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- Volume 10, Issue 2, 2018
Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2018
Volume 10, Issue 2, 2018
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Human Garden Being in Relax Empty Axis/Empty Space with Suprapto Suryodarmo
Authors: Paul Baxter and Suprapto SuryodarmoAbstractFollowing his keynote workshop at the Dance and Somatic Practices Conference at Coventry University in July 2017, Prapto was interviewed a month later during a workshop in Amsterdam, by Paul Baxter and Sandra Reeve. During the interview Prapto reflects upon his experience in Coventry, his concept of Human Garden Being and the meaning of his movement work.
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This level of crust
By Paula KramerAbstractThese pages reflect on a short, intensive collaboration that took place during the fourth Dance and Somatic Practices Conference (2017) – a methodology lab I initiated to discuss and elaborate on working among and across material constellations of various orders. Three people with diverse backgrounds spent time co-investigating material agency, earthly matters, atmospheric impacts, geoastrological time scales and emplacement: Nigel Clark (NZ/UK) – social geography/geological agency/anthropocene/fire; Simo Kellokumpu (FI) – choreographic thinking/atmosphere/scale/reading; and Paula Kramer (DE/FI) – intermateriality/movement/body/site-specificity. The lab took place in the studio and outdoors, where together and alone we tested, moved, read, talked, discussed. In the end we shared an indoor installation and outdoor performance practice. This text is written by Paula, a third of the trio, from a partial and particular perspective.
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Earth, Tree, Rock and Sea
By Helen PoynorAbstractThe following statement of practice focuses on my experience of moving and working with others in ‘natural’ environments. The introduction contextualises this practice indicating what it can offer participants including: ‘time out’ from daily life, a deeper experience of the body and a renewed sense of kinship with the natural world. Environmental movement practice can support us to navigate our inner and outer landscapes simultaneously. The introduction is followed by two pieces of poetic writing reflecting my own experience of moving in response to two local sites with which I have a long-standing relationship: one a wooded hill-fort, the other a tidal area on the coast. The text is accompanied by images taken on the sites.
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Breathing and growth: Performing with plants
More LessAbstractIn this article breathing as a practice and vegetal growth as a form of movement are discussed by first returning to some repeated performances for camera made in Helsinki in 2004–05 and a text written in 2008 describing them in relation to Luce Irigaray’s ideas on breathing. These are then looked at from a current perspective and related to Michael Marder’s ideas on the place of plants, of growth as one of the Aristotelian forms of movement and Marder’s challenge to the arts to consider the vegetal. Based on Irigaray’s and Marder’s joint suggestion, in ‘Thinking anew’, to learn from plants, this article proposes that one way to begin considering performing with plants as a somatic practice could be, simply, breathing with plants.
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Somatic/embodiment/technology as an evolutive strategy: The ontological shift of the performative body in contact with technologies
More LessAbstractThis article examines the new and multiple relationships of the senses and related perceptual and cognitive processes that characterize contemporary performance integrating new technologies. Focusing on the corresponding effects on embodiment, corporeality and performativity, it considers the sensori-perceptual ‘re-creation’, reorganization, deconstruction and reconstruction involved when the body interacts with, is ‘touched’ by, and ‘incorporates’ the effects of technology. While taking into consideration a current context of research-creation and its conceptual prerogatives, the article centres on the question of technological intervention from the perspective of its encounter(s) with the sensate, somatic body. Based on the premise of the body as a living perceptual entity, adaptive biological phenomenon and indeed, technology in its own right, the author redefines a contemporary status of the body while analysing the artistic strategies employed to inscribe the mediated body and its manifestations within a contemporary artistic production. The article concludes by suggesting that the phenomenological mediation of the performative body is an evolutive form of the sensate, somatic body that could have the potential to bring about the emergence of another form of embodiment and intercorporeality, or even, another form of dance specific to the twenty-first century. Possibly an alternative to the concept of the post-human.
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The audience experience of immersion through intersubjective embodiment in Sensuous Geographies (2003)
By Seok Jin HanAbstractThis article analyses an immersive interactive installation Sensuous Geographies (2003), created by choreographer Sarah Rubidge in collaboration with composer Alistair MacDonald. It applies phenomenological philosophies to critical interpretations of audience participants’ embodied experience. Rubidge employs choreographic sensibilities in designing a performative human–computer interface where the participants create their own sonic signature through physical behaviours while interacting with each other. The digital sound emerges as the ‘dys-appearing body’, as philosopher Drew Leder terms it, because it becomes part of their doubled embodiment but is perceptible due to its otherness. Moreover, the emergent sound embodies the participant’s subjectivity, which develops out of inter-subjectivity, since it is not transparent for the participant him/herself but generated through the intertwinement of the self and others. The self-perception of the corporeal body is heightened through digital imagery, costumes, facial veils and tactile materials, which provide the participant with a more intuitive and embodying experience of the sonic environment.
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Schooling an ensemble: The Forsythe Company’s Whole in the Head
More LessAbstractThis embedded ethnographic study focuses on The Forsythe Company’s 2010 creation of Whole in the Head, the cast of which brought already-expert new dancers into collaboration with experienced ensemble veterans. The devising practice during the making of this ‘Schulwerk’ yielded teaching and learning opportunities to all of the participants, whilst the emergent and distributed opportunities afforded by the devising context scaffolded the ensemble’s development as a complicit, choreographically productive community informed by specific somatic approaches to movement generation. Moving among unexpected etymological linkages of the term skill across languages, the analysis shows how the devising process of this work enhanced crucial expert-specific skills across the full ensemble, inviting consideration of the nature of skill and its expansion within communities of experts.
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The critical potential of somatic collectivity under post-Fordism
By Noyale ColinAbstractThe last decade of scholarship in dance has produced a number of literary contributions which account for the need to theorize the radical potential of dance as a site for political activism in the context of global social and economic crises. As a practitioner, teacher and theorist in dance and performance, working in a UK university, I am interested in exploring the potential of somatics to resist a seemingly utilitarian incorporation of somatic principles into the agenda of neo-liberalism under post-Fordist conditions. In this article, I refer to somatics as an umbrella term to discuss practices related to the dance field including protests, walks, flashmobs and choreographic explorations of performative participation. While these practices might not be widely recognized as somatic practices, I argue that all operate at a somatic level and point to an ever-shifting relationship between the individual, the collective and the social environment. I reflect on a number of theoretical ideas pertaining to the relations between the development of somatics and the intensification of cultural capitalism in contemporary western society. In doing so, I aim to theorize somatics as critical and political practices of collective forms of being and working together. Drawing on instances of collective embodiment, I argue for the politicization of somatic practices as it relates to ideas of affect, ethics and time. I suggest that embodied expressions of collectivity as politicized somatics can develop valid tactics to counter what I observe to be a mimetic phenomenon between dance practices and capitalism. I propose the concept of somatic collectivity as a way to describe the critical potential of collective embodiment found in dance and its expanded field of practices.
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Zarf & Portakal: Dance as a medium for understanding experiences of violence
By Ninel ÇamAbstractThe dance performance Zarf & Portakal was staged on the 11 February 2016 at the Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall, Istanbul. It opened a concert addressing the issue of ‘Violence against Women’, organized by the Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz. Its title is a metaphorical expression of two powerful sensations that emerged through the investigation of this subject through dance. Zarf is the Turkish word for envelope, evoked by the clothing and concealment of a woman’s body and existence. The concept of female jouissance, as used by Hélène Cixous to describe the physical, mental and spiritual aspects that come together in female sexual pleasure, is expressed through Portakal, meaning an orange, the fruit.
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Fibromyalgia and the Feldenkrais method: Action research examining the teacher–student dynamic in transfer of learning
Authors: Sylvie Fortin and Élise HardyAbstractThis action research brought together a group of Feldenkrais teachers and two groups of primarily female students living with fibromyalgia. The aim of the study was to work together to develop ways to allow the students to transfer knowledge acquired during weekly Feldenkrais lessons into their everyday lives. Based on the analysis of the empirical data collected, the research team developed a theoretical model of transfer of learning that calls attention to the importance of the student–teacher dynamic in the transfer of learning process. While this process may be different for each person, we argue that it occurs in three identifiable stages: (1) learning about the Feldenkrais method in the classroom; (2) applying the content and/or pedagogy of the Feldenkrais classes in everyday life; and (3) integrating knowledge gained through Feldenkrais classes into various spheres of one’s life. Despite the positive testimonies obtained throughout this action research, the authors of this article emphasize that the Feldenkrais method should not be seen as a panacea. Emphasis on the first-person experience, which is the basis of the Feldenkrais method, may run the risk of depoliticizing the broader social forces that contribute to the production and reproduction of fibromyalgia.
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Shin Somatics contact unwinding: Developing mindfulness through interpersonal relationship
More LessAbstractThe Shin Somatics practice, contact unwinding, is a mindful improvisation practice aimed at clearing the chakras and promoting self-healing through physical and energetic connection of a primary mover and supportive guide. Developed by Sondra Fraleigh, contact unwinding encourages a primary mover to respond to internal cues, as well as a supportive guide’s energetic and tactile guidance. The practice is unique in encouraging partners to be present-centred, communicate clearly and honestly through touch, and reflect verbally in a manner allowing both parties to increase self-awareness without judgement or projection. This article explores contact unwinding’s potential to develop both mindfulness and interpersonal skills through holding presence and matching through touch. Using mindfulness-based cognitive behavioural therapy as an exemplar, I suggest the practice’s potential benefit to individuals seeking relief from psychosomatic disorders.
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Reflections on the GYROKINESIS® Method: Interview with Juliu Horvath
More LessAbstractThis article explores the development of the GYROKINESIS® method, examines somatic principles related to the method and includes an interview with Juliu Horvath, its founder and creator. Topics within the interview include the concepts of sensing energetic flow, daily practice as means for sustainability and the role of playfulness and physical spirituality in bodywork. Woven within the interview are observations about the method from my background as a dance professor and experiential insights from participation in Gyrokinesis coursework with the founder. Pleasure in practice and my felt sense are documented through multidimensional sensory tracking. Perspectives include the descriptive experience of sensate flow and the perceptions that arise from teaching and learning within a living method. The article concludes with questions for further practice-based research in the Gyrokinesis method and suggests the need for further theoretical research in somatic sustainability.
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The sourcing of Somatic Theatre Praxis: Breathing with a goat, contemplating 2000 turkeys and an unexpected interview
More LessAbstractIn this article the notion of ‘Somatic Theatre Praxis’ (suggested by theatre director and scholar Teresa Izzard) is used as an umbrella term to describe recent tendencies in the contemporary performing arts to employ somatic practices at all stages of work – training, rehearsal, dramaturgy and performance. The main topic under scrutiny – the sourcing of Somatic Theatre Praxis – particularizes the process of designing a novel somatic experience for the actor, which materializes dramaturgical questions and vision as much as it shapes the somatic practices subsequently introduced and employed during all phases of the creative process. As a case study on sourcing Somatic Theatre Praxis, this article presents my artistic collaboration with Portuguese theatre director João Brites on the production of The Divine Comedy – Inferno (2017). In the context of the fields of performance theory and embodied cognition I discuss examples of documented studio work to show how somatic practices informed specific acting and composition techniques used by Brites in the framework of his ‘Consciousness of the Actor on the Scene’ (CAC) system. The article concludes by drawing on contrasting conceptions of new dramaturgies in the performing arts to arrive at a tentative theoretical contextualization of the work created by João Brites and his theatre company Teatro O Bando.
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Book Reviews
Authors: Rosemary E. Kostic Cisneros and Sharon WeilAbstractIsadora Duncan in the 21st Century – Capturing the Art and Spirit of the Dancer’s Legacy
Andrea Mantell Seidel (2016), North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc., Publishers, 272pp., ISBN 978-0-78647-795-1, Ebook; ISBN 978-1-47662-369-6, p/bk, $29.95
Infinite Waves of Health and Creativity: A Virtual Somatic Summit
An ongoing series of live and recorded interviews with somatic experts Somaticsummit.com
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