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body politics, body poetics
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    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
Designed by persophino
Edited by Anna Arov and Taide Martínez
Book-bound by Jill Wilkinson

Special thanks to ella hebendanz and Ines DeRu :)

This text is my bachelor’s graduation thesis. It was nominated for the academy-wide Bachelor Thesis Award and received a honorable mention. 


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)

"The urgency of this thesis jumps off the page. The thesis is written in a way that grabs the reader, for the jury it was a joy to read. The thesis is theoretically and contextually well situated and the design of the thesis was both aesthetically interesting as it was relevant to the subject. The interwoven poetry was fascinating. It was a very close call with the winning thesis, therefore worth an honorable mention".










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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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 pamela varela © 2025.