The body as territory: a movement perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on my background as a Mexican dancer and researcher, I analyse my practice-research on the body as territory, referencing the Latin American feminist concept of Cuerpo-Territorio (Body-Territory), which is rooted in the claim that ‘there is no ontological difference between territory and the body. Hence, what is done to the body is done to the territory and vice versa’ (Zaragocin and Caretta 2020: 1508). Within this methodology, the body-map serves as a ‘fixed locus’ where significant places such as the home, family, work place, or natural entities are located, allowing for a cartography of personal and collective connections to territory. I propose that the body, the space it occupies, and the place it inhabits are profoundly interconnected. I argue for the necessity of exploring Cuerpo-Territorio from a movement-based perspective in order to shift the notion of the body as fixed locus to a body in movement. I analyse two components of my approach: the body as territory as concept and metaphor that shifts from the static to the dynamic body; and workshops as spaces for collective embodied reflection. Each encompasses new ways of perceiving and moving from the body as a territory and, significantly, expands the Cuerpo-Territorio methodology.