For theorists and practitioners of dance, movement, therapeutic bodywork, and psychology, somatic approaches engage one’s first-person experience of the body—the body from the inside—as a primary source of therapy and knowledge. Dancer and theorist Nancy Galeota-Wozny stresses that somatic practice is largely about attending— “using sensory feedback, slowing down and paying attention, learning through internal experience rather than imitation, applying a rhythm of doing and resting, and exploring movement rather than simply completing exercises.” This paper analyzes recent works of American visual and memorial art that engage areas of cultural crisis through the lens of somatics and body-based memory. Following Christina Sharpe, who advocates for memorial art that presents a “past that is not past, a past that is with us still, a past that cannot and should not be pacified in its presentation” (62), I examine how works use somatic approaches to activate body-based responses including body-based memory.
About the presenterLaura T Smith
Laura Smith is an Associate Professor of English at Stevenson University in Maryland where she teaches African-American literature, queer studies, and creative writing. She is currently completing a book project titled Making Contact: Somatic Epistemologies and the Poetics of Transhistorical Memory.