This presentation reflects on my practice-based PhD investigating the body as a living site of memory and cultural knowledge. Rooted in Minangkabau and Kerinci traditions from West Sumatra Indonesia, such as plate dance, Tale, lahek and galanggang, the research asks: What does the body remember? Through autoethnographic performance and intercultural collaboration, I explore how traditional movement vocabularies embody epistemic weight across cultures. The first performance, RASO I, examined raso—a Minangkabau concept of affective and intuitive sensing—as a way for the body to narrate memory, in resonance with phenomenological traditions of embodied experience. The second, RASO #2, expands this inquiry into intercultural space, working with Western-trained dancers in a circular galanggang-inspired stage. Documentation and post-performance dialogues reveal both friction and resonance when different bodily histories meet, challenging representational modes and opening pathways for decolonial choreographic practice. I argue that choreography functions as a mode of thinking through the body, where memory is not a fixed archive but a continuous becoming—a "kinesthetic epistemology". By situating indigenous knowledge alongside Western embodied cognition theories, this research offers relational and affective alternatives to dominant models of knowledge, while responding to contemporary urgencies around artificial intelligence and posthuman futures.

Authors:
Sherli Novalinda, University of Limerick, Ireland

About the Presenter(s)
Sherli Novalinda is currently a PhD researcher in Arts Practice at Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

Bookmark