Journal articles on the topic 'Capoeira (Danse)'

Cet article tente de montrer comment deux formes particulières de la danse contemporaine, la Capoeira et le contact improvisation peuvent fournir des modèles – et même des technologies physiques – à partir desquels théoriser une altérité incarnée. Il montre comment ces formes de danse proviennent de cultures et d’histoires spécifiques mais aussi comment, dans leurs manifestations contemporaines, elles possèdent leur propre logique qui nous force à repenser notre compréhension des corps et des cultures.

Nancy Huston's Danse noire (2014) is a formidably complex novel: multilingual, composed throughout of three connected but separately told stories, highly self-reflexive in its intra-diegetic presentation of the narrative as film scenario and its use of capoeira as framing device and analogy. Some critics and readers have found this intricate structure excessive and confusing. This article, on the other hand, situates the novel within Huston's distinctive project as a contemporary French novelist who is as committed to immersive story-telling as she is to self-aware celebration of narrative form. It argues that Danse noire demonstrates fiction's power to carry us in imagination through space and time and into the subjective worlds of others, even as it invites awareness of narrative form itself. Moreover, this combination of entrancing story-telling and self-reflexivity is central to what Huston convincingly maintains is the ethical function of the novel.

Capoeira is a Brazilian art, expressed by game, fight, and dance. Its movements comprise a wide range of possibilities, alternating planes, turns, balances, supports, and floor-work, pointing to its relevance for technical processes in dance. However, capoeira is also deeply marked by an aesthetic that goes beyond the movement itself. Values, beliefs, habits, and Brazilian customs are rooted in its practice. Authors such as Frigerio show characteristics such as theatricality and malice, noting that a certain ritual role of capoeira seems to be more important in practice than a combative efficiency. In the Unicamp Physical Education Faculty, a survey is being developed in which capoeira serves as contribution to the dancer's work. Besides the physical skills, we are identifying the formation of an aesthetic expression corresponding to this identity in the process of capoeira, which sent us to the concepts of “kinesthetic transit” and “resonance.” Our proposal for this conference is to present our practical research that understands capoeira, including its rituals, theatricality, and values, as an emerging possibility to decentering dance experiences, due to this traditional phenomenon as not being exclusively a local practice anymore, but also a possible source to contemporary dance in the current cultural interchange.

Purpose of this article to know about a culture, which had ups and down, a culture of struggle and freedom for a community. Capoeira is the glimpse of Brazilian mixed culture transformed from local to global culture. It was a hidden weapon of slave society of Portuguese Brazil against of their masters that escaped them many times. It is a movement, a game, a song, and a dance. It is a motto for generations. It is a vast knowledge for audience worldwide. It is a history, a culture of civilization, a martial art, and a game of global development physically and mentally. This game works everywhere whether a peaceful area or a war devastated area, it brings peace to every community, youth and for their developmental activities, makes a developmental approach, a developmental thought. It is an art and a project literature. It is a festival for youth and generation. Capoeira can help development of education worldwide by accepting capoeira as a global cultural and educational lesson. Therefore, I write about capoeira.

ResumoA prática social capoeira é permeada por diferentes histórias e interpretações de seu surgimento, incluindo a própria etimologia da palavra capoeira, que pode ter sua origem na língua portuguesa, bem como na língua indígena tupi. Outra comum recorrência é da capoeira ser tratada como algo que tem existência em si, separada de seu sujeito, o capoeirista ou o Capoeira. Esse ensaio tem como objetivo recuperar na literatura a origem do nome capoeira, possíveis significados e sua relação com o jogador-lutador-dançador do que denominamos jogo-de-luta-dançada, assim destacar o/a praticante, professor/a, mestre/a, ou seja, o Capoeira, ser que dá existência a capoeira.Palavras-chave: Capoeira. Capoeirista. Etimologia. From Capoeira player to Capoeira fight: etymological and existential reflections AbstractCapoeira social practice is permeated by different histories and interpretations of its emergence, including the etymology of the word capoeira, which can have its origins in the Portuguese language, as well as in the Tupi indigenous language. Another common recurrence is that capoeira is treated as something that has an existence in itself, separate from its subject, the capoeira player or the Capoeira. This essay aims to recover in the literature the origin of the name capoeira, possible meanings and its relationship with the player-fighter-dancer of what we call game-of-fight-dance, thus highlighting the practitioner, teacher, master, that is, the Capoeira, being that gives existence to capoeira.Keywords: Capoeira. Capoeira Player. Etymology. Del Capoeira para la Capoeira: reflexiones etimológicas e existenciales ResumenLa práctica social de la capoeira está impregnada de diferentes historias e interpretaciones de su surgimiento, incluida la etimología de la palabra capoeira, que puede tener sus orígenes en la lengua portuguesa, así como en la lengua indígena tupí. Otra recurrencia común es que la capoeira es tratada como algo que tiene una existencia en sí misma, separada de su sujeto, el jugador de capoeira el Capoeira. Este ensayo tiene como objetivo recuperar en la literatura el origen del nombre capoeira, los posibles significados y su relación con el jugador-luchador-danzador de lo que llamamos juego-de-lucha-danzada, destacando así al practicante, profesor, maestro, es decir, el Capoeira, ser que da existencia a la capoeira.Palabras clave: Capoeira. Jugador de Capoeira. Etimología.

The goal of this article is to contribute to the debate about identity and subjectivity constructions in contemporary migrations and the cultural flows resulting from them, by focusing on the process of transnationalization in the practice of capoeira in Europe. The process began in the 1970s and influenced the development of capoeira, thus engendering changes wherever this dance-fight was established. The paper centers on the capoeiristas’ life experiences, through which they reconstructed their own identities, as well as discourses about capoeira, while at the same time considering the hegemonic powers that impose “game rules”. For this purpose, the capoeira universe is understood as an interstitial space in-between local negotiations and global tendencies. Therefore, habits, customs, and practices from different contexts are put into friction, henceforth potentially creating conditions for a multiplicity of new forms of subjectivity.

Abstract Although the berimbau is widely acknowledged today as part of capoeira - in Brazil and around the world - only a 'minimal' history of this instrument exists concerning its evolution over the twentieth century. The sounds, songs and notes of the berimbau, as well as its circulation among capoeiristas, artists, athletes and intellectuals, played an important role in the historical shift from a 'poisonous' capoeira to the 'non-poisonous' styles. The latter were the same styles that became national with enough of a violent edge to maintain the ambivalence between martial art, game and dance, as exemplified and echoed by the capoeira movement between 1930 and 1960. This article approaches the berimbau as an object embodied with a specific kind of agency, useful to the national imagination, to the control of the body and to the promotion of hierarchies among its practitioners.

Frevo is an energetic dance from Recife, the capital of Brazil's northeastern state of Pernambuco. Frevo is a dance of resistance because it narrates complex notions of identity that contribute to social empowerment through strategic processes of liberation for marginalized groups. The dance originates from the Brazilian martial art of capoeira and it is carnivalesque because it is performed in crowded, often violent streets during carnival, when power hierarchies are disrupted. Through this ethnographic research, I consider how frevo practitioners engage in cultural resistance using a practice that I call “carnivalesque improvisation.”

This article compares ethnographic experiences of two settings characterised by embodied learning: the African-Brazilian dance/martial-art/game capoeira, and swimming for fitness and leisure, both as practiced in the UK. We consider the ways in which participants in these scenes stage-manage the display of their learning environments, focusing on the rituals and routines of instruction and practice. Applying Scott’s (2018) sociology of nothing as an analytical framework, we identify an inverse relationship between two forms of social action. In capoeira, we notice primarily acts of commission (somebodies enacting somethingness), whereas in swimming, we observe more acts of omission (nobodies enacting nothingness), although the distinction is not absolute. In both contexts, we explore the role of space, community, and the body in the negotiation of omissive and commissive socially meaningful action. This relates to Delamont’s interests in capoeira, ethnography and learning physical practices outside the classroom.

This article provides a re-examination of the main Afrocentric narrative of capoeira origins, the engolo or ‘Zebra Dance’, in light of historical primary sources and new ethnographic evidence gathered during fieldwork in south-west Angola. By examining engolo’s bodily techniques, its socio-historical context and cultural meanings, the piece emphasises its insertion into a pastoral lifestyle and highlights the relatively narrow ethnic character of the practice in Angola. This analysis and the comparison with capoeira helps us to develop certain hypotheses about the formation, migration, and re-invention of diasporic combat games between southern Angola and coastal Brazil, and more broadly, to increase our understanding of how African cultures spread across the southern Atlantic.

INTRODUÇÃO: A capoeira é considerada um dos maiores símbolos da cultura brasileira que mistura a arte marcial, o esporte, a cultura popular, a música e a dança. Por sua prática globalizada, a capoeira é um conteúdo a ser trabalhado no ambiente escolar visando a educação integral dos alunos, que por sua vez, está incluída na Base Nacional Comum Curricular. OBJETIVO: Avaliar por meio de uma revisão sistemática se a prática da capoeira na escola pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento da educação integral dos alunos. MÉTODOS: Uma busca sistemática utilizados termos relacionados a “Capoeira”, “Educação Física” e “escola” foi realizada nos bancos de dados Periódico CAPES e Scielo, a fim de encontrar artigos elegíveis. Foram utilizados os seguintes critérios de inclusão: i) abordar a temática capoeira em suas diversas dimensões na escola; ii) apresentar a prática da capoeira inserida nas aulas de educação física ou como atividade extracurricular; iii) demonstrar os diferentes desenvolvimentos acerca dessa prática; iv) conciliar a capoeira com a educação integral. Após a seleção, foram extraídas informações sobre as características da amostra, intervenções utilizadas, grupos comparativos, resultados e conclusões, e uma análise descritiva dos resultados foi realizada. A escala PEDro (1999) foi utilizada para avaliar a qualidade dos estudos. RESULTADOS: Foram incluídos um total de oito artigos, no qual dois enfatizaram o desenvolvimento físico/motor e a inteligência corporal cinestésica, e os outros seis variaram apresentando aspectos físicos, sociais, culturais, cognitivos e afetivos. A análise de qualidade dos estudos demonstrou que dois artigos atingiram uma pontuação total de 3/10, enquanto os demais obtiveram uma pontuação de 2/10. CONCLUSÃO: Os resultados apontaram que a prática da capoeira se demonstra como um instrumento positivo para o desenvolvimento da formação integral dos alunos, porém, deve-se considerar a baixa qualidade metodológica dos estudos incluídos. ABSTRACT. The practice of capoeira in the school environment for student integral formation: A systematic review.BACKGROUND: Capoeira is considered one of the greatest symbols of Brazilian culture that mixes martial arts, sports, popular culture, music and dance. Due to its globalized practice, capoeira is a subject to be worked on in the school environment, aiming at the integral education of students, which in turn, is included in the Common National Curriculum Base. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate, through a systematic review, whether the practice of capoeira at school can contribute to the development of integral education for students. METHODS: A systematic search using terms related to “Capoeira”, “Physical Education” and “school” was performed in the CAPES and Scielo journal databases, in order to find eligible articles. The following inclusion criteria were used: i) addressing capoeira in its various dimensions at school; ii) present the practice of capoeira as part of physical education classes or as an extracurricular activity; iii) demonstrate the different developments regarding this practice; iv) reconciling capoeira with integral education. After selection, information about the characteristics of the sample, interventions used, comparative groups, results and conclusions were extracted, and a descriptive analysis of the results was performed. The PEDro scale (1999) was used to assess the quality of studies. RESULTS: A total of eight articles were included, in which two emphasized physical/motor development and kinesthetic body intelligence, and the other six varied with physical, social, cultural, cognitive and affective aspects. The quality analysis of the studies showed that two articles achieved a total score of 3/10, while the others obtained a score of 2/10. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the practice of capoeira is shown to be a positive instrument for the development of comprehensive training of students, however, the low methodological quality of the included studies must be considered.

This article will examine the notion of subversive discourse found in both the Brazilian dance-martial art known as capoeira and the recent urban phenomenon called parkour, looking in detail at the origins and influences of the two disciplines. With reference to capoeira, I will argue that the linguistic structure which underpins the game provides the space for each capoeirista to develop his or her own creative expression or ‘personality’ within the framework of the discipline. When looking at parkour, I will consider the ways in which it embodies both the notion of flesh in Merleau-Ponty's later writings and how through such an understanding of their bodies and the space around them, practitioners of parkour, known as traceurs, are able to engage in what Foucault refers to as ‘technologies of the self’.

Abstract The purpose of this article is to discuss the changes that took place in relation to the peculiarities of Capoeira within Brazilian society. This popular practice, which is considered a martial art, a dance and a game, developed during the 19th century, where it was practiced by individuals from the lower walks of life. Practicing Capoeira was a felony, as it posed a threat to public safety, order, and morality. Presently, it has been upgraded to a Brazilian cultural asset, which shows how the perception of its practice has changed. These changes follow the different views of the historical processes related to abolitionism and the perverse incorporation of blacks into society at that time, which have continued until present time, having undergone significant changes and grown as a valued physical expression

This study investigates the relationships between ethnographic study and animation practice, focusing on the Brazilian martial art, capoeira, often referred to as a dance, fight and game. This approach was adopted to explore the ways animation can be placed in relation to both historical and more recent critical theory. A local capoeira community group based in South East London participated in the study for a period of twelve months. The respondents were a combination of teachers and learners, and semi-structured interviews in the form of a conversational style were conducted with several participants. The Capoeira music was composed remotely in collaboration with a capoeira practitioner and a professional berimbau instrumentalist, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Additional music was recorded in a studio in London by main subject of this study, Professor Saruê. Practice-based investigations are currently in development, consisting of footage recorded on 16 mm black-and-white negative film. Direct animation and scratch film were created using 16 mm black leader and 35 mm film, forming a series of animated experiments. The ethnographic methods later revealed a strong connection between capoeira and the Brazilian religion of Candomblé, and attempts to determine how animation can be used to represent the phenomenon of the spirit. Evaluation and reflection of animation practice revealed a strong relationship between ethnography and animation, a relatively new area with promising developments and scope for further research within visual anthropology. Further research is needed to identify other factors that could strengthen the effectiveness of this methodology. The practice-based components of the overall study revealed the potential for in depth fieldwork, overseas travel and longitudinal study spanning the space of one to two years. This would expand a relatively small yet emerging area of academic research.

Background: Following resettlement in Australia, young traumatized refugees often face social challenges, including language and cultural barriers and social adjustment, which can lead to behavioral difficulties. Providing support at this vulnerable stage is therefore vital for reducing future setbacks.Objective: The STARTTS Capoeira Angola program was developed to help traumatized adolescents successfully integrate into their school environments. As an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates dance, Capoeira appeared an appropriate intervention for adolescent refugees due to its unique ethos of empowerment and group membership. Method: 32 refugeesfrom Middle Eastern and African countries (aged12-17) from the Intensive English Centre (IEC) department of the participant schools were assessed pre- and post- intervention using the Teacher’s Strengths and Difficulties Scale (SDQ). Teachers were also asked to observe the students’ functioning in a range of different situations at school. Results/conclusions: A significant overall decrease in behavioral problems was observed, which was associated with improvements in interpersonal skills, confidence, respect for self and others, self-discipline, and overall sense of responsibility.

Building on a new materialist ontology, this article explores the significance of viewing the postsecondary institution and learner as assemblages co-emerging in material relationality. Bodies of thought from social cognitive neuroscience, somatic psychotherapy, and physical cultural studies inform an analysis of the evaluation culture predominant in Western postsecondary education. These disciplines are used to interrogate representational performativity and point to new possibilities for material-inclusive learning. A new materialist pedagogy holds possibilities to reconfigure learning architectures to recognise and attend to the corpomaterialities of learners while allowing for new and creative lines of flight in education, as illustrated by physical cultural practices such as sport training, dance, and capoeira.

Participation in dance programs is associated with physical and psychosocial health among individuals with and without disabilities. However, literature centered on the dance participation experiences of youth with visual impairment remains scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of youth with visual impairments in a 3-week capoeira dance program. Fourteen adolescents with visual impairments (eight boys, six girls, aged 13–18 years old) were selected for participation in this qualitative inquiry. Participants engaged in a specially designed capoeira dance program led by trained instructors and volunteers in a metropolitan area in Turkey. The primary sources of data were semi-structured participant interviews completed after the conclusion of the program. Data were analyzed using a six-step thematic approach and recurrent themes were presented as findings. The authors constructed three themes in the data: (a) “capoeira makes me feel like I’m flying”: fun and freedom learning capoeira; (b) “I’ve never had this kind of close relationship with somebody”: relationships in capoeira training; and (c) “I’m a blind dancer. I did it, right?”: learning capoeira through sound and touch. Together, these findings indicate that dance programs such as capoeira can provide an opportunity for social connection, enjoyment, and physical activity for youth with visual impairments.

Capoeira, the African-Brazilian dance and martial art has enthusiastic devotees in Britain. Most practitioners are acutely aware of their capoeira embodiment, and have strategies to protect themselves from injury, and ways to seek treatment for any injuries they get. Drawing on data from a long-term ethnography and a set of 32 open-ended interviews with advanced students, the paper explores student strategies to prevent capoeira injuries, and their discoveries of effective remedies to recover from them, before it presents an analysis of their injury narratives using Frank's three-fold typology of illness narratives. The capoeira study therefore adds to the research on sports and dance injuries, and to the intellectual debates on the nature of narrative in research on illness and injury as well as exploring one aspect of the culture of capoeira students in the UK.

Artiklen ser på spændingsfeltet mellem den olympiske sport og de mere folkelige bevægelseskulturer samt på identitetsspørgsmålet i forskellige idrætsgrene, herunder bl.a. dansen med capoeira som eksempel.

This study seeks to expose and reflect the possible dialogues that can be considered between the Social Museology, or Afro-Brazilian Museology, and the Capoeira, which aims to consolidate the historical process of resistance of this art, dance, fight, game, sport and culture, adding to the struggle of several Masters of Capoeira for the recognition, appreciation and promotion of this important Afro-Brazilian Cultural Patrimony, in other words, it is a strategic positioning that has an expanded idea of the Museum, understanding that it exists from the moment the group starts the process of self-reflection about your practices, understanding them as a living and dynamic cultural patrimony and begins to relate these practices to the aspects of the operative chain of museology, developing them in its scope. In this way, the Museum and Museology are understood as tools that contribute to the preservation and valorization of the memories, stories and the cultural collection of Capoeira. This process of preservation of memories and practices has the potential to contribute, finally, to the formulation and promotion of public politics of valorization and promotion of this cultural practice. Keywords: Capoeira; Social Museology; Afro-Brazilian Museology; Cultural Patrimony

IntroductionOn a sunny afternoon in early spring 2014, five researchers were strolling through the streets of Old Aberdeen. They had known each other for only a few days since an event had brought them together. The event was Performance Reflexivity, Intentionality and Collaboration: A Sourcing Within Worksession, convened by anthropologist Caroline Gatt and performer Gey Pin Ang, as part of the ERC Advanced Grant project “Knowing from the Inside,” at the department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen. This workshop aimed to explore aspects of creative decision-making in performance to assess their relevance to anthropological practice. For three days, participants had engaged in intensive physical and vocal training, seeking to act in ways that felt intuitive and not forced. Five of those participants—Brian Schultis, Peter Loovers, Ragnhild Freng Dale, Valeria Lembo, and myself—unintentionally continued those explorations after the workshop.Our wanderings around the old town took us to the St Machar’s Cathedral. As we were lingering by the graveyard, Valeria took out of her bag a yarn of golden thread. This, she said, was an object of “personal relevance” that she had brought along to the workshop as a prop to work with, following Gey Pin’s instructions. Now she was unravelling it, offering one point to each of us. As we untangled the yarn, we resumed walking. Held from different points, the yarn became a web. Its threads shifted, vibrations reaching our fingertips as we moved. As we entered Seaton Park, which is adjacent to the Cathedral, the threads registered our encounters with the bumpy path, trees, wind, and passers-by as visible, tactile, and kinetic qualities. Pulls, resistances, flows, and gaps triggered a sense of “enmeshment” (Ingold, Lines 11) in a living, breathing world, something greater than ourselves.Walking Threads (henceforth WT), as we retrospectively named the experience, has since developed into a publication (Ang et al.) and a series of invitations extended to larger groups, at conferences and symposia, to walk with the golden thread (walkingthreads.wordpress.com). In our basic WT practice, the yarn is passed around. The thread unravels and we begin to move. No instruction is given to participants, in order to avoid their over-conceptualising the walk. We begin in silence in order to encourage an attitude of “listening,” that is, of opening one’s perceptual awareness to what is happening in the moment. This has not prevented participants from spontaneously using their voice at later stages of the walk, through song, recitation or the exploring of vocal sound.While WT outings are sporadic, the golden thread has continued to be part of my life in subtle ways. Since the last walk in September 2015 at the Beyond Perception symposium in Aberdeen, the thread has repeatedly come to mind. I began to pay attention to these appearances of the thread not as a material object but as a so-called “mental image.” By focusing on the image of the thread, I intentionally recalled some of its properties as a thing that connects, tangles, ties, and is untied, properties that the WT had made salient. By allowing those properties to inform my relationship with my body, the thread turned into a somatic image, a process that I describe in this paper. Thus, this paper continues the WT project’s creative explorations of bodies with threads. This time, however, the thread is not conceived of as a material object but as an image.A few words on my understanding of images are in order. Since 2006 I have been dancing and researching butoh, a dance style that originated in Japan in the post-World War II years. Butoh is a formless dance: it resists codification into a conclusive system of movement, relying on intensified proprioception—the perception of one’s own body—to sustain movement work instead. The use of verbal imagery is widespread among butoh dancers: words act as devices to evoke sensory experiences and “scaffold” (Downey) perceptual attention in order to achieve nuanced qualities of movement. The practice of butoh has informed my understanding of mental images not as merely visual but also as kinaesthetic, that is, engaging the sense of movement. This connection is hardly new; Csordas, for instance, talks of “physical” or “sensory” imagery, rather than merely visual (146–47).While I never intentionally used butoh to relate to the thread, my training and sensitivities as a butoh dancer are likely to have played a role in my relations with this object, as filtered through the WT experiences. Based on my background as a butoh dancer and “thread-walker,” the approach of this paper may be understood as one of anthropology with art: one in which the modes of observation supporting artistic and anthropological inquiries coincide (Ingold, Making 8). An artist’s engagement with materials, tools and things—including the body—is speculative, experimental and open-ended, rather than descriptive or documentary. This type of engagement can question established ways of seeing. For instance, we generally think of objects and bodies as belonging to different domains—the inanimate and the animate, the lifeless and the living. This paper questions this assumption and hypothesises that, through a particular kind of perceptual engagement, which mobilises the somatic and the imaginary simultaneously, objects and bodies can merge. An object can be embodied and, vice versa, a body can become a thing.The paper draws on autoethnographic occurrences of relating to the image of the thread, in the form of short somatic narratives, or narratives “from the body” (Farnell). Each narrative aligns the image of the thread to a particular aspect of somatic awareness: thinking, breathing, and muscle-bones. Far from claiming universal validity, these personal accounts engage a “somatic mode of attention” (Csordas 139) to venture in the potentialities of image-based thinking (Sousanis; Jackson). The exploration finds that, as the materiality of the thread retreats into the background, its image unlocks aspects of self-perception that normally escape conscious awareness (Leder). The image of the thread becomes a perceptual device that, by facilitating access to somatic awareness, reshapes relations with the world and, internally, with the body. It is in this sense that I embody the thread. Beginning with a Loose End: Spinning Thought into Thread-FormAs I begin to write this paper, I witness my thinking taking the form of a thread. It first appears as a loose end. I see it in my mind’s eye, and from a short distance. The loose end of a golden thread floating in a dark space. I cannot see how far it extends. Instead, the gaze of my imagination glides towards its surface as though attempting to grab it. Even so close, I cannot touch it. Still I can contemplate few of its qualities. I meet its reassuring continuity. A glimmer catches my attention: it is a few silver filaments inside the thread, glittering. The thought-form of the thread is a sensation of thin electric current between the temples. I sense the space between my eyes and forehead, their muscles and bones, subtly engaging. The same space begins to narrow down into a corridor. It is narrower and narrower. My thought spins itself into thread-form.In the 1980s, movement therapist Thomas Hanna defined a perspective from inside as “somatic,” that is, pertaining to soma, the ancient Greek word for “living body” (20). The somatic involves the perception of the corporeal from the inside rather than the outside: “to yourself, you are a soma. To others, you are a body. Only you can perceive yourself as a soma—no one else can do so” (20). As a first-person perspective on the body, the somatic involves attention to perceptual processes (Csordas). Yet, in daily life, self-perception is the exception rather than the norm. Being in the world is active rather than reflective (Leder). Otherwise put, being alive requires a mode of engagement that goes “forwards” rather than “in reverse” (Ingold, Making 8).Were we constantly aware of our own presence and actions, this would obstruct their unfolding (Leder 19–20). In order not to inhibit its capacity for being, the body must remain to a great extent “absent” to itself (Leder 19). Some reflective possibilities nonetheless exist. In meditation, for instance, one can attend directly to bodily processes, with aesthetic and contemplative benefits (18–19). The opening somatic narrative presented my visualising of the golden thread as such a kind of reflexive engagement. There, the activity of visualising ceased to be an orientation towards an externally conceived “object” (the thread), becoming itself the end, or object, of perception.One may ask: What kind of sensory perception is mobilised in positing the “visualising” of the thread as “object” rather than as background process? I suggest it is proprioceptively-oriented kinaesthesia or, the perception of self-movement. In this mode of perception, the activity of visualising the thread yields kinetic and spatial impressions. Visualising, that is, is perceived as a movement of attention (Sheets-Johnstone 420–22).The image of the thread, meanwhile, has suggestively merged with the activity of visualisation, in two stages. First, it has guided my attention towards an otherwise-recessive bodily process. Secondly, it has lent its form to an otherwise-indeterminate bundle of sensations. I elaborate on this latter aspect in the following section, where the next somatic narrative posits thinking as a perceptual object, in the form of the image of a web of threads.Seeing through the Veil Walking home one day I noticed some thoughts unpleasantly affecting my mood. In recognising their negative impact, I decided that I should try and detach myself from them. I imagined that the thoughts were like threads woven together. This image of interwoven thoughts developed into another image: a coherent system of thoughts, or worldview, was like a “veil” spread between my eyes and the world. I could, quite literally, “remove” the veil through an act simultaneously of proprioceptive awareness and imagination, leaving my mind uncluttered. As new thoughts rushed in to form a new veil, I could also remove these and so on. As a reminder of this experience, I jotted down these words:If the veil is made of ideasThen thinking is weaving.Sometimes I can see the veilMade of the substance ofMy thoughts.When I see it,When I see the fabricOf thought that forms it,Then it disappears.When I see itWhen I can really see the veil,It’s by a certain way of seeingWhich is in my forehead.To see that way,Really look, with yourEyes as well asWith your mindFor the mind itselfCan attune,Can look, can see through the veil.Leder writes, “insofar as I perceive through an organ, it necessarily recedes from the perceptual field it discloses. I do not smell my tissue, hear my ear, or taste my taste buds but perceive with and through such organs” (14). Similarly, in ordinary conditions, I cannot think about my own mind. To see through the veil of thoughts requires a reflexive effort. It is to attend to the act, not the content, of thinking.This form of awareness can be seen as gestural, as it calls into play the body—a certain way of seeing/which is in my forehead. It is both a stepping back from thoughts, which allows me to see them as objects (a veil), and a removing of them, as though they were tangible things.Weaving the Body into the Night: Breath and Physical Forces as KnotsThe definition of somatic in the previous section anchors it to the point of view of the perceiver. The next somatic narrative describes how, through the image of thread, the perceiving I dissipates into contiguity with the world. Following my experience of perceiving my own thoughts as a veil, I further practised “moving my thoughts” through that image. One night the image of the veil “moved me,” that is, my entire body, in turn.As I cycle back home in the light rain I sense my own presence weaving in the fabric of the night. The fresh air flowing into and out of my nostrils and lungs, my feet pressing against the pedals, pushing my body up from the saddle, my legs looping. Dynamic energy mingles with currents of air passing through my body, and shining asphalt flowing under the wheels. Rhythm, like sowing my presence onto the air. And though the road is steep, tonight cycling up the hill feels effortless. My mind is empty and alert, engaging with the fabric of reality I can see. Is this “reality” or just my imagination? It would not make much difference to me. This somatic narrative reintroduces the image of the veil on a different scale. Now I see the veil as though through a microscope: myriad intertwining threads, and I am part of it. Threads run out of my limbs and lungs: gathering and propelling, pushes and pulls, in- and out-breaths. They weave with the night’s very limbs and lungs: streets, trees, the hill, the breeze, the deep embrace of the sky.For Ingold “every living being is a line or, better, a bundle of lines” (Lines 3). Lines are the movements that living beings perform as they relate—“corresponding,” “clinging,” “tying,” and “untying” (3–7)—to other living beings and the world. Breathing also is a line: “as we breathe in and out, the air mingles with our bodily tissues, filling the lungs and oxygenating the blood” (70). Or rather, breathing is a knot: it ties the inside with the outside. “Breathing is the way in which beings can have unmediated access to one another, on the inside, while yet spilling out into the cosmos in which they are equally immersed” (67).Cycling up-hill, breathing in and out, pushing and propelling, is a weaving of my body, a bundle of lines, with the ebb and flow of the weather-world (Ingold, Lines). This image evokes an outer spatial dimension to the body, an opening. It recalls my being one of multiple people holding and walking with the thread in the WT project. As with WT, feelings of resistance, flux, and being part of something bigger emerge.The image of threads feeds into the somatic perception of body-in-action, and vice versa. Here, engaging in action and imagination are not in contradiction but imply one another. They “correspond” (Ingold, Making): it is because my actions unfold through the imaginary framework of the night as veil that they can flow as they do, sinking in perceptual tracks of extended being.Muscle-Bones as ThreadsFor anthropologist Michael Jackson, metaphors reveal the identity of domains of being that the intellect strives to keep separate, such as the cultural and the natural. “Metaphor reveals unities; it is not a figurative way of denying dualities. Metaphor reveals, not the ‘thisness of a that’ but rather that ‘this is that’” (142, emphasis in the original). Whenever a crisis occurs, which undermines the unity of being-in-the-world, metaphors can be called upon to resolve the impasse and to make people “whole” (149).The final somatic narrative is an example of how an image can restore the unity of the physical and the mental. By imbuing the visceral body with the tangible qualities of a thing, the image of the thread turns the absent body into a sentient, responsive body. This, in turn, helps to overcome the impasse created by physical pain.Lying on the floor, sinking into it. The pain has been with me for years now. When stressed or tired, it spreads through the left side of my body. I have begun imagining the pain’s epicenter as a knot inside the pelvis, between left hip and tailbone. Looking inwards, I try and see the muscular fibres enveloping my limbs, connecting top to bottom. I summon the image of the thread. I make its fibres overlap with my muscle fibres. I want the thread to be the muscles, and the muscles to be the thread. This way I can disentangle the knots and find relief. My body is a deep, dark well. Breath is the rope that takes me down. Breathing in and out creates ripples of movement. They gently undo the knot, ease the pain. In this somatic narrative, my body is, once again, a bundle of threads. This time, however, this image has an anatomical inflection. Instead of generic movements, it is my very muscles that are threads. Early modern Dutch anatomist Ruysch also described muscles as made “of many parallel threads of different lengths,” which fitted with his overall view of the human body as divine “embroidery” (van de Roemer 180–82).In the previous section, a knot was a device for binding and securing life relations to survive a world that is, by its very nature, adrift (Ingold, Lines 67). Breathing enacted one such kind of knot “tying” the inside with the outside. In contrast, now a knot is a place of stagnation, of tension, where movement does not flow as it should. Breathing triggers minute movements throughout the body, which allow me to gradually undo the knot, releasing tensions and bringing relief.ConclusionDrawing on personal experiences, this article has sought to show that corporeal relations with an object can transcend its materiality. By engaging imagination and somatic attention, the thread lived a second life within and through my body.Based on the object’s characteristics and properties, the image of the thread refashioned, albeit momentarily, my relation with my body and the world. It allowed me to fill a perceived gap between body and world, between imagining and being.Finally, in relating to “unthinkable” aspects of being—mental and physical pain—the image of the thread was beneficial and even healing. 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