Senderos del Peñasco: metaphor of a transborder mestiza cosmonaut through contemporary dance

Abstract

The present article addresses the aesthetic-political discourse of the contemporary dance piece "Senderos del Peñasco," in which the possibilities of imagining the dancing body as a repository of memories and a site of enunciation are explored. In a creative process guided by a multidisciplinary team, the story of its director and performer as a mestizo woman artist and migrant is the starting point from which a scenic metaphor is elaborated through a dancing body that questions the invisibility and marginalization of certain social groups based on their gender, skin color, and ethnic origin. From an anthropological perspective, the article examines the concepts of the body as a living archive and autobiography as tools for constructing artistic discourses that engage with social reality. The conclusions argue that the exploration of memory through the body provides a space for rethinking and reinterpretation of our stories and that, in the case of contemporary arts, their configuration as aesthetic-political discourses implies other possible ways of exploring and speaking about ourselves.