Dançapolítica: um grito do corpo para a morte

Abstract

This work arises from the need to converge and open horizons for when the act of dancing overflows the body–mind paradigm established since coloniality (Europe, 17th to 19th centuries). Who dances when I dance? is the question that casts the body(-that-dances) as the problem of this research. Based on and through my experiences in dance, and in dialogue with themes raised by the Japanese dancer Hijikata Tatsumi (1928–1986), this question guides the development of critical and creative reflection on the research object: the inseparable intertwining of dance, body, and politics. Dançapolítica: a cry from the body towards death thus seeks to expose and question the foundational pillars of the colonial–capitalistic paradigm inherent in the body of the I(-that-dances). This is the figure in which the research object converges. It is therefore central, as it represents the exercise of political power within myself. Synonymous with the I think, therefore I am, it is a modus operandi whose sensory experience is conditioned by its rational mind — Reason. Essential authors for understanding this paradigm are Denise Ferreira da Silva, Marilena Chauí, Gilles Deleuze, André Lepecki (when presenting the ontology of dance tied to the mode of its structure), and Christine Greiner (in presenting characteristics of the body–mind logic). The emergence of the figure of the I(-that-dances) occurs through writing itself: a somatic–performative writing, embodied and situated in the context of Practice as Research [PaR]. The body’s cry is for the I(-that-dances) to once again trust its more-than-human reality. Thus, death is not a final sentence, but a condition for its process of becoming what it is — its paradoxical experience of life-and-death. Carried out through its solar experience represented in the Bakongo Cosmogram, Dikenga Dia Kongo, as presented by Fu-Kiau, the I(-that-dances) learns/unlearns itself as cosmic, recognizing that the void constitutes it. Authors such as Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Christine Greiner, Michiko Okano, and Mario Novello are key to this discussion. Liberating sensitivity from rational conditioning was a task made possible through the “confluence” of African cosmology (with Fu-Kiau and Katiúscia Pontes); Afro-diasporic philosophies (with Leda Maria Martins and Muniz Sodré); Indigenous thought (with the Brazilian Ailton Krenak and the Mexican Don Juan); and, finally, European philosophy, with Gilles Deleuze who, converging with Don Juan, contributes with his concepts of becoming and sensation.