intimacy without proximity

Inspired by Donna Haraway’s concept of “intimacy without proximity,” this project reflects on the importance of intimacy, touch, and bodily connection. The starting point for the project is to explore how we can find intimacy with everything around us, realizing that we are active agents in this network of relations. Proximity in this project means the relationship to one another in every way. In interweaving networks of different worlds, we have a responsibility to care for other beings, to converge and to understand the worlds of others without depriving of them.

As part of my 2-month research period on a new project intimacy without proximity, I became interested in exploring being in touch with more-than-human worlds through embodied movement practices. I developed movement practices and choreographic sequences that are based on elements of touch, listening, sensing, and evoking a sense of connection to the more-than-human world by becoming aware of our sensorial perception.

In the context of this research, intimacy or being in touch does not only mean physical intimacy or physical touch but an understanding of relationship to the more-than-human world around us through our whole bodily being.

Please find the short dance film that was filmed as part of the research project below.