Abstract

This paper offers a reflexive analysis of how choreography may serve as both method and mode in legal research. It does so by presenting a case study of Bodylex (2021) – an original dance work choreographed by the author exploring the ways the body is “constituted by and constitutive of” laws (Shaw 2024:107). The stage production forms part of the author’s broader, ongoing practice-based inquiry into the corporeal manifestations of legal systems that engages with both the textual and aesthetic expressions of the law. As law manifests as an embodied practice, it can only fully be accessed and understood via corporeal means. Choreography echoes this logic, as it also systematically turns ideas and statements into embodied actuality (Lepecki 2010). It follows that choreographic approaches to the law, realised through the medium of dance, allow us to unlock latent (creative) jurisprudential perspectives that are otherwise held in virtual reserve. For Bodylex, such methods included the transliteration of legal doctrines into movement scores, abstract applications of textual representations of the law, and (re)creation of rule-based systems in improvisation and performance contexts. The result is a plurality of movements, gestures, sensations and affects which offer novel and expanded readings of the law for both participant and spectator.

How to Cite:

Ryan, R., (2026) “Bodylex: Choreography as Method and Mode in Legal Research”, Law Text Culture 29(1), 51–68.