What would be the position of the human body in medical technology? The performance is about doubts and questions around the marginalized body.

Posthuman embodiment of the body based on the choreographer’s experiences of treatment for infertility. In the medical scene, the human body is a territory of multiple types, which cannot be explained just as one model.
<What I Sense in the Matter > started from observing how the human body is connected to the material, social and political elements of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). But in an infertility clinic, these technologies change depending on bodies. So the performance will unfold a special and situation-led story about a very concrete and specific body where these technologies are applied. This will give shape to such technological application which is led by a combination of the body and technology. Initiated by choreographer Kim Bora, the production team has organized seminars on critical posthumanism and feminist studies of sceintific technology in order to find possibilities suggested by a combination of the human body and technolology in the field of dance and art. <What I Sense in the Matter > will be presented as part of Korea National Contemporary Dance Company’s “Dance x Technology Project” for the year 2024. The performance is expected to share the existential choreography of the posthuman body. Unlike a single, humanism-oriented body which ends with the surface of skin, a posthuman body is partially connected to technology as a space and source of technical application.

In Korea, assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are widely used. As of 2022, one out of ten Korean babies are born through in vitro fertilization. Old narratives of ART are characterized by their dualistic approach. According to such narratives, the body of the woman experiencing these technologies is either “autonomous” or “subjugated” while the procedure is either a “success” or a “failure.” This performance unveils ART within a network involving human and nonhuman elements. Such elements act in different ways to function in the network. It is in this context that the performance tells a new story of technology and the human body.