As part of the “UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound” series at Radialsystem, Dr. Rajyashree Ramesh, Martha Hincapié Charry and Sage Ni‘Ja Whitson portray the body as a living archive in workshops and lecture performances, in which history, knowledge, and environment meet. In “Decolonizing the Body in Dance”, which we are presenting as part of “20 Jahre Radialsystem”, movement becomes a practice of reconnection, and an act of resistance and resilience.

What do we mean, when we speak of bodies? Contemporary artistic approaches are questioning the apparently “neutral” bodies in western dance traditions, uncovering the historical and cultural views that have shaped this idea. In indigenous and non-western systems of knowledge, the body is often not a malleable object, but a carrier of memory, relationship, and meaning. The practices of Dr. Rajyashree Ramesh, Martha Hincapié Charry and Sage Ni‘Ja Whitson unlock different perspectives: in the lecture performance “The Cosmic Body”, Ramesh sees the body as part of cosmic orders; in “Amazonia 2040”, Hincapié Charry understands it as eco-feminist territory, in which (de-)colonial and ecological questions are inscribed; in the performance “On Unarriving”, Whitson approaches dark matter and dark energy as sacred and cosmic technology.

“Cuerpos de Tierra – Earth Bodies” – Workshop with Martha Hincapié Charry
With an ecofeminist approach, “EARTH BODIES” reimagines (environ-)mental care through a decolonial perspective on climate anxiety by fostering biodiverse relationships and a regenerative state. Martha Hincapié Charry's workshop asks: How are our bodies and all our relationships affected by environmental grief? Martha Hincapié Charry opens her ritualistic process, delving into the relationship of our bodies with nature and the current climate chaos or biodiversity extinction crisis. Participants are invited to embody one’s understanding of nature, reflected in the mirror of the current crisis in our relationship with our own nature. The practice/workshop opens channels of sensorial, and embodied encounters, creating a reflection space about the urgency of rewilding our wounded bodies/ home/planet. Human and more-than-human ancestral knowledge is invoked in a ceremonial space where participants are invited to experience an intimate, immersive space. Participants are asked to bring with them an element of nature: a stone, branch or a feather for example.

“The Cosmic Body” – Workshop with Dr Rajyashree Ramesh
“The Cosmic Body” is designed as a deep-core exploration through the varied layers of movement mechanisms and qualities that relate to corpo-cosmological knowledge evident in the ancient Indian worldview. In her practice-based methodology Rajyashree Ramesh explores the idea of an embodied knowing discernible in the references to the human body in the understanding of the cosmos – the constitutive elements (space, wind, fire, water and earth) and forces of nature as energy and rhythm in relation to enclosed space. She specifically positions the dancing body as a dynamic container and moving intervention in this bodily knowing. In the workshop she guides participants through her exploratory integration of body and movement knowledge from Indian performative practices and current movement and fascia studies. The workshop experientially layers elemental qualities at inner energy centres, physiologically perceptible neuro-muscular and fascial structures and the outer structured shaping and felt expressivity of performative practices such as Bharatanatyam to arrive at inherent form-space-dynamics – a corpo-cosmological mechanism so to say that Rajyashree Ramesh identifies as ground for bodily knowing.