Abstract
This paper compares the theories of performing arts by Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), and Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) from a viewpoint of motor imagery and body representation, to argue that they share a common understanding of the body on the stage as a “hieroglyph.” The frequent appearance of the metaphor in writings on modern dance suggests a transformation of the ways in which the spectator sees the performance not as a fiction or a fabrication but as an actual experience. The choreography thus would be not only something spatially portrayed on the stage but rather become the ways by which to “create the world,” which is literally opposite to “All the World’s a Stage,” as Shakespeare says.
