MAS Thesis:
Reading the Earth – The reconnection of the human body to the body of the earth, a cosmopolitical manifesto
Composed, written, directed, performed and produced by Andrea Maciel
30 minutes
Mentor: Jochen Kiefer
November 2025
Drawing on autobiographical references and existential questions, the author proposes an experience of reconnecting the human body to the body of the Earth from a philosophical-choreographic and cosmopolitical perspective, inspired primarily by the ideas of the indigenous poet and activist Ailton Krenak and the shaman Davi Kopenawa.
“Reading the Earth” brings to the stage the atmosphere of Brazil’s tropical forests and explores the poetics of reconnecting with the Earth through the heart, as a force that empowers the human capacity for transformation. Understanding that the Earth also has a heart and that the human heart not only pumps blood through our bodies but is the primary organ of relationships, experiences, and emotions, as well as being the strongest electromagnetic field in the human body, where consciousness resides.
Ailton Krenak recounts that, during a visit to his friend Davi Kopenawa Yanomami in his territory in the Amazon—at a time of crisis due to constant invasions by gold miners—he asked him how he managed to get through such difficult periods of crisis that could make a person sick. And Kopenawa replied that when he is facing great difficulty, he goes into the forest, finds a clearing, lies down on the ground, and waits for the forest and the earth to speak to him, for Omama (God) to speak to him. When Omama speaks, he gives him everything he needs to stay alive. Then he connects his body with the body of the earth to read the earth.
At the center of the scene, we see a woman lying on the ground, with threads crossing her body; the human and the non-human in a horizontal relationship. This horizontal position also broadens her perspective and allows her to look up at the stars and perceive the infinite universe, reminding her of where she came from and why she is here. By feeling the earth and breathing in unison with it, she connects with the God who inhabits her and embraces the nature of which she is a part and which, at the same time, constitutes her. This sensory experience is shared with the audience.
Believing that change is possible—that it begins within each of us and that every action matters—by opening our senses, perhaps we can become more flexible and generate an inner movement that allows for the “reforestation of our minds,” as Ailton Krenak tells us. We have distanced ourselves from the earth. We have been captured by a self-destructive and violent system. We need to reconnect with the source of life, which is the earth, and learn to read the earth, so that we can find other ways of living that are more in harmony with life.
We need to sing, dance, and “suspend the sky,” as the shaman Davi Kopenawa says and as these indigenous peoples from various continents around the world do. For Krenak, “suspending the sky” means broadening our horizon—not a prospective horizon, but an existential one. To expand the possibilities of existence, in the constant exercise of being and of forming alliances with other humanities, with other living beings, with the inanimate beings present in nature, and thus to reclaim the power of constant transformation of our bodies. The book of the Earth can be read with the body.