Dancing and Performing

This chapter reflects on critical and creative literatures on dance and performance in human geography. It takes the US-Mexico border as reference point and focuses on empirical research with El Paso Ballet Theatre, to examine how dance and performance contribute novel thinking and approaches to studying the cultural-political geographies of the border landscape. The chapter is organised around three themes: pedagogies, practices, and participation. These represent timely avenues of cultural geographical enquiry and intersect with the discipline's broader interest in interdisciplinarity and co-production. Firstly, the chapter foregrounds choreographic pedagogy in advancing theorisations of border policing. Secondly, it traces transcultural dance practices in shaping borderland identities. Thirdly, it explores radical participatory dance as a now popular, if contentious, sphere of public engagement. While grounded in the borderscape, the chapter concludes by elucidating the distinct contribution of dancing and performing to researching spaces and scales from the body to the nation.