BodyPedia

Medieval copyists often added comments or explanations of the meaning of obscure words on the margins or between the lines of texts, the so-called glosa (glosses). In time, the number of glosa grew so much that they started to be considered valuable in their own right, and were collected and printed as glossaries, which often gained an independent life from the works they were originally a part of. Nowadays glossaries are multilingual collections of terms from particular fields, designed to facilitate translation.

BodyPedia is a series of panel discussions with martial art masters, actors, dancers, directors, dramaturges, anthropologists, philosophers and physiotherapists, which will lay the groundwork for a glossary of practice-based definitions of terms describing the use of the body in performative contexts. The entries to be discussed in April: ‘physical actions’, ‘centre’, ‘old age’, ‘the actor’s dramaturgy’.