The creative body memory in Covid’s time: a participatory pedagogic methodology with site-specific dance and performance in urban places

ABSTRACT

Given the social circumstances arising from the COVID-19 health crisis, we developed a participatory pedagogic methodology involving body experimentation and performing arts to explore ‘body memory’ as a tool for redefining new affective bonds and adaptation processes within urban environments and public spaces. This experimental methodology, addressed to community participation, involves exercises of body movement improvisation, physical theatre techniques and site-specific dance. We aim to draw an arc of cumulative learning and individual and group awareness that should facilitate a critical rediscovery of everyday urban experiences inside a ‘body-place-community’ dialogue. In the performative exercises, we inquire about a ‘creative body memory’ composed of conscious, temporal, and cognitive knowledge built on interpretive fragments, images, and mental representations; and an embodied unconscious and extemporal one, built on emotional and adaptive ‘body-place-community’ connections. This methodology was tested in a pilot laboratory addressed to a group of adolescents living in Raval’s multicultural neighbourhood (Barcelona) and some of them at risk of social exclusion. It was implemented with the collaboration of ‘Xamfrà, Raval’s Music and Performance Centre’ in the context of Raval’s summer youth activities organised in July 2021.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19 pandemic
• site-specific dance
• performative practices
• community-based methodology
• embodied memory
• social resilience

Acknowledgments

We are immensely grateful for the trust, kindness and enthusiasm of our 10 participants Rania, Narjiis, Hind, Ona, Henry, Dana, Yasmin, Faria, Jean Pierre and Alexandra that made our Pilot Laboratory ‘Fragments and Bondings’ possible. Special thanks for the kindness and openness of Ester Bonal (Xamfrà, director) to welcome our work in the framework of an artistic research residency at Xamfrà, Centre de Música i Escena del Raval. Our most obliged appreciation to the work of Estefania Soler (Xamfrà, logistics), Laura Abad (photography), and Marta Romero (camera and video editing). Finally, we are greatly indebted to Father Joan Cabot for his generosity in opening the doors of St Pau del Camp Monastery to our group and our project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Each of the nine working sessions of our pilot research laboratory are audio visually recorded and uploaded to open dissemination at youtube.com/@fragmentsilligams. More information about our pedagogic methodology is open for public consultation at the research website www.somaticlandscape.com/index.php/fragments-and-bondings

Additional information

Funding

The research work presented was supported by the Cultural Initiative Support Office (OSIC), Cultural Department, Generalitat of Catalonia, Spain, under Grant (CLT019/20/000154); and the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT, Portugal) and the European Social Fund, under Grant (SFRH/BPD/101156/2016)

Notes on contributors

Ana Moya Pellitero

Ana Moya Pellitero Principal integrated researcher at CHAIA - U Évora, within the scope of the Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus, FCT (Portugal) with the project ‘Land Theatre. Contextual and participatory performative arts for rural landscape regeneration’ (2022.04361.CEECIND, 2023-29). She also concluded at CHAIA her Post-Doc research (2015-21) ‘The Multicultural Somatic Urban Landscape’ funded by FCT, Portugal and the European Social Fund (SFRH/BPD/101156/2014), exploring the intangible urban heritage of two historical multicultural neighbourhoods in Raval (Lisbon) and Mouraria (Barcelona) through artistic-based research methodologies (plastic, audiovisual and performative), and involving the residents’ participation. This research involves the study of the body, its choreography, embodied experiences, interpretation and place-making processes of identity construction. She also holds a post-graduation in Intervention and Management of the Landscape Heritage by UA Barcelona and a PhD in Landscape Theory and Urban Culture from the Department of Architectural History and Theory, TU Eindhoven (2007), focusing on a trans-disciplinary, intercultural and phenomenological research in the field of urban landscape perception and visual culture, both for the European and Chinese urban context. She has been Assistant Professor at ISMAT, Lusophone University (2010-15) and lecturer at TU Eindhoven (2000-2007). She published the book “The Perception of the Urban Landscape”, Ed. Biblioteca Nueva (2011).

Guillermo Vidal-Ribas Belil

Guillermo Vidal-Ribas Belil holds a degree in humanities from Catalonia Open University and a Master degree in Theatre Studies from UAB Barcelona. In parallel, he has been working in drama, dance and singing for more than 20 years. He has participated as a performer, choreographer and stage and movement director in over thirty dance and theatre plays. Having toured around Europe and Latin America, his work has been presented at international festivals such as the GREC Festival in Barcelona, Temporada Alta, Fira Tàrrega and Santiago a Mil, among others. He also works as a choreographer in the audiovisual field (www.guillearts.com). He is specialized as an artist, cultural manager and researcher in the field of Street Dances and from 2017 to 2020 he was co-director of the HOP Street Dance and Contemporary Creativity Platform (www.hopbcn.com). In 2022 he won the award for best dancer at the Critics’ Awards of the Performing Arts of Catalonia, for his performance in Transmissions: Dance Conference on Street Dance (www.transmissionsdansa.com). He has been part of the teaching staff of institutions such as the Institute of the Arts Barcelona (John Moore University, Liverpool), the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona and ESART (Bath Spa University, Bath), where he offered Street Dance and Research in Performing Arts lessons. He has also been invited to numerous dance centers in Spain, Italy and Israel. Since 2020, he is the head researcher on Social Circus at Ateneu Popular 9 Barris (Barcelona, Spain), from where he has coordinated works on gender perspective and accessibility applied to circus training, in order to develop new tools, methodologies and training for trainers programs.