Caterpillar, Chrysalis and Butterfly: An Autoethnographic Account on Learning to Dance Salsa

Abstract

This thesis is about a CATERPILLAR, a CHRYSALIS and a BUTTERFLY. These creatures are both metaphors and acronyms that resemble the ways in which I learned to dance salsa. Through salsa dancing I gained an entrance to the broader research field on the question of what it means to be human. Drawing largely from literature in existential philosophy, -psychology and –anthropology, I explore this question in relation to the notion of the self and to the learning of techniques. This exploration builds upon the transformation of the CATERPILLAR (Cultural Actions Trigger Experientially Responsive Physical Intelligence; Learnt Lived and Recognized) into the CHRYSALIS (Consciousness Has Rejected Your Self As Limited, Isolated, Separated) and the BUTTERFLY (that has escaped the Boxes Used To Trap Ego’s Relations For Lamentable Yearnings). The research insights show that a notion of the self as a bounded entity is hard to sustain. The self is connected to the wider universe. Self-realization builds upon a recognition that human beings are movement and that the self is not skin-encapsulated but connected to the wider universe. At the maximum of self-realization, however, the human being becomes completely immersed in context and thus loses its sense of self.