Towards probody artmaking: from rehabilitation, prehabilitation to prohabilitation ¹

If performance training is to retain its relevance for community performers, it will need to foster not only practices of social care but also of bodily care. Responding to my long-term work with community performers of older population, I argue that the creative process of performance making should be a form of prohabilitation. In my discussion, I first outline the multidimensionality of bodily damage, as well as the two extant approaches to addressing them–rehabilitation and prehabilitation. I then propose prohabilitation as an endeavor to complement these two by enabling the individual to concurrently self-care and to carry out required tasks. To illustrate how prohabilitation may operate in performance, I turn to two probody artmaking projects, The Heartland of Pear Blossoms and Towards Probody Artmaking, as examples. Probody artmaking is a sub concept of prohabilitation. It is a body-centric creative approach guided by artistic and interventional goals. In addition to self- and other-care before and after practice, probody artmaking seeks to engage performers to take care during and through their practice. Mastery of movement strategies and principles, sufficient quality repetitions, and conducive performance ecology are key factors in fostering the implementation of probody artmaking.