because they arise only from the repetition of those actions. For example, I may have a habit of playing the piano that allows me to quickly learn a tune or even improvise a melody. However, I acquired that habitual capacity in the first place by practicing the specific movements of my fingers on the keys over and over again. So, gestures give rise to habits that are, in turn, the matrix of new gestures, and so on” [55] (p. 98). This circularity would explain both the cultural continuity and transmissibility of gestures and their potential to propel cultural transformation. Each reactivation of a gesture through habit not only reaffirms and consolidates the gesture but also potentially transforms the habit itself, as the context in which the gesture is performed may evolve or differ.

What, then, is the connection between gestures, aesthetics, and the arts? The crucial point is that while gestures in general function as dynamic patterns that display disposition (as a structured organization imbued with meaning) and disposability (as a tendency toward reactivation and social reproduction), in the arts, gestures are presented primarily as appearances—as exhibitions of their “endless mediality” (in Agamben’s terms [56]). The artistic gesture is a mode of configuration that reveals its own process [57] (p. 16), exposing its formation as a medium endowed with immanent meaning [58].

The significance of artistic gestures does not reside solely in the iconic, indexical, or symbolic information they might convey—whether about emotions, or real or imaginary states of affairs. Rather, their meaning is rooted in their mediality: their very existence as exhibitions that manifest themselves (processually) to aesthetic apprehension. This process represents the coming-into-appearance of the medium as such.

This coming-into-appearance is both unique and shared: unique because it depends on the specific work in which it occurs, and shared because it is articulated within the framework of a tradition, artistic practice, or genre. It thus requires and invokes the audience’s attunement, simultaneously relying on and challenging their aesthetic habits. These habits, on the one hand, regulate the audience’s aesthetic apprehension and appreciation and, on the other, are transformed by the very act of engaging with the performance.

The performing arts, in particular, illuminate the relationship between ordinary and aesthetic gestures. Aesthetic gestures display the mediality of ordinary gestures: they are not merely actions or movements, but actions or movements exhibited as configurations of meaning. They are dynamic formations of sense that are simultaneously unique and reproducible or reactivable, renewed with each iteration.

In the performing arts, gestures are not only displayed as media but are also enacted in their gestation; this enactment is itself their display. The gesture appears not just as a medium exposing its own formation but as the very process of its formation, unfolding as a dynamic unity of meaning. It consists of the self-exhibition of the medium: the shaping of a display that is, simultaneously, the display of a shaping.

By virtue of their processual nature, the performing arts are uniquely suited to exhibit gestures as dynamic formations that simultaneously enact and reveal themselves. In this sense, what is presented for aesthetic apprehension is a dynamic “Gestalt” in its process of becoming—a medial matrix that is both an expression of and a disposition toward meaning. Such a gesture is irreducibly specific (always this particular gesture here) while being constitutively reproducible (recognizable as that gesture, or that type of gesture). It is at once a type and a token, akin to a signature that is irreducibly individual yet socially functional precisely because of its individuality.

The aesthetic specificity of gestures in the performing arts can be clarified by distinguishing between ordinary expressive gestures and aesthetic expressive gestures. An ordinary expressive gesture (e.g., one performed by a person) manifests emotional affect as a response to a situation. It is a dynamic behavioral pattern that characterizes the individual both as a specific person and as a member of a community that recognizes the meaning of that gesture. Such gestures are both embodied and normative [59] (p. 89): their enactment reaffirms but also potentially modifies their configuration and meaning.

By contrast, an aesthetic expressive gesture (as found in the arts) is an individual exhibition of a recognizable pattern. However, it is also significant because, by exhibiting the pattern, it reveals its medial character. It makes perceivable—through the participatory attunement of the audience—the aspect (the appearing) of expressiveness through its gestural formation. An ordinary expressive gesture can intensify the display of its dynamic “Gestalt”, thereby adopting a theatrical dimension. Yet an aesthetic expressive gesture need not always be theatrical: it can, for example, forego the accentuation of its externalized aspect to achieve a more understated appearance. These modes of gesture depend on culturally specific aesthetic habits.

The key point, however, is that gesturality in the performing arts is essential not only as the motor gestures of performers but also as articulations of the artistic medium. It constitutes an energetic shaping of sound, movement, and linguistic patterns that is displayed—and potentially stored (e.g., through recordings, for later playback). Such gestures are not mere externalizations of pre-formed content (as in the case of theatricality) but dynamic articulations that unfold in space and time, from a beginning to an end. This unfolding constitutes their self-exhibition: the self-shaping of the medium that emerges as a dynamic totality, displaying its self-formation. The meaning of this process requires self-displaying, conformity to conventions, and situational appropriateness.

The mediality of gestures in their performative enactment is twofold. On the one hand, gestures mediate cultural patterns, reproducing the expressive grammar of a tradition, genre, or artistic style. On the other hand, they mediate the specific situational context to which the gesture responds. This twofold mediation underscores the creative tension between convention and spontaneity, repetition and transformation, demonstrating how each act of gestural performance simultaneously upholds and reinvents its cultural foundations.

The modalities of gesturality and their aesthetic qualities—such as balance, elegance, sensitivity, power, tenderness, precision, intensity, appropriateness, responsiveness, and boldness (and their respective opposites)—vary across different performing arts. These arts exhibit the medial form of gestures through the dynamic construction of the materiality specific to each artistic medium: sound, movement, action, or dialogue. While the specifics of these differences cannot be explored in detail here (see [60,61,62]), some crucial elements can nonetheless be highlighted.

In theater, the performative gesture of the actor often represents ordinary gestures, exposing their gesturality and bringing them into aesthetic exhibition. While ordinary gestures often derive from the reproducibility of others’ gestures, the theatrical reproduction of ordinary gestures by the aesthetic/performative gestures of the actor (including linguistic gestures) fundamentally exhibits their dynamic nature through reenactment. This does not preclude the following:

(a)

The fact that theatrical gestures follow distinct patterns and are shaped by aesthetic and behavioral habits;

(b)

The possibility that theatrical gestures may detach themselves from the representation of ordinary gestures, instead articulating the medial aspect of gesture as a (per)formative process—a characteristic particularly evident in dance and music.

In dance and music, the performative gesture may have a representational or dramatic dimension, reflecting more or less conventionalized ordinary gestures. However, it is more closely tied to the display of meaningful energetic shaping, whether through bodily movements in space or sound dynamics over time [63] (p. 121). This constitutes a dynamic gestaltic development that becomes meaningful as it is displayed for attuned appreciation. Gesturality is (per)formed as aesthetic mediality, appearing as a dynamic unity of sense—both specifically singular and recognizable.

The modalities of performative shaping depend on culturally rooted aesthetic habits associated with specific practices and genres. However, these habits are always enacted in the “here and now”, at once reaffirming and transforming the habitus in which they are embedded7.

5.2. Style

As patterns of action and thought, habits not only organize behavior but also reveal ways of behaving: styles. In the performing arts, gestural shapes articulate expressive styles—ways of organizing patterns of sound, bodily movements, actions, and speech that define individual artists and artistic genres while exerting normative force within a particular artistic practice.

Generic style pertains to the characteristic features of a genre, movement, school, or historical period as reflected in artworks and performances. Individual style, by contrast, concerns the distinctive expressive traits of specific artists as presented in their works and performances. The aesthetic habits underpinning performing practices significantly shape generic styles. For example, the straight tone is a normative stylistic feature of Baroque music, while vibrato characterizes Romantic musical style. However, the straight tone can also distinguish individual styles, as heard in John Coltrane’s (1926–1967) tenor saxophone playing, where the absence of vibrato shapes (an aspect of) his own musical expressiveness.

In both generic and individual cases, stylistic features contribute to shaping the expressive identity of genres, historical periods, or individual artists. Just as an individual’s behavioral habits shape their characteristic lifestyle—reflecting their ethos or personality—the collective behavioral styles of a society manifest its general character. Similarly, aesthetic habits shape expressive styles that embody the specific character of both genres and individual artists.

For example, each of Sonny Rollins’ (n. 1930) musical performances is unique, yet they collectively differ from John Coltrane’s. One can identify the style of a particular album or period within Rollins’ work, noting that it represents not only his typical style but also a specific phase of his artistic evolution. This dynamic applies across the performing arts, extending to compositional styles. Rollins’ and Coltrane’s tenor saxophone styles, while distinct, collectively contribute to defining the modern jazz tenor saxophone style, which contrasts with the older jazz style of Coleman Hawkins (1904–1969) or the saxophone qualities found in rock music (e.g., in some Rolling Stones songs). Similarly, Carmelo Bene’s (1937–2002) acting style is marked by various unique substyles, yet remains distinct from other actors’ approaches. Despite differences between his performances, these variations are integrated within the overarching “Benian” style.

Regarding the link between habit and style, one can adopt two perspectives. A “bold” view holds that this link is constitutive—habits are themselves styles of behavior. This aligns with Merleau-Ponty’s [65] conception of habitual behavior, where style functions as the “unifying and defining basis of all structural features in the phenomenal field” [66] (p. 470). Style, in this sense, is a “coherent deformation” that defines the specific way habits are activated, distinguishing one individual from another. As Casey notes [67], style as the expressive shaping of behavior has a “habitudinal basis”, which underpins both its recognizability and its function as a “unique mark of the being or thing that exhibits it” [67] (p. 205)8. In this view, the performing arts exemplify the stylistic dimension of all habits.

Alternatively, a “moderate” view distinguishes two aspects of style:

(a)

As expression of aesthetic habits encompassing perception, action, cognition, and imagination, which shape recognizable qualities of individual behavior and reflect prevailing values and typical patterns of thought;

(b)

As aesthetic habit that establishes normative standards for artistic practices, genres, and movements [27] (pp. 264–265).

While according to the “bold” view the phenomenology of style is related to the body, the “moderate” view better acknowledges the specifics of artistic style. However, whichever view is endorsed, the essential point remains that style, characterizing the specific qualities of a genre, artwork, performer, or performance, can be understood as an aesthetic habit—a patterned organization of experience manifested in expressive behavior. As a habit, its activation across different instances exhibits a regular structure that allows diverse expressions to be recognized as belonging to the same style. The identity of a style is defined by its differentiation from other styles, yet each instance of its manifestation contributes to its formation and transformation. Just as habits evolve through their enactment, styles are shaped and reshaped by their concrete expressions.

Thus, each of Sonny Rollins’ performances expresses his specific approach, distinguishing him from other saxophonists and contributing to the evolution of his style while also shaping the broader style of modern jazz saxophone. This dynamic similarly applies to other performing arts. In dance, Martha Graham’s (1894–1991) innovative and expressive choreographic style, characterized by powerful, dynamic movements and distinctive floorwork, redefined the role of the floor in modern dance. Unlike the verticality emphasized in classical ballet, Graham’s floorwork incorporated grounded, visceral movements rooted in contraction and release, emphasizing a deep connection to the earth and the body’s core. This approach defines her individual creative identity while contributing to the development of modern dance, distinguishing it from classical ballet or postmodern dance. In theater, Jerzy Grotowski’s actors, with their focus on physicality and ritualistic intensity, define the ethos of his productions and influence experimental theater practices, setting them apart from more traditional approaches.

Style acts as a normative framework for organizing expressive behavior, but it is continuously reorganized through the performances that express and shape it. The act of performing (in) a style mirrors the application of a habit: the performed action feeds back into the habit, just as expressive performance feeds back into the style. Every artistic performance not only operates within a style but also forms and transforms it9. In the performing arts, audiences are also part of this dynamic process—their emotional responses to a performance help shape its expressive character. This character, in turn, depends on the overall expressive style of cultures and social groups, which are themselves shaped by artistic expressions.

In other words, expressive style in the arts not only manifests but also actively contributes to shaping the emotional life of particular cultures. This opens a broader discussion on the relationship between artistic expressiveness and emotions. Emotions can be understood as historical, social, and embodied practices—expressive habits with a dual dimension: individual and social [70]. They are part of the habitus that both organizes and constrains individual expressiveness. This implies that individual expressive habits are plastic and evolve through practice, retroactively impacting the expressive habitus of a cultural practice. Consequently, artistic expressiveness does not merely mirror subjective emotions while adhering to the rules of the expressive habitus of a specific culture; rather, it actively participates in shaping the emotions characteristic of that culture.

This dynamic is particularly important in the performing arts. The individual, characteristic style (or habit) of expressiveness is regulated by the cultural habitus of expressiveness and, at the same time, contributes to the (trans)formation of that cultural habitus. In this sense, it can be argued that, even in the arts, individual expressiveness is shaped by the expressiveness typical of a cultural habitus, which is itself artistically shaped by collective practices, such as those belonging to an artistic genre (see [71] for an application of this view to the expressiveness of musical improvisation). This dynamic can, for instance, be observed in jazz subgenres like Dixieland, Bebop, Free Jazz, and Fusion. The expressive grammar that organizes performances within these domains both depends on and influences the overall expressive character of social groups and historical societies—for example, the (perhaps naïve?) happiness of the Swing Era, the righteous and proud anger of African American emancipation movements, and so on. A similar observation can be made for other musical genres, from opera to trap, as well as for other performing arts.

It is crucial to emphasize that each performer—and each performance within different arts—activates the expressive habitus of their respective genre and social group in a uniquely individual manner, thereby shaping the stylistic specificity of both the performer’s expressiveness and the performance itself. Thus, the expressive habitus of a performative practice is scaffolded by the broader emotional life of groups and societies and, in turn, feeds back into it. At the same time, it is (trans)formed through the specific subjective expressive and performative habits that, during artistic performances, are embodied and plastically adapted in response to situational affordances.

In this way, the style of an artistic performance results from a threefold attunement: with the generic style (understood as the expressive habitus of an artistic practice); the performative, i.e., the individual artistic style of the performer; and the concretely specific situation. This implies that in the context of music, theater, or dance, the expressive habits embodied by performers are reshaped through the multifaceted interactions (or “correspondences” [72]) that occur during each performance. These interactions involve engagement with the emotional atmospheres of cultural groups and societies, the artistic traditions of the genre, the performative situation, the audience, the dynamics between performers, and the specific interactions arising from individual artistic practices: for instance, between musicians and their instruments, and actors and dancers and their bodies, as well as their engagement with the space and objects present on stage.

As Merleau-Ponty [65] (p. 146; cf. [73]) masterfully illustrates with the example of an organist adapting their performative habits to a new instrument and an unfamiliar context, the expressive habits of a performer—habits in which the expressive styles and aesthetic practices of traditions and techniques, as well as social ideals and emotions, have sedimented—are enacted in an improvisational manner. This improvisation involves responding, with varying degrees of attentiveness and success, to the novel and specific concrete circumstances of the performance, and in so doing, these habits are plastically transformed while they are exercised.

The way performers rework their individual expressive style, the stylistic conventions of their practice or genre, and potentially even the characteristics of a composition during a performance exemplifies the human capacity to acquire habits, inherit them from a cultural environment (such as an artistic tradition), and reshape them in specific contexts, as articulated by philosophical pragmatism [74].

5.3. Rituality

Finally, a further significant aspect of the aesthetic relevance of habits in the performing arts is rituality. Of course, rituals and performing arts cannot be entirely equated, and the claim that performing arts are genetically derived from ritual practices is highly debatable (for a discussion, see [24,75]). However, this does not diminish the importance of ritual dynamics within artistic practices. Although artistic performing practices, beyond the serious content they may present, often have playful and entertaining aspects and are often primarily appreciated for their ability to afford aesthetic pleasure, performing arts have a ritual-like character and, as is the case with other artistic practices and experiences, they can acquire a symbolic significance because they become socially shared practices through which particular lifestyles are defined, identified, and marked. Conversely, as Richard Schechner [76,77] noted, ritual practices (very often) involve the display of doing, not only doing: this would show the continuity between performing arts—where sounds, gestures, actions, and talks are displayed to an audience—and rituals.

In general, then, the way in which performing arts are enacted and organized, both individually and socially, often takes on a ritual-like quality, which can be analyzed at least across three dimensions: regularity, framing, and habituation.

(a)

Regularity: The articulation and repetition (more or less variational or transformative) of formal, behavioral, or expressive patterns generally characterizes the internal structural organization of performative artworks. This usually displays some degree of regularity. Patterns also recur across different works and performances, contributing to the organization of genres and their distinction from others. They are aesthetic habits that shape the socially and culturally circulating artistic grammars. For instance, jazz compositions are based on certain standard forms, as are rock and pop songs and classical music compositions. The same applies to dance and theater performances. Even the most innovative and revolutionary expressions—compared to earlier traditions—such as free improvisation in music and contact improvisation in dance, display a structure that shows a certain regular distribution (e.g., in terms of tension and release dynamics) or, at the very least, appeal to a type of social ritual, based on cultural conventions, that regulates the audience’s experience.

(b)

Framing: The identity and recognizability of artistic performances based on aesthetic habits shape a distinct experiential sphere—framed as particular events separated from ordinary life. This framing often involves physical demarcations, such as specific spaces (e.g., theaters, concert halls, and discotheques) or temporal structures that set the event apart. Ritual and performance share this framing aspect: artistic performances are experienced as distinct from the practical life. Attending performing arts might also afford the sense of belonging and order often conveyed by ritual ceremonies.

(c)

Habituation: The realization of an artistic performative event takes place within forms and styles of life characterized by their own consistency, sustained by ingrained and repeated practices. It requires the formation of recurring behavioral and mental habits that define both the concrete execution of performances and spectatorship, not only from the perspective of aesthetic appreciation but also in terms of the social practices it entails. The interplay between ordinary habitual practices and aesthetic habitual practices highlights their interdependence and mutual entanglement. Social habits surrounding performances and shaping ritual behaviors are not merely auxiliary but integral to the aesthetic event: they may also be savored aesthetically. Individual or social behavioral rituals (such as dressing in a particular way, expressing approval or disapproval through gestures or exclamations, or dining together before or after the performance), which pertain not only to attending the performance but also to its preparatory or post-performance phases, can serve as sources of pleasure or displeasure, including aesthetic pleasure, and can influence the aesthetic appreciation of the performance itself10.

Hence, ritualities of different kinds prepare, feed, and follow the appreciative engagement with the artistic performances and not only their artistic realization. On the other hand, the specific realization of the artistic performance impacts recurrent behavioral patterns that help the audience actively engage with what unfolds on stage. Moreover, even unexpected elements, which exceed the audience’s aesthetic expectations, derive their impact from established shared habits, lending unpredictability to the event while maintaining its ritual structure. In short, a performance of music, dance, or theater possesses a ritualistic character that generally involves collective participation. The fact that participants are bound together in a ritual-like event helps emotionally activate the aesthetic habits appropriate to the expressive patterns and nuances of musical pieces and songs, dance choreographies, and theatrical representations. Thus, the ritual dimension of artistic performance not only does not hinder its aesthetic effectiveness but actually characterizes it as a “non-reducible emergent phenomenon” [78] (p. 11), reflecting its ability to catalyze ordinary habits into enabling special, heightened experiences: aesthetic experiences.

However, the ritual-like character of performances is not without risks. When excessively routinized, performances can lose their power of aesthetic engagement. Rituality can become (or appear to someone as) excessive, cliché, and stifling, hindering the attunement between the individual spectator and the specific performative event taking place, thereby blocking the aesthetic experience instead of affording, accompanying, or intensifying it.

Similarly, a gesture can become repetitive and mechanical, and the display of a style can devolve into a passive matching of a standardized model. These are all aspects of the fact that habits are aesthetically virtuous—can be aesthetically savored—if and when they respond to the needs and affordances emerging from the specific situation in which they are exercised, rather than merely conforming to abstract norms insensitive to real experience. An essential aspect of the aesthetic value of the performing arts, emphasized by the avant-garde, lies in their ability to expose the habits on which their very practice is based. In doing so, they thematize the ways in which habits (both aesthetic and non-aesthetic) in everyday life can be manipulated and/or transformed into mechanical routines, detached from the concrete context of their application. Conversely, however, in their very ordinariness, these habits can also demonstrate a capacity to resist assimilation into predetermined cultural behavior models, even within the artistic realm.

6. Conclusions

The purpose of this discussion has been to elucidate the significance of habits within the context of the performing arts. The central argument advanced here is that habits are fundamental to both the practice and experience of the performing arts. While performing arts—perhaps more exemplarily than other art forms, given their capacity to engage audiences during their unfolding—can indeed contribute to the transformation of habits (in some cases, this transformation constitutes a significant part of their artistic purpose and merit), their entanglement with habits is far more complex. Habits are indispensable not only for the execution of performing arts but also for their reception and appreciation.

As recent developments in embodied cognitive science have emphasized, habits themselves are performative. They form and transform our bodies, behaviors, experiences, practices, and ways of thinking. This applies to both ordinary habits and those specific to aesthetic experience—habits that can, therefore, be identified as aesthetic. These aesthetic habits are crucial for performative creativity as well as for the aesthetic appreciation of art.

Furthermore, the unique characteristics of the performing arts—analyzed here through the notions of gesture, style, and rituality—offer valuable insights into the relationship between habits and aesthetic experience. While it can be said that the performing arts exhibit habits—the ways they operate, the ways they can change us, and the ways they can themselves change or be changed—it is equally vital to emphasize that they actively engage with habits. In this sense, their operation could be described as “ordinary”, yet this ordinariness is inherently performative and, when virtuously enacted, aesthetically effective. This active engagement with habits underscores their role not merely as tools for structuring performative practices but as dynamic forces that shape the very fabric of artistic expression.

This dimension, I suggest, is one overlooked in Noë’s interpretation of the entanglement between art and life. By foregrounding this overlooked dimension, this article has aimed to shed new light on the dynamic interplay between performing arts and habits. Certainly, many aspects of this issue require further exploration, and these will be the focus of future work.