# Some Stabs at the Ontology of Dance **Opening (not a real abstract):** This essay is exploratory. In it, I would like to make some stabs at answering enduring questions in the philosophy of dance. They are the question of the nature of dance1 and the question of dancework identity.2 That is, the question “What is dance?”—understood as the question of under what conditions, something is a dancework—on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the question of “What conditions must be satisfied for two dance performances to be presentations of the same dance‐art‐work?”3 Frankly, I do not expect to answer these questions completely, but only to make stabs toward answers. At best, my incomplete answers to these questions are headed in the right direction. Yet even if they are not, criticizing what is wrong about them is apt to illuminate the features of dance that they **Authors:** [[NOËL CARROLL]]