Feminisms in the Caribbean: When body becomes feeling

When body becomes feeling, the third episode of Feminisms in the Caribbean series, arises from a conversation with the choreographer and performer Marily Gallardo. Teacher in Afro Antillean dance, she is also founder and organiser of Kalalú Danza, Afro Caribbean Cultural Research and Creative Action Lab in Santo Domingo. As Marily Gallardo says in an interview with Dominican journalist Patricia Solano, it is fundamental to recognize the body as the first territory, as the most important place to construct the experience of life. This is because the body is also a denied territory, inhabited by social disciplines, above all for women. Marily Gallardo’s work is a constant affirmation practice of the body, individual, collective and communitarian at the same time. Her body and all the bodies she carries become present in her words through the polyrhythm and energy they radiate, making her writing also dance, brimming with movements and gestures. The culture of black communities is the matrix of Dominican identity. However, as Marily says, the importance and relevance of Afro-Dominican dance is still absent in many official dance studies, including that of the national dance school. Recognizing the techniques and the organised systems of Afro-Dominican dance to place it in official curricula is also part of her work as a choreographer and teacher. Kalalú dance school started its activity more than two decades ago. Emerging from the need to bring back the experience of creativity and reflection on Dominican culture, their collective work reinforces Afro-Caribbean ways of doing, both in their insular and peninsular territories…