SEARCHING FOR SENSATIONS IN A SHACKLED SPACE: BODY-CURIOSITY FOR SENSITIVE, REFLEXIVE, AND CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PRISON THEATRE

Abstract

At the intersection of mobility-limiting prison and liberating theatre, prison theatre straddles complex lines. Prison theatre grapples with multiple tensions, two of which are whether programs: (1) merely replicate punitive structures of incarceration, and (2) lend to colonial narratives, given prisons are a colonial legacy. Drawing from the autoethnography of a previously incarcerated Black man who found theatre as a free person, I explore how these tensions can be inflicted on the bodies of participants. The personal histories of carcerality and race, which are etched into bodies, can collide with— and be amplified in— the heightened embodied state of performing. The bodies of incarcerated performance-participants are thus particularly vulnerable, especially as they are subject to the double authority of the prison and the teaching artist/facilitator (TAF). Borrowing the concept of body-curiosity from embodied autoethnographer Shulamite Kitzis, I propose body-curiosity as a way to navigate these embodied tensions with relationality and care. Body-curiosity is an inherently relational facilitative disposition that is reflexive and sensitive to the carceral condition. It is also a culture among participants that enacts vulnerability and connection. Body-curiosity re-positions TAFs as research-minded practitioners who can reap important feedback from both participants’ and their own bodies. Moreover, body-curiosity can lead to incorporating embodied and culturally responsive pedagogy that serves incarcerated communities. This is toward the ultimate hope of fostering relations through embodied sensitivity and communication in a place that often isolates, numbs, and effaces people. Most importantly, body-curiosity is not a new phenomenon. It is a term for a delicate and receptive intuition that already belies certain cases of prison theatre. Using examples from around the globe, such as from America, Aotearoa New Zealand, the Philipines, and Singapore, I foreground body-curiosity as a potent way to foster sensitivity to the carceral condition and create culturally responsive experiences.