Developing body literacies in/through shared creation processes in contemporary dance
By: Sonia Nikitin
| ARTICLE INFO: Volume: 12 Issue: 01:Summer 2026 ISSN: 2459-2943 DOI: 10.18680/hss.2026.0008 Pages: 151-166 Lic.: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
KEYWORDS: Shared creation processes Body literacies Intercorporeality |
ABSTRACT
This article examines bodily practices in shared creation processes in contemporary dance that engage professional and non-professional dancers in collective meaning-making, developing literacies, and learning as social practice. Individual and collective improvisation practices are shown to be the foundation for developing body literacies, as part of pluriversal literacies (Perry 2021, 2024; Perry et al. 2023). Analysis of guided individual and collective improvised practices reveals that somatic experiences and widening of awareness act as foundations for intersubjective and intercorporeal negotiation of meaning. Attention to reoccurring forms of intercorporeal coordination, such as mirroring, leading and following, the apprehension of proximity and touch, and transposition of movement foster the capacity for continuous adjustment. Processes of shared creation function as a framework for the constitution of systems of intercorporeality, within which relationships between people and with the environment are co-constituted in resonance with dynamics of authority and expertise, and processes of learning intra- and intercorporeal communication. Shared literacies of the body enable an experimentation of forms of being-together that resist rigid hierarchies and communication based solely on word, speech and competitiveness, and become a foundation for collective organization.
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