Costume as a somatic tool in dance education: A provocation

Somatic dance practice is a much needed accompaniment to any dance training, with many benefits to the students. However, breaking through to a sceptical novice student can be a challenge. And for those who fall willingly into the practice, becoming overly internalized and disconnected to the external can be equally problematic. In response to these issues, the author advocates that costume could be the answer. This visual essay will reflect on the absence of costume in dance education and examine its somatic nature through the analysis of relevant performance works. Evidencing costume’s haptic nature and impact on the performing body, its comparison with somatic dance practice principles will be discussed. Finally, the author suggests a definition of the somatic nature of costume and its recommendation as a tool to support the teaching of somatic practice in dance education.

Hold my hand: A somatic analysis of Sacred Circle Dancing

In a recent ethnographic study of Sacred Circle Dancing, I noticed that prominent circle dancing websites focused on its meditative and community-building aspects, whilst distinguishing features of practice – circling, handholding, centring and the sacred – remain mostly unaddressed. Developed in 1976 for Findhorn’s spiritual community in Scotland, Sacred Circle Dancing is usually considered from a folk roots perspective. What might somatic analysis offer Sacred Circle Dancing? In their editorial note to the Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices (6:1) on dance and somatic practices across cultures, Sylvie Fortin and Andrée Grau describe a prototype for somatic analysis that uses embodied methodology and challenges logocentric ways of knowing. I argue that somatic analysis excavates a spectrum of values embedded in practice, vital for the ethnographer in understanding why a group chooses a particular dance form. In the case of Sacred Circle Dancing, a contemporary discourse emerges engaging intimacy, culture and identity, ecology and the sacred, suggesting that the practice addresses these needs.

Somaticist in the dance archives: Exploring Jerome Robbins’ diaries through somatics

In this short piece, I highlight the question of how to bring somatics skills acquired in a somatics class to bear upon other life contexts. I use the example of scholarly work: I show how I use somatic methods as I conduct research in the archives of the choreographer Jerome Robbins (1918–98), housed at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. I suggest that we need to pay more attention to the question of how students and practitioners could bring physical awareness into their various life scenarios and tasks. I propose that if we learn how to transfer our somatic knowledge into different life contexts, our lives can become more embodied and we can tap into the knowledge that emanates from the physical self.

(Re-)engaging touch as a tango dancer: An experimental framework for kinaesthetic listening1

This article explores how the felt sense of touch, as engaged through the enabling constraints of the Argentine tango duet, can facilitate an experience of kinaesthetic listening in the spaces emerging between the dancer’s inside and outside worlds. The author’s habitual perception of giving and receiving touch as a tango dancer is destabilized by framing a series of somatic experiences in settings where customary tango conditions and assumptions do not apply. This involves experimenting with methods and tools of inquiry borrowed from contact and contemporary dance improvisation. The article argues that when practiced as a form of kinaesthetic listening, tango is conducive to a process of sensing and feeling together. In this process, it becomes possible to be touched both physically and affectively by the movement impulses negotiated between the partners. This possibility unsettles the reductive idea of one’s body as a separate entity preceding the encounter.

‘the idea for receiving the idea, that is the seed’: percolating and steeping in somatic music

Javanese dance artist Suprapto Suryodarmo (Prapto) led a keynote workshop as part of the Dance and Somatic Practices Conference 2017 at Coventry University. This workshop took a ‘wave’ format that involved different groups of participants flowing in and out of the durational workshop over three hours. The ‘somatic music’ created by Tim Jones and Adrian Lee accompanied and supported this flow, bringing the Amerta Movement practice into conversation with musical improvisation. The musicians later played with Prapto and presented their own ‘gig’ as part of the ‘Amerta Movement in Performance’ events in July 2018 and 2019 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK.1 After the Stroud workshop in 2019, Prapto asked researcher Emma Meehan to write to the musicians to discuss their exploration of ‘somatic music’. The following set of e-mail exchanges over the past year share excerpts of this ongoing dialogue instigated by Prapto. Following Prapto’s death in December 2019, we gathered our conversations here to pay tribute to his work and celebrate his inspiration to artists experimenting in Amerta Movement in performance. Alongside these conversations, we invite readers to listen to audio recordings of somatic music with Tim Jones, Adrian Lee and Prapto. Rather than presenting a definition of what somatic music is, we want to share perspectives on somatic music as an ongoing dialogue that will continue as part of Prapto’s legacy in years to come. A title for these exchanges suggested itself from Prapto’s comment (2018, 151–152) ‘the idea for receiving the idea, that is the seed’, to acknowledge his seeding of this conversation into existence.

The superhero in me: Connectivity between the dual identities of inner superhero and outer alter-ego

In this article, the author shares their processes and reflections from a somatic and pedagogical research project conducted at a Title I middle school in Tempe, Arizona. The project, ‘The superhero in me: Connectivity between the dual identities of inner superhero and outer alter-ego’ explores the duality, perceived dualism and duel-ism of the embodied middle school experience through the lens of superheroes and alter-egos. The research served several purposes: (1) exploration into how to communicate Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals along with key somatic concepts, such as self-awareness, self-control and autonomy to early adolescent learners in a way that is accessible and relatable, (2) facilitating an embodied understanding of the dualism between personal inner and outer identities, expressivity, attitudes and tendencies, with the aim of helping early adolescent students improve navigation of the challenging contexts they encounter (such as conflicting self and social identities, vulnerabilities, insider/outsider feelings, body image, self-confidence and the desire to be both unique and to fit in), (3) providing an opportunity for adolescent students to explore perceptions of inner and outer identities and the duel between these identities as carried within their own bodies and (4) creating an opportunity for students to collaboratively generate choreography. The dance classroom community chosen for this project had prior experience in dance within the school’s existing programme, specific learning challenges and opportunities for somatic knowledge development. Preliminary research and classroom observations unveiled thematic concepts (such as body image issues, low self-confidence and conflicting perceptions of self-identity) which informed teaching strategies, curriculum and subject matter. The framework of the curriculum considered critical theories of development, somatic practice, philosophy and collaborative inquiry. Questions that inspired the research included: how do early adolescent students construct understanding of their individual identities and experiences in a meaningful somatic way? How do we create lessons that integrate somatic exploration, social emotional learning and choreographic practice into early adolescent dance class? What is it about the adolescent experience that makes superheroes so compelling? What do superheroes tell us about ourselves?

Dance improvisation through Authentic Movement: A practice of discernment

Dance improvisation in performance is often spirited and unpredictable. But the form can also be hampered by its conditions of uncertainty so that a state of open, spontaneous creativity can actually become difficult to achieve in performance situations. In particular, the perceived ‘judgment’ of an audience can alternately enhance or inhibit the performer’s creative engagement with open improvisation. This article describes a studio process utilizing Authentic Movement which was directed towards a performance in which the dancers attempted to diminish the negative impact that external factors, or internalized perceptions of external factors, can have on improvisation. However, the article is specifically focused on the experiences of a single dancer (the author) in the studio practice which underpinned the performance. At the heart of this practice were personal explorations of how best to discern a positive personal interest while improvising. This discernment is framed as a means to define an ‘inner witness’ (drawing from Authentic Movement theory): an internal perceptual anchor at the centre of the practice which helps fosters an open, imaginative engagement with improvisation. The article also seeks to clarify a subjective situation in objective, theoretical terms and so to shed light on a phenomenon also experienced by many other performers of improvisation. Drawing on the work of Teresa Brennan and Mihali Csikszentmihalyi, the article examines how the affective impact of judgment can interrupt the spontaneous flow of embodied imagination in improvisation.

When body makes its presence felt: Somatic-informed movement practice as an integral part of the hospital care team

This article addresses the nature of somatic-informed movement practice (SIMP1) taking place in hospitals as a participatory art form. It focuses on the data from a report that collates the scope of practice, working patterns and procedures of somatic-informed movement practitioners in the United Kingdom (Collinson and Herd 2020), specifically the views of the six practitioners interviewed. The article first identifies key principles and values underpinning SIMP, exploring ways in which it might support people with illness. This is followed by a description of the aims and function of the report and data which enables us to see how SIMP cultivates embodied relational awareness through a ‘co-creative’ process, and concludes by addressing why creativity and presence can support people who may have lost trust and connection with their bodies through illness. The article acknowledges the challenge of placing embodied arts practice (such as SIMP) in a medical paradigm and includes recommendations for ways forward.