Remembering the Shoah through Modern and Contemporary Dance: Historical Trauma, Trans-subjectivity, and Trans-textuality in Bracha

Resumen

This article proposes a methodological framework for engaging with dance and embodied practice through a horizontal, non-hierarchical relationship with critical theory. This approach centers on «thinking through/with» dance practice as the primary mode of theoretical articulation, moving beyond conventional methodologies that apply pre-established theory as a rigid analytical toolkit. To demonstrate this method, the case study is Bracha, a choreographic piece co-created by a Mexican dancer-choreographer and the author —the product of an «encounter-event» between scholar and artist. The analysis situates Bracha within the lineage of German Expressionist and American modern dance (particularly Martha Graham’s influence) and its reception within the Mexican modern and contemporary context. Dedicated to Israeli-French artist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher Bracha L. Ettinger, the choreography takes her name as its title. The article explores how Bracha «works through» traumatic traces of the Shoah, establishing a complex trans-textual relationship with Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter (1974), Marlene Dietrich, and Hans Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1520-1522). The presence of these artistic grafts illustrates a process of encryption, embedding traumatic traces of Nazi Germany and the Shoah within the choreographic structure. Realized through the dancer’s embodied movement, the dance piece becomes a unique form containing these traces and fragments of memory from irreducible others, which may remain frozen or encrypted. This structure simultaneously establishes a «borderspace» —that offers the potential for the transformation of trauma. Ultimately, this article argues that the choreography functions as a performative homage to, rather than a neat application of, Ettinger’s matrixial psychoanalysis. Specifically, Bracha evokes Ettinger’s focus on the transmission of traumatic experiences at a trans-subjective and «matrixial» level, mobilized by artistic practice and aesthetic experience.