Reflections on bodies in lockdown: The coronasphere

Abstract

This short essay focuses on how experiential measurements of the extent of the body have altered vis-à-vis breath, in the context of going outside during the pandemic, and the critical tools that dance-based practical knowledge can bring to this moment. I attend to the implications of some of the various ways in which we are retraining ourselves to inhabit the world in relation to breath. I highlight the limits of fixed-distance models of social distancing, proposing instead the “coronasphere” as an alternative paradigm for perceiving the changing shapes of the body in terms of the breath, and argue for the urgent choreographic potential of both finding and analyzing public movement on that sensory basis. Being able to carry out my job from home suggests that my body’s labor is deemed nonessential in this moment. Yet, as part of that majority “yet-to-be infected” population (Huat, 2006), I am responsible for moving in public as though I could be exposed or expose others. Comparing the 6-foot negotiations by passersby on the street to a pedestrian dance, one dance critic pointed out that “If this pandemic is teaching us anything, it is that we need to return to our bodies” (Kourlas, 2020). As the pandemic redefines the extent of our bodies by the range of our breath, it changes how we choreograph public movement. It may look like there is more distance between people than usual, but it feels like the matter of my body and that of others have expanded. I sense each stranger in terms of how close my air might come to touching them and vice versa. Indirect spatial pathways are the new normal, as we each step sideways, allowing the particles of our respective breath to become entangled between us as they fall to the ground. Someone passing within what used to be a reasonable amount of personal space is now threatening.