About the Socio-Ecological Crisis from the Perspective of Dance Studies

An Overview of a Transformative Praxis Towards an Aesthetic of Relationship

Abstract

Dancing bodies engage with sensory knowledge that allows us to perceive the world from a sensitive perspective. This article contextualizes my work as an artist-researcher on a forest project with the legacy of these worlds after — after the atomic bomb, after the global pandemic. These site-specific practices are intimately linked to growing ecological awareness and, more recently, to the socio-ecological crisis in which we find ourselves. This dialogue between dance studies and ecology aims to understand these practices, surrounded by a myriad of terms (Anthropocene; site-specific work; more than human, etc.), which we will examine. Categorizing these practices within the contemporary artistic landscape allows us to highlight transformative praxis that began particularly in the post-World War II era and continue into our post-COVID world, which seeks to rediscover bodily practices within an aesthetics of relationship. If dance is not the answer to the socio-ecological crisis – but after all why not! – it is, unlike transhumanism, a way to “augment” ourselves through finding otherness.