“Without dance there is no life...”. socio-corporal articulation through K-POP in Latin America.

Abstract

Korean popular culture, or Hallyu (the Korean wave), as a global phenomenon, has had a significant impact on everyday life in Latin America. In particular, K-pop dance has become consolidated as a relevant everyday practice. For this reason, this article proposes to analyze K-pop dance performances as a multisensory expression that, at the same time, can be considered a sociocultural narrative. The empirical data for this research come from extensive and prolonged fieldwork carried out between 2019 and 2023 in Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador (in situ), and in Venezuela (virtually). A methodology that I refer to as “urban corpographies” was applied, which integrates various techniques and tools aimed at understanding the potential of dance expression and bodily perception in contemporary global contexts. I support my arguments based on the theoretical-methodological contributions of phenomenology, post-phenomenology, and visual-digital ethnography, within a research framework that considers the multiple influences and sensibilities that traverse bodies and are expressed through non-verbal articulation as a powerful tool in cultural practice.