Dancing in the belly: performative inquiry in pregnancy

Pregnancy is an experience that calls us to pay attention; to witness with our mind, body, and soul. Attending to our lives through a process of sensing, perceiving, and comprehending is a creative process that can be named embodiment. Art making invites people to practice and develop skills in sensing, perceiving, and comprehending through its unique process of inquiry. Performative inquiry is a research method that guides researchers and participants through moments of recognition and interstandings through engaging in the arts. These moments of recognition and interstandings help identify ideas, experiences, and thoughts that are perceived important enough to attend to. Performative inquiry is a process of learning and expanding our capacity to sense and understand phenomena. In this project researcher and participants were called into a community of inquiry who used art making to focus on intersubjectivities and unique experiences present in the physicality of being pregnant.