Work

The critical potential of dance: Expressivity, affect, and aesthetics

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article explores artistic creation as a critical operation in prison, focusing on CORPOEMCADEIA, a contemporary dance project with inmates at Linhó Prison, Portugal. Using a qualitative, ethnographic approach, and drawing on pragmatic sociology, it examines how dance enables embodied, aesthetic engagement that reconfigures prison experience. Through gestures and movement, critique emerges as a sensitive, situated, and nondiscursive practice that reveals moral and subjective tensions. The article argues that, even under constraint, dance can function as a form of poetic justice and political expression, offering alternative ways of being and relating.

Source: DIY Alternative Cultures & Society

DOI: 10.1177/27538702251415205

Authors: José Maria Carvalho, José Manuel Resende

Institutions: Universidade Politécnica de Portalegre, University of Évora

Language: English

Topic: Arts and Performance Studies

Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,400