The applied artist’s body as source material

This article explores how the applied artist’s body can function as central source material within performance-making and pedagogy to signal new approaches to applied performance training. Conceptualizing the applied artist as the facilitator-in-training, we reflect on Nameun Kim’s final MA performance at the University of Birmingham, which engaged her body not as a representational tool but as a site of material presence and political resonance. Drawing from live art vocabularies, the article considers how Kim’s embodied engagement with the histories of Japanese comfort women challenges conventional notions of agency, representation and authorship in applied performance. In the context of an aesthetic turn within applied performance, we argue that a return to the body – as a complex, socially and culturally imbued site – is urgently needed in applied performance training, particularly in the Global North. By framing the artist’s body as both aesthetic and pedagogical source material, we advocate for interdisciplinary approaches that locate and re-engage the facilitator’s body. In so doing, facilitator training will support the applied artist to be more prepared for reflections on self and community while advancing the field’s new aesthetics.