HomeClasses and EventsEventsMELT Reading Group: Body Magic – An Embodied Rebellion
  • Tue, Jul 15, 2025 | 6:30-8:00PM
A black and white photo taken during a performance of luciana achugar nude kneeling on top of a window ledge looking out into some trees with her left hand grabbing down on the window's ledge and her right hand grabbing the ends of her long hair pulled together just in front of the same right shoulder. She is looking away so one can only see the back of her head. This was taken during a performance inside of a warehouse with large windows looking out into many trees during the sunset hours. Image courtesy of Feltspiele Hamburg.
ID: A black and white photo taken during a performance of luciana achugar nude kneeling on top of a window ledge looking out into some trees with her left hand grabbing down on the window's ledge and her right hand grabbing the ends of her long hair pulled together just in front of the same right shoulder. She is looking away so one can only see the back of her head. This was taken during a performance inside of a warehouse with large windows looking out into many trees during the sunset hours. Image courtesy of Feltspiele Hamburg.

In this MELT Reading Group: Body Magic – An Embodied Rebellion, participants will read one chapter from Silvia Federici’s “Caliban and the Witch,” a history of the body in the transition to capitalism rooted in the history of the persecution of the witches and the disciplining of the body; where she shows the battle against the rebel body and the conflict between body and mind.

Participants will also read an excerpt from achugar’s own writing on her “Pleasure Practice.” We will discuss and connect the dots between capitalism, labor and the body, witch hunts, colonization, racism and western civilization’s ideas of what is knowledge, anatomy, medicine, healing, ritual, spirituality, trauma and how they all relate to dance, ritual, and magic.

Accessibility Notes

  • This event includes auditive guidance.
  • This event includes printed materials and digital readings.

To request ASL interpretation or Audio Description, please email accessibility@movementresearch.org, subject line “ASL/Audio Description Request, MELT Reading Group ” at least three (3) weeks prior to the event date.

For access-related questions and requests, please contact accessibility@movementresearch.org, subject line “MELT Reading Group.”

Past event

Location

MR, 122CC – Courtyard Studio
150 First Avenue
New York, NY 10009

  • Get the Green - IRT Lexington Avenue Line numbers: 6 to Astor Place
  • Get the Light slate gray - BMT Canarsie Line numbers: L to 1st Avenue
  • Get the Orange - IND Sixth Avenue Line numbers: F to 2nd Avenue

Artists

luciana achugar

luciana achugar

luciana achugar is a Brooklyn-based choreographer from Uruguay who grew as an artist in close dialogue with the NY and Uruguayan contemporary dance communities. Her work is concerned with the post-colonial world, searching for an undoing of current power structures from the inside out.

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