Body Territory
Practicing the Act of Dancing Together
A reflective dance project encompassing interviews, workshops and images.
Dance is directly connected with the body, which plays a significant role in how people experience other bodies and places – their territories. The project aims to expand notions towards the Body.
The starting point for this project comes from a personal curiosity for a more profound understanding towards the Body and, consequently, heightening perception and relation to other bodies.
What is contained in the body beyond what we can see and know? Moving on to this question, some concepts related to the material and immaterial body's territory appear – movements, expressions, desires and dreams. In practice, we interact through touch, mapping the body, observing how we relate to one another, and we use dance to uncover the invisible layers of the body – imagination.
The title Body Territory finds its inspiration in the poetry of actor Alex Melo, contributing as a researcher in the initial stage of movement exploration. It was a deliberate choice to combine the words "body" and "territory" to symbolize a body that is immensely valued and nurtured. "Body Territory" aptly encapsulates the essence of the dance practices I advocate, which are rooted in the profound sensuality of the human body.
Body Territory
Territory as an occupation.
Territory as communication!
Street, look, cross, cross territory.
Laroyê!
Territory taken, tamed, ploughed, fertile territory.
Undermined territory, loved territory, hated territory, appropriated territory.
Breathing in the territory's space.
Territory giving birth to echoes.
Fragments of memories, stories, bones, flesh, blood, sweat, and saliva...
Saliva and sweat, sweat and saliva.
The black, the indigenous, the white...
The one you don't even know yet.
Sprouting in the batuque, in the catuque, in the quizomba, and in the quizila of inventing oneself.
Belonging.
To be a body in a territory, a body as a territory.
The territory of the body
Alex Mello
Why the use of dance for this project?
Dance can bring full awareness of a body with many ways to practice it. At the moment, I aim to strengthen sensory awareness.
Sensations can transform movement qualities and the state of bodies presence. The senses are like sources feeding the body's needs, boosting movements, and a vessel to let the body express itself to the world.
This project states that the mind and its associations with rationalities, such as theoretical, must be connected with the body and its associations with irrationality and sensory movement.
Video edition and narration: Alex Mello
Gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR, Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN des DachverbandTanz Deutschland.
