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body politics, body poetics ○ pam

Thesis supporting my performance transcendence (trance ‘n dance)—I describe the dramaturgy behind the performance and ground it within feminist theory.

2021

Format artistic thesis printed in risograph

Media prose, poetry, publication (print)

Written and printed by pamela varela

Edited by Anna Arov and Taide Martínez

Book-bound by Jill Wilkinson

Special thanks to ella hebendanz and Ines DeRu :)

Exhibited at

“Graduation Festival”, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, NL, 2021

“KABK Nominated Theses”, The Hague Art Fair, The Hague, NL, 2021

“Politics of the Machines Conference”, Berlin, DE / online, 2021 (excerpt in proceedings)

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This thesis supports my performative work transcendence (trance ’n dance), which explores the power of dance as a tool of bodily reappropriation and radical self-expression. In this text, I describe the dramaturgy behind the performance and delve into the narrative elements that form it, finding their ground within feminist theory.

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The politics section focuses on contextual issues, and the poetics section focuses on creative solutions. “body politics” covers ideas on the body, patriarchy, feminisms, Latin America, gender and technoscience, while “body poetics” covers rebellious practices of emancipation: dance as pleasure, language as change, and esotericism as activism. All this functions as cohesive device to explain my work and practice.

Dedication to my great-grandmother Cande

Image by the Latin American collective @desCULOnizacion. They mix the word “decolonization” with the word “culo” (ass). They strive for dancing and shaking the ass to fight for the decolonization of the body — and the land.

“The Church says: The body is a sin.

Science says: The body is a machine.

Advertisement says: The body is a business.

The body says: I am a party.”

- Eduardo Galeano

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body politics, body poetics ○ pam

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