This essay discusses the manner in which the human body is developed and transformed into an aesthetically expressive medium. This process entails capitalizing on functions performed by the body schema and, more specifically, on using the perceptual experience (or "image") of the body to consciously form motor schemata. Since this process is common to any practice that centers on the acquisition of motor skills, the article goes on to discuss what bearing it has on the performance of gesture and, more generally, on the creation of communicative space; it also explores how this process affects the performer's sense of embodiment. (Contains 35 notes.)