WHAT DOES THE BODY KNOW? Dance as Affective Practice in the Exploration of the Embodiment of Gender

In this chapter, I discuss the relationship between the body, dance as an affective practice, and gender. I draw upon collaborative performance ethnography (which formed part of my doctoral research) in order to discuss dance as an affective practice and a way of (visceral) knowing about the body and gender. In the research I present in this chapter, I focus on work with creative embodied methods, comprising the elusive, intangible, sensory, and affective dimensions of embodiment, and with that of being situated and embodied in the world, to an already rich field of research on gender and the body (Bordo 1993; Coleman 2009; Grosz 1994). This also means creating a space for exploring the fluidity and relationality of being (including gendered being).