Abstract

In this article I investigate the choreographic practice and work of Marcelo Evelin as a specifically haptic mode of what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari call becoming-imperceptible. In times where power dynamics become ever more supple and non-localisable, the notion of becoming-imperceptible is an apt conceptual figure in naming both the conditions of power as well their modes of resistance. On this basis, I analyse Evelin’s practice of massa in its choreographic hapticality as a collective process of desubjectification, in which bodies become prismatic as they refract one another in a pluralistic field of agency. I then turn to Evelin’s group piece, A Invenção da Maldade, which, in my view expands this haptic and prismatic field to include the audience. By doing so, the piece can be said to engender what I call haptic space. Through an in-depth analysis of the work I argue that haptic space is an asignifying and appositional mode of co-existence that has the capacity to problematize contemporary forms of power by intensifying affect-ability and virtual tactility. Finally, I contemplate the psychosocial effects of the loss of haptic spaces during the Covid-19 pandemic.