BIO DATA

Gabriela Barra Arellano is a Chilean Social Anthropologist with Masters in Art theory and Doctorate in Dance and Performance. Expert on the subject, Gabriela had been in studies about body and its corporality, that is, the way the body moves in everyday life and expresses the personality of an individual, and the way he or she relates to others in society. Also she is interested in folklore dance to learn about cultures because exist Anthropology of the body and of the dances, of course, another not traditional form that allowed learn about the societies and cultures.

Being one of the few Chileans in study about this, she made her first studies in Rapa Nui with support of University of Chile for her thesis. After this Gabriela travelled to the Tibet and she stayed there for one year, practicing dance and therapy with her body, firstly alone and silence because she says “how will I study to others people movements if I don´t know about my corporality? , moreover, I feel that I will never know this completely until to die”. Afterwards she travelled to India and lived there for five years, in this place she was in the mains festivals about the Hindú religions and learnt about them putting emphasize on the performativity. Currently she is about to publish her first book about this; she don´t say the name of it, yet.

Nowadays, also, she is in Argentina teaching class in University of Buenos Aires, being part of the Department of the body and performance. Her module is called “Corporalidades” and joins theory and practice.