dsp conference handbook fri v2 - coventry...
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Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1
0945 – 1015 ET221: Welcome Martin Woolley, Associate Dean, Coventry School of Art & Design Sarah Whatley & Natalie Garrett Brown Introduction: Emergence of Form Aesthetic Practice & Embodiment Research Group
1015 – 1100 ET221: Keynote Dancing bodies, spaces/places and the senses: a crosscultural investigation As an anthropologist specialising in dance I argue that ‘dancing bodies’, ‘space’ and ‘place’ cannot be accepted as universal concepts since they are embedded within typically western understandings, firmly rooted in a Kantian perspective of the body in space. I also argue that our common understanding concept of the five senses is an ethnocentric construct, not especially useful when trying to make sense of dance. I will use a number of ethnographic examples to underpin what an anthropological approach can bring to our understanding of dance. Andrée Grau is Professor of the Anthropology of Dance and Director of the Centre for Dance Research at the University of Roehampton London, where she also convenes the MA in Dance Anthropology. She has carried out fieldwork in South Africa, Australia, India, and the UK and has published widely in English and in French both in anthropology and dance studies.
1130 – 1330 ETG34: Panel 1A Body Discourses Chair: Natalie Garrett Brown ‘Points of View': Exploring and Reflecting Embodied Gazes in the Performer Training Space In dance, ‘apperception is grounded not just in the eye but in the entire body’, thus necessitating reconsideration of the static, filmic concept of the objectifying male gaze (Daly 2002: 307). This paper proposes that such reconsideration can be deepened through exploration of the gazes, which are developed within the psychophysical performer training space. Focusing specifically upon Phillip Zarrilli and Sandra Reeve’s psychophysical trainings, I begin by examining the disembodied gaze and self-‐conscious response to observation frequently initially evident in these practices. I argue that the multiple embodied gazes that participants subsequently develop, and the possible embodied forms of writing about and through these gazes, can challenge and move beyond alternative paradigms to the binarised concept of the singular male gaze. Such challenges are placed in dialogue with Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous’ theoretical explorations of gazing.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 Alissa Clarke is a Lecturer in Drama at De Montfort University. She completed an AHRC-‐funded PhD at the University of Exeter in 2009. Alissa’s research interests include: psychophysical performance and performer training, feminist and gender theory and performance practice, and documentation of performance. Alissa has been practising Phillip Zarrilli’s performer training since 2002, and has been involved with Sandra Reeve’s ‘Move into Life’ work since 2005. Dancing with Socrates: Telling the Truth about the Self This paper aims to take Michael Peters’ article on Socrates and Foucault (Peters, 2003), and Foucault’s writings on the care of the self and technologies of the self as the starting point for a discussion on what it might mean in the context of dance and movement training to practice the telling of truth about oneself. The paper will also reflect on what telling lies about oneself might mean in this context and the significance truth-‐telling and lying might have in constructing an embodied self that can engage in more than its own well-‐being and mean more than its own happiness. Self-‐transformation and the changing sense of the physical self -‐ as in the self-‐harmed, the disabled or the trans-‐gendered body -‐ implicitly question what it means to tell the truth or tell lies about your body and your sense of self. Thus it is not only health but also its opposites that tell us and others about what it means to be human. Mark Evans, Coventry University, has published on movement training for the modern actor (Routledge, 2009) and on the teaching and theories of the French theatre practitioner Jacques Copeau (Routledge, 2006). His research interests include the physical training of the performer, training for enterprise and entrepreneurship within the creative performance sector, and the relationship between training, education and industry. He is currently guest editing a special issue of the Theatre Dance and Performance Training Journal on Sport and Performance Training, to be published in 2012. An action research: The Feldenkrais method with women presenting eating disorders. In this paper, we will present the results of an action research conducted over 21 weeks with 8 women suffering from eating disorders for an average of 30 years. The aim was to 1) describe the women’s experiences and meanings of Feldenkrais classes captured by individual and group interviews as well as autoethnographic writing on a web platform, 2) to identify any possible relationships between perceptual changes of their body awareness and eating disorders. A data analysis inspired by grounded theory showed the social production of bodily experiences through popular and medical discourses. In a short period of time, the Feldenkrais classes showed their potential to help the participants to consciously challenge the dominant social discourse by making concrete changes in the way they perceived themselves. They were occasionally able to change their daily activities and various eating habits. Sylvie Fortin and Chantal Vanasse (not attending) Sylvie Fortin, Ph.D., is associate professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, and director of the graduate programs in dance and somatic education.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 She is well known as a somatic practitioner and prolific author of body-‐related issues in the arts. Sylvie is currently involved in a series of funded research projects focusing on the constructions of health. She is part of CINBIOSE (Centre for the Study of Biological Interactions on Human Health) and ‘Invisible That Hurts’, two interdisciplinary research groups that favour an interdisciplinary and feminist approach. Body schema and body image in the Feldenkrais Method New conceptual tools to describe and discuss the Feldenkrais Method For this presentation, I’ll introduce two concepts that Moshe Feldenkrais has used in a rather loose way in his writings : body schema and body image. The same terms have been given by S. Gallagher (1995, 2005) more recent definitions that are relevant to the Feldenkrais Method, firstly because Gallagher presents those two notions as both distinct and interdependant functions of action. My proposal is to present how those two notions open to a new way of describing the system and purposes of the Feldenkrais Method, which might be more legible to a non-‐Feldenkrais public, yet very loyal to the actual Feldenkrais practice. In Gallagher’s terms, the Feldenkrais Method is aiming at recreating plasticity in the body schema, and does so through the mobilization of body image. Conversely, the Feldenkrais Method may help describing and understanding the difficult question of how body image and body schema interact and interlace. Isabelle Ginot is Professor at the Dance department of Université Paris VIII and has been a dance writer and theoretician for many years, contributing to French newspapers and international dance magazines. She has collaborated with various dance companies, theaters and festivals and wrote several books on dance, such as: La Danse au XXième siècle, M. Michel and I. Ginot, Paris (Bordas: 1995), Larousse: 1998, 2002; Dominique Bagouet, un labyrinthe dansé -‐ essai d'analyse de l’oeuvre chorégraphique, I. Ginot, Pantin, éd. CND, 1999. Isabelle Ginot is also a certified Feldenkrais practitioner and is currently working in conjunction with the Movement Analysis discipline to adapt this method to the needs of dancers.
1130 – 1330 ET126: Workshop 1B (20 places) Chair: Katye Coe Examining the use of tactile aid in Somatic teaching: A practical workshop in Contact Unwinding Using tactile aid in somatic education taps into a rich reservoir of information within the body’s structure, often releasing tensions, reminding us of ease, re-‐ awakening forgotten pathways and unlocking new potential in our learning. So how can we employ tactile aid in somatic teaching and what is the significance of its application to student learning? This practical workshop offers some hands on work from the practice of Shin Somatics® (original work of Sondra Fraleigh). In particular it examines the application of touch in contact unwinding. This process promotes a supportive environment for learning using a
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 guide and a mover. The guide matches, initiates and guides the movement of the mover, learning the importance of being present through touch, whilst assisting the mover in their explorations. The mover is invited to move away from the familiar and expected, exploring new possibilities of motion and developing a keener sense of self. Karin Rugman is an experienced performer, choreographer and teacher who has worked extensively in education and the local community for over 20 years. Karin has a background in contemporary dance, with experience in Alexander Technique, Tai Chi, Ideokinesis and Feldenkrais Technique. She is an advanced student in Shin Somatics ®, currently studying at the Eastwest Institute for Dance and Movement Studies under the guidance of Sondra Fraleigh. She is presently a Senior Lecturer in Dance at Bath Spa University and has been working hard to establish advanced somatic practice in the Dance Department at Bath Spa University, her work feeding directly into undergraduate study at all levels.
1130 – 1330 ET221: Panel 1C Pedagogical Explorations Chair: Kirsty Alexander Touch: Between Experience and Knowledge Making This practical paper explores responses to touch as a socialising interaction and contributory feature of our knowledge making. Touch has a complex and somewhat problematic position in knowledge formation; prized as the king of the senses and yet marginalised for its association with pain, contagion and negative power relations, leaving the experience for some as something unwelcome, or threatening. Introducing the first stage of a larger programme of research the aim is to explore an understanding of what it is to ‘know’, when informed by our perception of touch. The intention is to critically engage with an empathetic transmission of information through touch, when used as an integral part of performer training. The discussion considers the complex inter-‐connections that exist in learning, between an, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ experience of identity, authority, role, and ‘difference’. Fiona Bannon is Senior Lecturer (Dance) in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds. She leads the MA Performance, Culture and Context and MA Choreography and teaches choreography, collaborative performance practice, and research methods with postgraduate and undergraduate students. Research includes exploring of arts practice, aesthetic development and everyday life. Recent works include Walking as Daily Dance Practice, Explorations of Active Design and Everyday Aesthetics and Bad Girls Dancing. Fiona is a founder member of ‘Architects of the Invisible’, a roaming performance group exploring collaborative practice and currently creating a new work, Hand Tied. Duncan Holt MA DC FMCA is the lecturer in Dance at the University of Hull and is a state registered Chiropractor (McTimoney). Dance/movement is the essence of my work and it appears in the context of persons doing movement in places with sound. It is through dance that I experience the essential nature of myself as a being in the world. Contributions to knowledge include performance, screen
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 media and other scholarly endeavors on choreographic reconstruction (World Dance Alliance; Brisbane 2008 & New York 2010), aspects of independent learning, (WDA; Wisconsin 2009) and aspects of Touch in Dance (Coventry University 2011). Embodied Portraitures: Facilitating Students in Building Personal Theories of Embodiment in the Somatics Classroom The presenter will share a study she conducted in her university somatics classroom that involved students engaging in processes of discovering, exploring and transforming their working theories of embodiment through the reflexive development of embodied portraitures. Learning frames for the inquiry drew from various somatic constructs, including Laban/Bartenieff Praxis, Body-‐Mind Centering and Authentic Movement. Students were encouraged to investigate the relations of Soma, identity, perception, movement patterning, embodied knowing, social experience, habits of thought and action, and meanings construed from lived experiences. Specifically, students explored how particular developed movement patterns, dynamic constellations, habits of holding, and attitudes held and conveyed in the body were tied to their beliefs, understandings, feelings, social encounters, self-‐perceptions, and worldviews. The presenter will conclude the paper by summarizing her gained understandings and perspectives as well as the questions that have emerged for her from this study. Becky Dyer is an assistant professor in the School of Dance at Arizona State University where she teaches Laban/Bartenieff Praxis and Somatic Studies, dance pedagogy and contemporary postmodern dance technique. Becky received her Ph.D. in Dance Philosophy with an emphasis in dance pedagogy and somatics from Texas Woman’s University in Spring 2010. Her research focuses on somatic approaches to teaching and learning, somatic epistemology, transformative learning perspectives and collaborative inquiry process. F Matthias Alexander and Mabel Elsworth Todd: their theory, practice and contemporary relevance This paper reconsiders ideas and correspondences in the work of two of what Martha Eddy describes as the first generation of somatic pioneers: F Matthias Alexander and Mabel Elsworth Todd. Both Alexander and Todd drew on ideas prevalent at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Their practices and writings acknowledged burgeoning new developments in physiology, philosophy and psychology in particular. There are historical correspondences too. From a Twenty-‐First Century perspective it is useful to understand how these two ‘pioneers’ — Alexander and Todd — developed techniques that intersected the humanities and sciences. Recent research suggests that there are lessons that can inform current dance research into transversing discipline borders. The author draws on established research and then examines Alexander’s and Todd’s ideas and practices in the context of their time. The paper proposes a radical rethinking of how we conceive of dancing and how ‘somatic’ practices are currently employed in dance education.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 Michael Huxley is a researcher and teacher at De Montfort University, UK. He has been published in a number of books including, most recently, with Ramsay Burt, in Carter, A. and Fensham, R. (Eds.) (2011) Dancing Naturally: Nature, Neo-‐Classicism and Modernity in Early Twentieth Century Dance. He qualified as an Alexander Teacher in 2004 with the Professional Association of Alexander Teachers and is currently working on research projects on the learning and teaching of dance history, early modern dance and, with Jayne Stevens, on the work of Akram Khan Company. Somatics in Dance: Tracing Practice and its Cultural and Philosophical Ground The focus of this paper is to trace an ethnographic history of Body-‐Mind Centering; examining the practice as part of a social movement and as a postmodern western somatic method influencing the development of contemporary dance in Britain. It will present findings from research in progress undertaken as part of a PhD study. The paper will situate somatic practices, with particular reference to Body-‐Mind Centering, within the socio-‐political, artistic and philosophical context in which somatic practices emerged and developed. From an ethnographic and historical perspective, it will examine the way somatic approaches to movement have influenced contemporary dance performance in Britain drawing examples from New Dance, the independent dance sector and experimental dance performance as evident in the focus and language used in practice. The parallel expansion of scholarly and artistic interest and investigation into embodiment over the past three decades points to a social need for growth in knowledge about embodiment as an existential condition and the significance of bodiliness to our perception and sense of self. This parallel growth also shows cross-‐fertilisation between disciplines such as phenomenology, cultural phenomenology, dance ethnography and artistic processes which emerged over the past fifty years. The cultural/ethnographic and historical positioning of somatic practices will form the basis for exploring questions of a methodological and philosophical nature raised by practice-‐based research to date. Gina Giotaki is currently doing a PhD research at Coventry University. The research investigates the way the practice of Body-‐Mind Centering and somatic approaches to movement have informed current contemporary dance performance and the way they influence the performer’s sense of self. She is currently completing her training on Somatic Movement Education and teaches related subjects at Coventry University. Gina has taught across a number of subjects in the undergraduate dance degree programme at Liverpool John Moores University where she also coordinated the Outreach Team of JMUpstart Dance Company.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1
1415 – 1445 ET101: Book Announcement + Book Presentation Chair: Sarah Whatley Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives This paper presents the content of an exciting forthcoming book, entitled: Dance, somatics and spiritualties: contemporary sacred narratives, edited by Amanda Williamson and co-‐edited by Sarah Whatley, Glenna Batson and Rebecca Weber. The book comprises chapters by 25 leading authors, including: Don Halon Johnson, Daria Halprin, Jill Green, Sylvie Fortin, Sondra Fraleigh, Linda Hartley and Martha Eddy. It is the first scholarly text to focus on contemporary spirituality within the domain of dance and somatic movement studies – this paper will outline the scope of the book, discussing potent issues, such as secularization and the emergence of the sacred/spiritual in embodied practice. The book is due to be published in 2012, by Intellect Publishers. Amanda Williamson, course leader MA Dance and Somatic Wellbeing: connections to the living body programme, New York. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, School of Art, Design and Performance, currently involved in international development across continents and educative innovations where the body and spirituality are foregrounded as central in research and writing. Nine Ways of Seeing a Body The nine body lenses in this book are intended to be a useful stimulus for teachers and students of dance, performance, movement, somatics and the arts’ therapies. Perhaps they will also serve as an interdisciplinary resource for other areas of study, where a brief review of recent approaches to the body could be useful. Sandra Reeve is a movement teacher, artist, director and movement psychotherapist. She teaches an annual programme of autobiographical and environmental movement workshops called Move into Life® and creates occasional, small-‐scale ecological performances. She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter, where she lectures in Performance and Ecology and Physical Theatre.
1445 – 1645 ET221: Panel 2A Interdisciplinary Perspectives Chair: Sarah Whatley A future beyond Allan Kaprow: Rosemary Butcher reinvents 18 Happenings in 6 Parts In 2010 Rosemary Butcher presented her reinvention of Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (NYC, 1959) at the South Bank Centre in London. The paper investigates what traces were left of Kaprow’s original work, and how Butcher encountered and worked with these materials. How did the unfoldings in the rehearsal phase contribute to a unique outcome that differs significantly to Kaprow’s original work, and what was retained from it? Can we identify a different ‘artistic signature’ (Melrose) in both works, possibly marked by two
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 different disciplinary creative fields, that of the fine arts in Kaprow’s case as well as that of choreography for Butcher? The paper seeks address the act of ‘reinventing’ as an artistic practice of ‘looking back’ at something, in order to produce new work. Stefanie Sachsenmaier is a lecturer in Theatre Arts at Middlesex University, where she has completed her PhD, enquiring into the skills and expertise of the performer in contemporary performance-‐making (supervised by Prof. Susan Melrose and choreographer Rosemary Butcher). She has contributed as a writer and translator to the Laban Sourcebook, ed. Dick McCaw, published by Routledge June 2011. She has been performing for the past ten years in many performance productions, lately notably her own solo work. She further trains and teaches tai chi at the Wu’s Tai Chi Chuan Academy London, Bethnal Green. www.stefaniesachsenmaier.eu (not attending) Rosemary Butcher has been a consistently radical and innovative choreographer for nearly three decades. Profoundly influenced by her time in New York where she encountered the work of the Judson Church Movement at its peak, she became a seminal figure to British dance with her 1976 ground-‐breaking concert at London's Serpentine Gallery. Her works have been received to great critical acclaim, in both this country and abroad. Her solo Hidden Voices was nominated for the Place Prize in 2004. In 2005, she published a series of essays on her work, co-‐written with Susan Melrose and entitled Rosemary Butcher: Choreography, Collisions and Collaborations (Middlesex University Press). In 2010 she presented a reinvention of Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Somatics as Science Within Dance Practice After four decades of Somatics and Science exploring various avenues of intersection (Eddy 2009; Green 2007), dance science and somatic education remain largely divided in both theory and practice. Earlier decades of interchange faced challenges in substantiating personal narrative with positivist models; however the proliferation of post-‐positivist science and nonlinear theories (Batson 2009; Fortin 2005) has recently forged a path for dialogue between dance science and Somatics. Research paradigms are shifting: influenced by phenomenology and cognitive science, new models for dance research ground qualitative data with quantitative measurement. Additionally, research in neurophysiology and embodied cognition allows us to re-‐think possibilities for integrating Somatics and science within dance practices. In this presentation three academic educators weave together these concepts in order to broaden the sphere of Somatics as science within dance and consider a viable model of rigorous yet flexible study. Edel Quin is a lecturer and researcher at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, delivering on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Her work for the Education and Community department includes teaching on the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT). She holds a BA(Hons) in Dance (Chichester University) and an MSc in Dance Science (Laban). Professional performance experience includes world tours with Riverdance, Westend performances, and Henri Oguike’s H20. Edel has produced multiple presentations and publications as an active researcher and applied practitioner. Specialist areas include dance
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 science, safe dance practice, dance fitness, experiential anatomy and Somatics. As a freelance dance artist and dance scientist, Edel continues to research, educate, create and perform, whenever and wherever possible. Margaret Wilson is an associate professor of dance at the University of Wyoming where she teaches contemporary dance technique, history, kinesiology, Pilates and pedagogy. She choreographs for productions in all venues, including vertical dance -‐ which takes place on rock faces in recreational areas and off the catwalk in theatres and participates in interdisciplinary and collaborative explorations. These pursuits provide her with multiple opportunities to understand the interface between science, somatics and dance technique. Glenna Batson, PT, ScD, MA, professor emeritus, physiotherapy, Winston-‐Salem State University, USA, faculty American Dance Festival and Hollins/ADF M.F.A. program (1986/2004), internationally recognized teacher, Alexander Technique (qualified 1989); Three decade synthesis of dance-‐science-‐somatics theory and practice as scholar, dance educator and practitioner; Fulbright Senior Specialist, London (Trinity Laban Conservatoire, 2009) and Estonia (2011). Current research interests include effects of improvisational dance and Parkinson disease, of Alexander Technique on balance in the elderly, and on validating assessment tools for balance in dancers. Co-‐editor of forthcoming book, Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives, with Amanda Williamson and Sarah Whatley. Choreographic and Somatic Strategies for Navigating Bodyscapes This paper explores the notions that postural and movement habits pattern bodyscape, and that this patterning in turn informs navigation of a broader body-‐mind-‐environment meshwork which is conceptualised as a 'tensegrity-‐schema'. The interstices of the constituent elements, whether actual or metaphorical connective tissue, make for a messy web of shifting compressions and tensions in a dynamic system that reaches deep into self and out to collective, that shapes and is shaped by experience. In this model, the 'self' is not a unit in itself, rather, the sel(f)ves are highly plastic, multi-‐layered and performative. I argue that certain dance and somatic training and performance practices offer practical and conceptual tools to apprehend and illuminate bodyscape, and to nurture skills for negotiating the tensegrity-‐schema, such as bringing in and out of focus, or simultaneously holding in attention, multiple layers and perspectives of this schema. Performers may be called upon to focus attention on the in-‐depth, visceral body, on peri-‐personal reach, or on exteroceptive inter-‐personal space between co-‐performers and performance environment; to project to an audience, extend through virtual environments and to create distantiation through character and/or generating an external viewpoint as if from the audience' perspective. Bringing these multiple, simultaneous layers to attention may lead toward an experience of expanding phenomenal sense of performing sel(f)ves; but also, potentially, toward a fragmenting or distancing of sense of ownership and agency, that approaches delusional or schizophrenic states. These notions are explored from performance and theoretical perspectives, informed by dance and performance studies, somaesthetics, cognitive science, cultural studies and informatics, giving examples from practices including my own.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 Sue Hawksley is a dance-‐artist and bodywork therapist. She is artistic director of Edinburgh-‐based dance company articulate animal, an umbrella for interdisciplinary performance practice and research. She has performed extensively, including with Rambert Dance Company, Mantis, Scottish Ballet and Philippe Genty and many freelance projects. Sue is currently completing a practice-‐based PhD in Dance at Edinburgh College of Art. Her research engages questions of embodiment through choreographic practice, somatics, philosophy and technological mediation. http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk
1445 – 1645 ET126: Workshop 2B (20 places) Chair: Kerstin Wellhofer Mud Drying on Skin and Other Tactile Adventures -‐ Touch and Self-‐Sensing in Dance Practice Drawing upon practice-‐based research into the deep interrelatedness of skin and nervous system, this workshop engages with how such a phenomenon can uniquely and significantly inform dance practice. The notion of a ‘tactile adventure’ represents the intense and immersive physical dialogue I locate through these ideas in practice and the kind of awareness and thought opened thereby. With the particular tactile-‐intention of ‘holding’ or ‘guiding’ a partner, the relative porosity of reception can be an action of skilful allowance calibrated by contacting skin as an outer layer of our inner contents. Motivating movement from tactile sensation creates a certain permeability of presence that prompts our dancing to feed us, to receive information even as we articulate and embody. Accumulating knowledge through touch permits practice to loop both internal and external environments, creating a tactile-‐kinaesthetic web through which multiple levels of perception and intelligence integrate. Jennifer-‐Lynn Crawford is currently on faculty at Northern School of Contemporary Dance where she lectures in release-‐based technique. She also teaches on a freelance basis through the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Jennifer-‐Lynn currently situates her research interests within ‘The Nature of Things’, a project with long-‐term collaborator and choreographer Charlotte Spencer.
1715 – 1800 ET221: Plenary Chair: Sarah Whatley & Natalie Garret Brown
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1
1800 – 2000 ET135: SCODHE AGM 3A Standing Conference on Dance in Higher Education AGM and REF Update SCODHE is the representative body for dance within the Higher Education sector in the UK. This meeting is open to anyone interested in finding out more about our work and the AGM will be an opportunity to discuss the role and direction of SCODHE. This will be followed by an overview of the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework by Prof Maria Delgado (Chair, REF sub-‐panel for Drama, Dance and Music). There will be an opportunity to discuss areas such as: What constitutes excellent research in our discipline? What is the nature of research ‘impact’ for dance academics? And, how do we sustain our research environments within the current climate? Votes cast at the AGM should be by an identified representative from member institutions/organizations. This event may be attended as part of, or independently from, the Conference and we welcome your participation.
1930 – 2130 ICE Studio: Performance 3B (second showing starts at 2045 – both limited to 25 people) NB The ICE Studio is a 5-‐10 minute walk from the Ellen Terry Building; guides will be available to escort delegates from Ellen Terry at 1915 & 2030
Sift a collaboration between composer James Buchanan lighting designer Cath Cullinane choreographer Amy Voris with video editing by Christian Kipp movement and stillness, sound and silence, light and shadow flicker created with support from Clarence Mews London. Amy Voris is a dance artist based in the West Midlands and assistant organiser for the Summer Dancing Festival in Coventry. Her current practice is inspired by authentic movement and by collaboration with other artists. She was a founding member of Rose's Thoughts Dance Company (choreographer Ruth Segalis, London 1996 -‐ 2003). She currently teaches at Coventry University and is training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley. James Buchanan, Composer James plays several instruments including piano, saxophone, and guitar amongst others. His passion is music composition and he works in a number of genres, including folk, death metal, jazz and contemporary classical. He studied music at Goldsmiths, University of London and is currently studying part-‐time to complete his doctoral thesis in computer-‐assisted music composition at Middlesex University. In
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 collaboration with choreographer Amy Voris, he has created electronic scores for several dance works which have been performed in London and abroad. He is a member of both CoMA London Ensemble and Graphite which is a group of five composer-‐performers based in London who perform their own music alongside works by other contemporary composers. Cath Cullinane, Lighting Designer “I have a fascination for the moving body as it splinters into the shapes of light....it evokes and delights my senses simultaneously.” Originally from Liverpool I have worked as Performance Technician for the last 20 years, in many Theatres, Festivals and Colleges in the UK and Europe. I am currently Senior Theatre Technician/Skills Instructor at Coventry University and have enjoyed experimenting with non-‐theatre light.
Throughout the conference The Emergence of Form This experimental framework proposes to explore the emergence of form in the context of an intertwined exploration of different somatic practices and time-‐space related strategies for an extended period of time: the duration of the complete conference. It would consist of a continuous and open process articulated as a sequence of frames. Form emerges when the actual experience is perceived as operationally coherent. Form is understood here not as produced or constructed but as perceptive emergence, defined as spontaneous appearance arising from the interaction between the performed movements, their environment and the perception of both. “The emergence of form” will create conditions to research this subtle process through its immediate observation. The main questions to be addressed are: when and how does form emerge in the practice of somatics? Which are the conditions of this emergence? And: how does this kind of experience change our concept of form? Aesthetic Practice and Embodiment Research Group (Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin – HZT), represented by: Elisabeth Molle, Katja Münker, Ka Rustler, Alex Arteaga Elisabeth Molle's dance background is Ballet, the Cunningham technique, Trisha Brown and the "post-‐modern dance". After spending 6 years in New York, where she also graduated as an Alexander teacher (ACAT) in 1983 she moved to Berlin. There she developed her work connecting the Alexander Technique to movement and improvisation, teaching and performing in a process-‐oriented way. She teaches presently at the Master for Choreography at the Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT), has a private praxis for the AT and has been working on Alexander Technique training schools for over 20 years. Katja Münker is a freelanced dancer/choreographer, Feldenkrais-‐Practitioner, physiotherapist based in Berlin; New Dance + performance training with Keriac; movement-‐studies + performance projects with Amos Hetz; self-‐organized learning + research in dance et al. during ‘Transploration’ with Ingo Reulecke + Martin Nachbar as mentors; performance
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 projects + regular teaching in various context; part of the artists collective ‘Bergrecherche’. www.MOveMENT-muenker.de Ka Rustler is a dancer, performer, choreographer, movement educator and researcher. Her work experience also includes somatic psychotherapy and worldwide top management trainings. She teaches internationally applications and methods derived from BMC® and their relevance in Movement & Artistic Research, Choreographic Exploration and Embodiment. At present she is in the Team of the HZT in Berlin. Alex Arteaga is a researcher in the fields of aesthetic practice and embodiment theories. He develops his research through his artistic practice, as academic researcher at the Collegium for the Advanced Study of Picture Act and Embodiment (Humboldt University Berlin) and as visiting professor at the Master of Choreography (Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin). Stopping in Interesting Places A series of works by Antony Wall drawn from movement explorations in the natural environment and studio practice. An exploration of arriving in moving and in stillness as an ongoing practice through visual art. The works chosen for this exhibition focus around a sense of moving and of arriving both in my own movement practice and within the creation of the works themselves. My inspiration stems from a connection to the natural environment through embodied and somatic movement. The aim is to convey a sense of pure experience, perception and event through a grounding of awareness in the moving body. The title comes from a quote by Paul Gardner "A painting is never finished -‐ it simply stops in interesting places". This what I have been doing in my practice and through this exhibition you are invited to share in the journey! I suffer from that primal drive to find meaning in the world and to somehow capture it in image, in word, in movement or event. In a sense to express ones very soul and in doing so recognizing the soul nature of everything. Antony Wall brings the full weight of his many years training as a visual artist, Shiatsu therapist, Martial Artist and movement artist to his work. He graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1998, is devoted to exploring creativity as fundamental to the human experience. He has recently been training with Helen Poynor in the Walk Of Life training programme. everything is at once everything is at once is a collection of photos from a collaborative site project, Enter & Inhabit. This project seeks to explore our changing experiences of the outdoor spaces that we pass through by drawing on durational movement improvisation, photography and writing. In January 2011 Enter & Inhabit began a project in Kenilworth Common. In these woods -‐ a popular thoroughfare local to our homes -‐ we are beginning to translate processes from
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Fri 8TH July – Day 1 previous sites and projects, further afield. Interests in the processes of sensory perception and the shifting textures of the seasons are feeding into our scores for the site. The images in this collection evolve from the ongoing project process which involves inhabiting space and place, through a practice of staying open to the present. Through simple camera movements the colours and textures of the woodland merge and layer. Created from and by the site, existing forms are transformed into images which are abstract and familiar. Characterised by a sensorial playfulness, the resulting images are not the place, the dancer or the dance, but are something parallel, folding back into collaboration with the site and each other. The images considered here seem to gently resonate with the outdoor movement practices being explored. Enter & Inhabit www.enterinhabit.com Natalie Garrett Brown, Christian Kipp & Amy Voris Natalie Garrett Brown lectures in Dance at Coventry University where she is associate head for Performing Arts. She is associate editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and she is on the editorial board for the Dancelines section in Research in Dance Education. She has just completed her Somatic Movement Educators Training in Body-‐Mind Centering. Her research interests are theoretically situated within Feminist understandings of embodied subjectivity and is focused on the ways in which Somatic practices inform performance making, creativity and writing. Informed by the work of Helen Poynor and others her most recent performance projects have explored moving outside. These include an ongoing collaboration with photographer Christian Kipp and dance artist Amy Voris. Christian Kipp is a photographer based in Essex. He splits his time between working on his own in the natural landscape and collaborating with a variety of dance artists. He is interested in the ways that these two areas feed and reflect each other. For Christian, photography feels like a way of connecting more strongly with nature and people. www.christiankipp.com Amy Voris is a dance artist based in the West Midlands and assistant organiser for the Summer Dancing Festival in Coventry. Her current practice is inspired by authentic movement and by collaboration with other artists. She was a founding member of Rose's Thoughts Dance Company (choreographer Ruth Segalis, London 1996 -‐ 2003). She currently teaches at Coventry University and is training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2
0930 – 1000 ET101: Artist Talk Chair: Paula Kramer Stopping in Interesting Places A series of works by Antony Wall drawn from movement explorations in the natural environment and studio practice. An exploration of arriving in moving and in stillness as an ongoing practice through visual art. The works chosen for this exhibition focus around a sense of moving and of arriving both in my own movement practice and within the creation of the works themselves. My inspiration stems from a connection to the natural environment through embodied and somatic movement. The aim is to convey a sense of pure experience, perception and event through a grounding of awareness in the moving body. The title comes from a quote by Paul Gardner "A painting is never finished -‐ it simply stops in interesting places". This what I have been doing in my practice and through this exhibition you are invited to share in the journey! I suffer from that primal drive to find meaning in the world and to somehow capture it in image, in word, in movement or event. In a sense to express ones very soul and in doing so recognizing the soul nature of everything. Antony Wall brings the full weight of his many years training as a visual artist, Shiatsu therapist, Martial Artist and movement artist to his work. He graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1998, is devoted to exploring creativity as fundamental to the human experience. He has recently been training with Helen Poynor in the Walk Of Life training programme.
1000 – 1200 ET221: Panel 4A Creative Practice Chair: Polly Hudson A Phenomenological and Character Analytic Approach to Facilitating the Embodied Processes of the Contemporary Dancer Recent shifts in the aesthetics of contemporary dance towards a sensorial-‐perceptual and performative mode of performing have challenged the traditional tasks of the dancer. Of the dancer they require heightened awareness of and ability to utilize her own sensations and experiences as material for performing. They likewise ask her to become immersed in open and immediate forms of interaction with others and the environment. This presentation discusses how to foster increased sensible and perceptual awareness as well as immediate interaction in the dancer through a somatic approach. The approach draws on Merleau-‐Ponty’s phenomenological method, conceptions of perception and the expressivity of the body that are amplified by Reich’s psychoanalytically oriented conceptions of character formation and psychotherapeutic intervention. The presentation introduces some of the basic features of the constructed somatic approach including focused awareness, breath work and tension release and argue for its relevance for the artistic undertakings of the contemporary dancer.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 Leena Rouhiainen (MA in Dance Performance, Theatre Academy of Finland, 1995; MA in Somatic Studies and Labananalysis, University of Surrey 2006; Doctor of Arts in Dance, Theatre Academy of Finland 2003) is a dancer-‐choreographer and dance scholar. Her research interests are in artistic research, phenomenology and the contemporary dancer. She currently holds a position of Academy Research Fellow at the Department of Research Development of the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. Somatic Tools without Somatic Principles: Tensions in a Creative Process in Dance We will highlight the tension created by the dichotomy between the somatic practices principles called upon during a creative process and the demands of the choreographer in relation to the required results for the staged work. While the audience could perceive the powerful effect of the somatic tools on the emotional charge of the dancer’s performance, the creative process between the choreographer and the dancer ignored fundamental somatic’s principles as no judgement, recognition of the dancer’s experience, respect of the dancer’s speaking and time maturation, leading to a constant stress and a lost of autonomy from the dancer’s side. Drawing attention to the necessary awareness and vigilance required when setting up conditions in which to use somatic practice techniques within the choreographic process, we would suggest that the communication tools of the choreographer should follow a certain “somatical ethics”. Nicole Harbonnier-‐Topin has been, since 2004, Professor in “movement studies” and, since 2009, Director of the Graduates’ programs in dance and in somatic education in the Dance Department of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). She is certified in “Functional movement analysis of the body in danced movement” (Analyse fonctionnelle du corps dans le mouvement dansé (AFCMD)), Paris, 1997. She was a dance performer (1982-‐2004), a contemporary dance teacher (1985-‐2004) and a dance teacher’s instructor in the field of AFCMD in several institutions in France (1997-‐2004), mainly in “Centre National de la danse” of Lyon. (not attending) Johanna Bienaise, MA, doctorate student in the “Studies and practices of art” program in the faculty of Arts, University of Quebec in Montréal (UQAM), Director Nicole Harbonnier-‐Topin and co-‐director Sylvie Fortin. After completing her dance training in the south of France, Johanna moved to Montreal at the end of 2002 and spent two years dancing for choreographer José Navas’ company Flak. Among others, she also has been seen in the work of Tracy Mc Neil, Erin Flynn, Anne-‐Sophie Rouleau, George Stamos. From 2006 to 2009, she has been an active member of the collective La 2e Porte à Gauche, working on site specific projects. Parallel to her career as a dancer, she is presently preparing a Ph.D. research-‐creation at UQAM questioning the adaptability of the dancer to different dance projects. Her research has been funded by the FQRSC and the SSHRC. She also taught several classes at the Dance Department of UQAM.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 1000 – 1130 University Square: Participatory 4B Chair: Paula Kramer NB University Square is a short 5-‐10 minute walk from Ellen Terry Building
Open Movement Practice An opportunity to digest and integrate your experiences of the conference through movement. Please join Helen moving at University Square. No structure, no instructions – come for as long as you want – rain or shine! Helen Poynor runs the Walk of Life Workshop and Training Programme in Non-‐stylised and Environmental Movement on the World Heritage Jurassic Coast in East Devon/West Dorset www.walkoflife.co.uk. As a director and performer she specialises in site-‐specific and auto-‐biographical performance and cross-‐art form collaborations. She is a visiting professor of Performance at Coventry University.
1230 – 1300 ETG34: DVD Collection Chair: Amy Voris Recherche en Mouvement (REM) is a non-‐profit organization created in 1986 to diffuse information about somatic approaches to movement. Our on-‐going collection of DVDs on somatics and artistic creation, includes 4 DVDS already available, another which will be available by the end of June, and yet another still in the making. The collection is divided into 3 series. The first series is on Somatic Approaches and Artistic Creation. There is 1 DVD out, "Somatic Approaches to Movement", with an introduction by Sylvie Fortin. The new one that will be ready by the end of June is on "Ancestral Approaches and Performing Arts", with an introduction by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. The second series is on Somatic Approaches Applied to Artistic Movement in Technical Training, with 2 DVDs out: "Pirouette, tour en l'air" with a bonus on eye movement and a bonus on tensegrity theory and "The Diversity of support in Peter Goss' Modern Dance, with a bonus on the thymus and a bonus on the 8th thoracic vertebra". The third series is "Towards the Poetry of Gesture, Art and Science". The one DVD out is called "From Ordinary Gesture to Dance; Memory in Action". Lila Greene
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2
1300 -‐ 1500 ET221: Panel 5A Creative Practice Chair: Sarah Whatley Buddha-‐hood in a single note: a somatic exploration of breath, mind-‐body and musical performance. This paper will explore specific relationships between sound, physicality, breath, and meditative or ‘flow’[1] states of consciousness. Meditative or ‘no-‐mind’ states during performance were originally experienced by the author on saxophone and subsequently developed through research into traditional Japanese shakuhachi (Zen bamboo flute) performance within an framework bringing together the physicality of instrumental performance, flow studies and Zen meditation techniques. I will present a somatic framework through which the mechanism allowing shakuhachi performance to act as a catalyst for a meditative or no-‐mind consciousness can be understood and reproduced. This will then be extended beyond an instrumental musical context to discuss how it informs my current work, which is transitioning from music and sonic arts into physical performance. [1] Developed in the 1970s by psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi
Rees Archibald studied saxophone and woodwind performance before moving to Japan to further his studies on shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) in 1996. In 2002 he obtained a Masters in music composition at Wesleyan University in the USA, working with composers Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier and David Behrman. Rees has performed and shown work in venues such as The Kitchen in New York City, ZKM/HfG in Germany, the Sydney Opera House, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, and the Emit/Time Festival in Bern, Switzerland. He currently lectures at Leeds Metropolitan University in electronic music, performance and music technology Writing the Somatic in the Insomnia Poems Project The issue of how to write the somatic is a recurring one within embodied, practice led research. How might dancers and somatic practitioners translate or evoke felt, embodied, sensory and moving experience to the realms of pages, in order for ideas, feelings and spaces developed in a specific studio environment to reach and contribute to new critical and creative spaces? This paper presents an emergent enquiry into the trans-‐disciplinary relationship between somatic dance improvisation and language from an 18-‐month studio practice between Alys Longley and Katherine Tate. It will discuss how different somatic practices, poetic methodologies and the boundaries of Katherine’s health -‐ living with chronic insomnia as part of M.E -‐ fed into the Insomnia Poems project. This took form in a deck of cards that employed photographs of studio work, journal notes, drawing and poetic reflection, to give readers 52 starting points for considering dance, or 52 starting points for improvisation or choreography. The Insomnia Poems were designed like a body of cells, as poetic blueprints for creative practice, including writing provocations such as “waiting/weighting” and “the world writes the inside ofyour body with its breath.”
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 Insomnia Poems will be discussed in relation to the somatic poetics of practitioners such as Joan Skinner (1979), Mary Starks Whitehouse (2002), Miranda Tufnell (2004) and Simone Forti (2003, 2006); the cultural geography of Juliana Bruno (2002), and to arts practitioners such as Fluxus artist George Brecht and the site specific performance group Wrights and Sites, who work to refine experiences ofeveryday life into performance events. (not attending) Alys Longley’s research works from the discipline of dance studies with an emphasis on interdisciplinary practice. Her current research explores performance writing as a form of choreographic thinking and choreography as a way of generating performance writing. Within the framework of practice led research, her site specific dance work draws on thinking from architecture, theatre studies, translation theory, creative writing and performance studies. Alys is a Lecturer in Dance Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Katherine Tate is a somatic therapist and dance artist, currently entering her second year of Skinner Releasing teacher certification. She is also completing a qualification in Somatic Movement Education and Therapy through East West Somatics and ISMETA. Currently she works as a massage therapist at SOUL centre of the body and mind in Titirangi, and is a post-‐graduate dance student at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is also an advocate for people with M.E., creating awareness raising projects since 2006, through performance art and documentary film. She hopes to contribute towards the development of atherapeutic Skinner Releasing pedagogy for people with chronic illness including M.E. Giving Spaces to Voices Re-‐solving many voices. A task to hang multiple voices and an unfinished notebook in the air. This practice is presented in its place and time and by attempting to find truthful and mindful agency. Key voices to acknowledge: Gill Clarke, Giovanni Fellicioni, Eva Karczag, Helen Poynor, Niki Pollard, Alva Noë, Maurice Merleau-‐Ponty, Kirsty Alexander, Joan Skinner, Anna Halprin, Mary Oliver and David Abrams. Katye Coe is a dance artist and senior lecturer whose primary dance practices are Skinner Releasing Technique, Contact Improvisation and Non-‐stylised movement (Helen Poynor). Katye is the artistic director of Summer Dancing, an international festival of dance and performance. Current teaching includes improvisation, experiential anatomy, choreography, interdisciplinary making, site practice and contextual studies.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2
1300 – 1500 ET126: Workshop 5B (20 places) Chair: Katy Dymoke The Relevance for Dance Artists of Fundamental Principles and Somatic Knowledge Inherent In The Traditional Japanese Martial Arts of Aikido and Kashima Shinryu Swordsmanship This workshop will offer participants the opportunity to experience the methodological approach of Paul Douglas to the study of Aikido and Kashima Shinryu Kenjutsu as employed at Tetsushinkan Dojo at Movingeast, London. As a Dance Artist, Paul Douglas worked with London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Rambert and Siobhan Davies Dance Company and was Choreographer/Director of Small Bones Dance Company. Paul will deliver the workshop in partnership with Sasha Roubicek, alumni Dance Artist of Siobhan Davies Dance Company and Lecture in Dance at London Contemporary Dance School. Douglas and Roubicek will introduce participants to preparatory mobilisation and centring and to exploration of basic partnered practice from Aikido and will give a demonstration of the classical Japanese Sword School of Kashima Shinryu. They will talk about and illustrate the embodied knowledge derived through the practice of these arts and of how this has supported and continues to inform and enriched their dance practice. Paul Douglas – Director of Movingeast and Tetsushinkan Dojo Sasha Roubicek – Dance Lecturer at London Contemporary Dance School Laura Glaser – Dance Lecturer LABAN Rafaelle Sannino – Practitioner of Tui na Chinese manipulative therapy
1300 – 1500 ETG34: Panel 5C Philosophical Shifts & Transformations Chair: Kirsty Alexander Transcendence, Illumination: Somatic practice-‐led research as Transformative The focus of this paper is on those moments of transcendence, illumination or deep resonance that appear to guide creative research processes. Rather than being beguiled by conceptual frameworks of postmodernism, my research aims to articulate how to more clearly know where we are, even when the notion of ‘where am I’ is beyond comprehension and there is no articulation of what we see, sense, feel and intuit. The concepts of soul, spirit, or depth experience have historically been associated with the religious, sacred and more recently with psychology and self-‐development and in dance practices are often difficult to articulate. But I will argue that the somatic practices of Focusing (work with the ‘felt sense’, Gendlin) and Authentic Movement (active imagination in movement, Jung/Chodorow) are potential methodological tools for practice-‐led research which create a powerful container in which to discover such concepts and psyche’s embodied capacity. Jane Bacon is Professor of Performance and Somatics (University of Northampton) and a Jungian Psychotherapist, Focusing Trainer and Authentic Movement Practitioner in private practice (London and Northampton). She is co-‐Director of The Choreographic Lab, an
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 environment that supports the articulation of creative embodied processes, and co-‐Editor of Choreographic Practices (Intellect). She works with the relationship between conscious and unconscious in body based psychotherapeutic practices and as supervisor and mentor she uses this relational model as a methodological tool for practice as research in performance projects. Her key interest is in finding ways in which we can all ‘articulate something’ of and from the creative process. Disorientation and Emergent Subjectivity; The Political Potentiality of Embodied Encounter Located in philosophical enquiry this paper will consider ways to theorise and articulate the political significance of embodied encounter with the environment. Underlying this discussion will be an interrogation of the relationship between presence, embodiment and inter-‐subjectivity with specific reference to Fisher-‐Lichte’s (2004/2008) proposition of ‘the radical concept of presence’ (99). In doing so an affinity is proposed between Deleuzian inflected corporeal Feminism principally through the work of Rosi Braidotti, (1991,1992,1994,2002), Elizabeth Grosz, (1994a, 1994b, 1995, 2003) and somatic informed movement practice in the environment. Both, it will be suggested, offer a critique of the “mind/body” dualism implicit within humanist understandings of subjectivity. Accordingly each can be argued to re-‐cast subjectivity as an always embodied activity, an inter-‐corporeal exchange between “self”, recast as shifting and multiple, and “otherness”. Arguing this point the article will propose an alternative model of audience performer relationship theorised around notions of witness and transformation. Noting the political dimensions of this to issues of difference in performance, the paper will seek to elucidate the extent to which existing approaches to performance studies, or that which Melrose (2003, 2005a, 2005b & 2005c), terms ‘expert writerly registers’ themselves rooted in a disembodied spectatorship, arguably lack the apparatus to accommodate such understandings. Natalie Garrett Brown lectures in Dance at Coventry University where she is associate head for Performing Arts. She is associate editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and she is on the editorial board for the Dancelines section in Research in Dance Education. She has just completed her Somatic Movement Educators Training in Body-‐Mind Centering. Her research interests are theoretically situated within Feminist understandings of embodied subjectivity and is focused on the ways in which Somatic practices inform performance making, creativity and writing. Informed by the work of Helen Poynor and others her most recent performance projects have explored moving outside. These include an ongoing collaboration with photographer Christian Kipp and dance artist Amy Voris. Coming to our senses: collisions and collaborations of cells and pixels The ongoing assumption within the field of dance practice of an unresolvable gap between corporeal matter (cells) and digital code (pixels) invites critical rethinking of the sensate body and its modes of interacting with digital interfaces as well as the potential for emergent becomings through these interactions. Strategizing new pathways for the
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 convergence of screen and body, cells and pixels within contemporary practice suggests a reconfiguring and entwining of digital image and material body. Choreographic practices informed by somatic paradigms are used as tactics to challenge how we perceive digital media, bringing the senses to virtual spaces to create embodied encounters. With a particular emphasis on sonic mappings to recalibrate relations between space and the moving body the research considers how a destabilising of the body and screen relationship might open a potential space for dialogue between the fields of somatics and creative technologies. Becca Wood works in performance practices that slip between the intersections of the body, space and digital environments. Her research invites critical rethinking of the sensate body and its modes of interacting with digital interfaces to open a potential space for dialogue between the fields of somatics and creative technologies. Becca is currently in her first year of Doctoral research at Auckland University where she also lectures in Dance Studies. Prior to this she taught movement for performance practice and interdisciplinary arts at Unitec School of Performing and Screen Arts. She continues to work across the arts in performance, somatic research and education and digital-‐based art and design.
1530 – 1715 ETG34: Panel 6A Pedagogical Explorations Chair: Henrietta Bannerman Interpreting Embodied Dance Practice Focusing on the theme of dance and embodiment, this paper discusses the experience of learning dance practice in Higher Education in the context of phenomenological hermeneutics. The ironies of dance as a somatic practice and the requirements of assessment will be discussed. The research has been gathered through practice-‐based reflection and investigation, contextualised with information published on reflective practice and phenomenological hermeneutics. The conclusion of the paper is that engagement with a variety of dialectic interchange and temporal distance opportunities enables lecturers to provide a framework for students to reflect and develop their somatic practice, achieved by techniques of questioning and disclosure offered through phenomenological hermeneutics. Marie Hay is a Senior Lecturer in Dance at De Montfort University. She teaches across a range of undergraduate modules including; dance practice, choreography, dance history and contextual studies. Marie also teaches on the MA Dance and Professional Practice. Particular research interests include self-‐assessment, peer feedback and the application of hermeneutics in the teaching and learning of reflective dance practice. Marie has presented her research and been published internationally in these areas.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 The concept of Ki, embodied experience and dance practice Central to shiatsu, a bodywork form originating in Japan, and to many other Eastern practices and philosophies is the concept of Ki (or Chi in Chinese), the life force understood to be present and constantly in flux in everything in the universe. Central principles of shiatsu practice include ‘relaxation’, ‘developing and coming from the Hara’ (Hara being the body’s energetic centre) and ‘extending your Ki field’. The shiatsu practitioner seeks ease of movement in their own body, groundedness, openness and sensitivity in many levels of awareness, presence, integration of physical and mental intention, and the possibility of transformation. Drawing on knowledge arising through my own personal experience as a shiatsu practitioner and my experience of Qigong, as well as reflections gathered from other dance practitioners, this paper investigates how an embodied experience and understanding of Ki can enhance somatic awareness and impact on one’s dance practice. Liz Pavey took up her current post as Senior Lecturer in Dance at Northumbria University in 2004. Her research interests lie in the roles of dance, movement and bodywork practices, and somatic awareness, in promoting and sustaining holistic health and wellbeing, and in the impact of somatic practices and Eastern perspectives on the development of contemporary dance practice. Between 2007-‐2009 she completed the professional training programme of the Shiatsu College Newcastle. She is an active member of the Shiatsu Society UK and continues to develop her practice studying shiatsu and Qigong with leading teachers in the field. Somatic Movement and Whole Person Education: A Somatic Learning Cycle In this presentation I will describe a somatic learning cycle – a methodology for facilitating somatic movement education. I will move between my own core practice of Shin Somatics ® (the pioneering work of Sondra Fraleigh combining phenomenology, Zen, Feldenkrais, and intrinsic, improvisational dance) and John Heron’s ‘extended epistemology’ and theory of whole-‐person education. Eco-‐somatic in orientation, the learning cycle unfolds from our felt relationship with the human and more-‐than-‐human world. It moves through four phases of knowing – experiential, presentational, conceptual and practical – through perceptual practice, improvisational dance, and the use of imagery and imagination. The model considers dance and somatic movement in its relation to being and becoming a ‘whole person’, Heron’s term for the journey towards realizing our fullest human potential. I hope to show how for dancers and ‘non-‐dancers’ alike, this approach can harness somatic skills for deepening both (self-‐)knowing and (self-‐)making. Karen Smith is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator/Therapist with ISMETA, and a senior faculty member of the Eastwest Somatics Institute teaching Shin Somatics, the pioneering work of Sondra Fraleigh drawing on phenomenology, Zen, Feldenkrais, and intrinsic, improvisational dance forms including butoh. She works internationally offering workshops for the public, trainings for developing practitioners, and masterclasses for dancers in tertiary education. As a consultant with 15 years experience in large scale organisations, she has designed and facilitated learning processes for as many as 1000 people at places including the BBC, Microsoft, and UK central government.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 1530 -‐ 1700 ICE Studio: Interactive Installation 6C (2 x 12 places) Chair: David Bennett NB The ICE Studio is a 5-‐10 minute walk from the Ellen Terry Building; guides will be available to escort delegates from Ellen Terry at 1515 & 1600
Navigating the Site Map: From Analogue to Digital Space A space where research takes place.... My PhD research seeks to examine and interrogate the assumed pre-‐eminence of face-‐to-‐face pedagogy, exploring the creative possibilities made available with the introduction of video, pre-‐recorded instructions and photography as modes of transmission for movement. At the centre of this research is a movement vocabulary titled In All Languages which is comprised of 9 sets of physical action; each suggest starting points for individual and group choreography. The next major phase in the research is the development of a website that will house the practice; it is this shift from analogue to digital space that is central to this interactive installation. It seems essential that in order to develop a website that functions as a tool for stimulating movement, one should first develop a real time analogue assessment, recording how participants interact and navigate their way through the material. The analogue 'homepage' will invite delegates to participate, recording personal pathways on to a site-‐map that I hope will inform and direct the construction of digital space. Louise Ritchie is based at Aberystwyth University UK where she is now in her final year of practice led AHRC doctoral research, under the supervision of Professor Mike Pearson and Dr Heike Roms. Alongside her PhD research she teaches on the Performance Studies undergraduate program at Aberystwyth University.
1530 – 1715 ET126: Workshop 6D (16 places) Chair: Polly Hudson NB Performance element to be shown later, see below
SOMATIC MOVEMENT AND COSTUME Talk /Workshop / Performance Join Sally E. Dean, somatic practitioner and performing artist, for a presentation, performance and workshop – all of which explore how costume can support kinesthetic awareness in a similar way to touch or imagery, by designing and working with costumes that create specific body-‐mind experiences. Using her training and research background in Skinner Releasing Technique and Amerta Movement (from Javanese body-‐mind practitioner Suprapto Suryodarmo) as a starting point, Sally will share her investigations into the role that costume can play as a possible tool to bridge between somatic-‐based practice and performance. This 2-‐hour session invites participants to engage with Sally’s practice-‐as-‐research-‐project ‘Somatic Movement & Costume’, developed in collaboration with costume designers Sandra Arroniz Lacunza and Carolina Rieckhof. Presentation, performance and facilitation: Sally E. Dean Costumes: Sandra Arroniz Lacunza and Carolina Rieckhof
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 Sally E. Dean is a London-‐based American performer, choreographer, playwright and teacher. Her work is been performed in New York, London, Java, Prague, Essen, San Francisco, and Seattle. She is the founding director for own performing arts company and the Kolaborasi project, whose mission is to bring American, European and Asian artists together to collaborate and produce innovative performance works internationally.
1715 – 1800 ET221: Plenary Chair: Sarah Whatley & Natalie Garrett Brown
1915 ET221: Film Showing and Artist Talk 7A Chair: Natalie Garrett Brown On an Incoming Tide An environmental dance film created under the chalk cliffs at Beer Head on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site in East Devon. A collaboration between by movement artist Helen Poynor and film-‐maker Kyra Norman featuring Laura Gwynne, Denise Rowe and Caroline Thompson. Made possible by Dance in Devon and East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Helen Poynor runs the Walk of Life Workshop and Training Programme in Non-‐stylised and Environmental Movement on the World Heritage Jurassic Coast in East Devon/West Dorset www.walkoflife.co.uk. As a director and performer she specialises in site-‐specific and auto-‐biographical performance and cross-‐art form collaborations. She is a visiting professor of Performance at Coventry University. Erw Dinmael -‐ Shortest Day Shortest Night Responding to the sounds and the deep stillness of the snow-‐covered landscape, a series of visionary scores create a mystical call to the spirits of earth and within us. A film by Juan Gabriel Gutiérrez and Denise Rowe. Juan Gabriel Gutiérrez is a Bristol based Colombian musician and filmmaker. Interested in the power of sound and ritual in various indigenous and primordial traditions, his latest album explores metaphysical themes and the enhancement of awareness given by sensory deprivation. This experience inspired him to make his film Erw Dinmael, which gave him admittance to Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School. www.janosgabor.com Denise Rowe is a movement artist, choreographer, dancer, singer and mbira player with ten years experience performing and teaching traditional and contemporary pan-‐African dance.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 2000 ET221: Solo Studio Showing 7B Sally E. Dean – see also Workshop 6D above Chair: Natalie Garrett Brown Sally E. Dean is a London-‐based American performer, choreographer, playwright and teacher. Her work is been performed in New York, London, Java, Prague, Essen, San Francisco, and Seattle. She is the founding director for own performing arts company and the Kolaborasi project, whose mission is to bring American, European and Asian artists together to collaborate and produce innovative performance works internationally.
2030 -‐ 2115 ICE Studio: Interactive Installation 7C (12 places) Chair: David Bennett NB The ICE Studio is a 5-‐10 minute walk from the Ellen Terry Building; guides will be available to escort delegates from Ellen Terry at 2015
Navigating the Site Map: From Analogue to Digital Space A space where research takes place.... My PhD research seeks to examine and interrogate the assumed pre-‐eminence of face-‐to-‐face pedagogy, exploring the creative possibilities made available with the introduction of video, pre-‐recorded instructions and photography as modes of transmission for movement. At the centre of this research is a movement vocabulary titled In All Languages which is comprised of 9 sets of physical action; each suggest starting points for individual and group choreography. The next major phase in the research is the development of a website that will house the practice; it is this shift from analogue to digital space that is central to this interactive installation. It seems essential that in order to develop a website that functions as a tool for stimulating movement, one should first develop a real time analogue assessment, recording how participants interact and navigate their way through the material. The analogue 'homepage' will invite delegates to participate, recording personal pathways on to a site-‐map that I hope will inform and direct the construction of digital space. Louise Ritchie is based at Aberystwyth University UK where she is now in her final year of practice led AHRC doctoral research, under the supervision of Professor Mike Pearson and Dr Heike Roms. Alongside her PhD research she teaches on the Performance Studies undergraduate program at Aberystwyth University.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2
Throughout the conference The Emergence of Form This experimental framework proposes to explore the emergence of form in the context of an intertwined exploration of different somatic practices and time-‐space related strategies for an extended period of time: the duration of the complete conference. It would consist of a continuous and open process articulated as a sequence of frames. Form emerges when the actual experience is perceived as operationally coherent. Form is understood here not as produced or constructed but as perceptive emergence, defined as spontaneous appearance arising from the interaction between the performed movements, their environment and the perception of both. “The emergence of form” will create conditions to research this subtle process through its immediate observation. The main questions to be addressed are: when and how does form emerge in the practice of somatics? Which are the conditions of this emergence? And: how does this kind of experience change our concept of form? Aesthetic Practice and Embodiment Research Group (Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin – HZT), represented by: Elisabeth Molle, Katja Münker, Ka Rustler, Alex Arteaga Elisabeth Molle's dance background is Ballet, the Cunningham technique, Trisha Brown and the "post-‐modern dance". After spending 6 years in New York, where she also graduated as an Alexander teacher (ACAT) in 1983 she moved to Berlin. There she developed her work connecting the Alexander Technique to movement and improvisation, teaching and performing in a process-‐oriented way. She teaches presently at the Master for Choreography at the Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT), has a private praxis for the AT and has been working on Alexander Technique training schools for over 20 years. Katja Münker is a freelanced dancer/choreographer, Feldenkrais-‐Practitioner, physiotherapist based in Berlin; New Dance + performance training with Keriac; movement-‐studies + performance projects with Amos Hetz; self-‐organized learning + research in dance et al. during ‘Transploration’ with Ingo Reulecke + Martin Nachbar as mentors; performance projects + regular teaching in various context; part of the artists collective ‘Bergrecherche’. www.MOveMENT-muenker.de Ka Rustler is a dancer, performer, choreographer, movement educator and researcher. Her work experience also includes somatic psychotherapy and worldwide top management trainings. She teaches internationally applications and methods derived from BMC® and their relevance in Movement & Artistic Research, Choreographic Exploration and Embodiment. At present she is in the Team of the HZT in Berlin. Alex Arteaga is a researcher in the fields of aesthetic practice and embodiment theories. He develops his research through his artistic practice, as academic researcher at the Collegium for the Advanced Study of Picture Act and Embodiment (Humboldt University Berlin) and as visiting professor at the Master of Choreography (Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin).
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 Stopping in Interesting Places A series of works by Antony Wall drawn from movement explorations in the natural environment and studio practice. An exploration of arriving in moving and in stillness as an ongoing practice through visual art. The works chosen for this exhibition focus around a sense of moving and of arriving both in my own movement practice and within the creation of the works themselves. My inspiration stems from a connection to the natural environment through embodied and somatic movement. The aim is to convey a sense of pure experience, perception and event through a grounding of awareness in the moving body. The title comes from a quote by Paul Gardner "A painting is never finished -‐ it simply stops in interesting places". This what I have been doing in my practice and through this exhibition you are invited to share in the journey! I suffer from that primal drive to find meaning in the world and to somehow capture it in image, in word, in movement or event. In a sense to express ones very soul and in doing so recognizing the soul nature of everything. Antony Wall brings the full weight of his many years training as a visual artist, Shiatsu therapist, Martial Artist and movement artist to his work. He graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1998, is devoted to exploring creativity as fundamental to the human experience. He has recently been training with Helen Poynor in the Walk Of Life training programme. everything is at once everything is at once is a collection of photos from a collaborative site project, Enter & Inhabit. This project seeks to explore our changing experiences of the outdoor spaces that we pass through by drawing on durational movement improvisation, photography and writing. In January 2011 Enter & Inhabit began a project in Kenilworth Common. In these woods -‐ a popular thoroughfare local to our homes -‐ we are beginning to translate processes from previous sites and projects, further afield. Interests in the processes of sensory perception and the shifting textures of the seasons are feeding into our scores for the site. The images in this collection evolve from the ongoing project process which involves inhabiting space and place, through a practice of staying open to the present. Through simple camera movements the colours and textures of the woodland merge and layer. Created from and by the site, existing forms are transformed into images which are abstract and familiar. Characterised by a sensorial playfulness, the resulting images are not the place, the dancer or the dance, but are something parallel, folding back into collaboration with the site and each other. The images considered here seem to gently resonate with the outdoor movement practices being explored. Enter & Inhabit www.enterinhabit.com Natalie Garrett Brown, Christian Kipp & Amy Voris
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sat 9TH July – Day 2 Natalie Garrett Brown lectures in Dance at Coventry University where she is associate head for Performing Arts. She is associate editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and she is on the editorial board for the Dancelines section in Research in Dance Education. She has just completed her Somatic Movement Educators Training in Body-‐Mind Centering. Her research interests are theoretically situated within Feminist understandings of embodied subjectivity and is focused on the ways in which Somatic practices inform performance making, creativity and writing. Informed by the work of Helen Poynor and others her most recent performance projects have explored moving outside. These include an ongoing collaboration with photographer Christian Kipp and dance artist Amy Voris. Christian Kipp is a photographer based in Essex. He splits his time between working on his own in the natural landscape and collaborating with a variety of dance artists. He is interested in the ways that these two areas feed and reflect each other. For Christian, photography feels like a way of connecting more strongly with nature and people. www.christiankipp.com Amy Voris is a dance artist based in the West Midlands and assistant organiser for the Summer Dancing Festival in Coventry. Her current practice is inspired by authentic movement and by collaboration with other artists. She was a founding member of Rose's Thoughts Dance Company (choreographer Ruth Segalis, London 1996 -‐ 2003). She currently teaches at Coventry University and is training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3
0915 -‐ 1045 ETG34: Guest Speaker 8A Chair: Sarah Whatley porous borders porous borders looks at Gibson’s project Capturing Stillness: Visualisations of Dance through Motion Capture Technologies and her research undertaken thus far. It highlights the complex nature of capturing a somatic practice such as Skinner Releasing Technique and the methodologies and outcomes which have surfaced during her first year of study. Ruth will discuss aspects of her practical research as an artist in residence at Motion.lab at Deakin University, Melbourne and the early stages of some visualisations created in response to one of Joan Skinner’s poetic images. Her exploration of the interface between motion capture technology and SRT movement practice opens up a set of questions about the relationship between movement capture and the dancing body. For example: Can we conflate the imagined with the real, kinesthetic intelligence and first person experience through both the language of Joan Skinner and the videogame? During the presentation examples of 3D interactive artworks both with and without motion captured dance will be referenced in relation to ideas of kinesthetic experience. Ruth Gibson is a visual artist, who creates moving image and installation work. She is a trained dancer and choreographer who continues to perform and direct theatre and film. She is an AHRC Creative Fellow at Coventry University’s School of Art and Design and collaborates with Bruno Martelli as igloo creating virtual worlds as locations for inquiry, exhibiting in galleries and at festivals worldwide including the 52nd Venice Biennale. Her first igloo work won a BAFTA nomination and igloo’s installations have gathered numerous awards including a recent Henry Moore Foundation Commission. Gibson/ Martelli website -‐ www.igloo.org.uk SwanQuake: the User Manual -‐ 2007, Published by Liquid Press /iDAT www.swanquake.com
0915 – 1230 ET126: Workshop 8B (12 places) Chair: Paula Kramer Body of Becoming -‐ Progressing into No-‐Progress moving the attitude towards ‘no-‐progress’ in the continuity of acceptance The title in itself carries a paradox, which allows a complex and creative view on our collective and individual heritage of progress and development, failure and aggression. Starting with our so-‐being we will share our movement, investigate its liveliness and crystallize what ever we may touch in the fields of • the dimension of acceptance • the possibility of no-‐development • the nothingness, the break, and the numerous • touching in between spaces, forgotten realities • the polarity of better and worse, horizontal and vertical • transformation, transcendence. No transformation, no transcendence
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3 The workshop will be guided through live music, stillness, words, and movement. Its outcome is open and can be witnessed by an audience, so we can share the known and the unknown. Bettina Mainz Bettina Mainz is a freelance dancer, choreographer and teacher based in Berlin. She originally trained at SNDO in Amsterdam and subsequently went on to study with Suprapto Suryodarmo in Indonesia and Europe, completing her teacher training with Adam Bradpiece. She has developed her own movement practice ‘Body of Becoming’ over the last 20 years and teaches free-‐movement, integration work, experimental dance and composition in nature space and the studio.
0915 – 1045 ET221: Workshop 8C (20 places) Chair: Natalie Garrett Brown Somatic Practices Collaborative Working Session: Developing Somatic Frameworks for Inquiry (see also Panel 1C on Friday) In this workshop the presenter will begin by sharing several social somatic qualitative studies she has conducted for the purpose of stimulating dialogical processes she will facilitate between those attending. Participants will be guided to collaboratively conceive of and contemplate new frameworks and possibilities for somatic inquiry and practice inspired by their own related observations and gained perspectives. The presenter will aid participants in developing theoretical and practical learning frameworks and processes to support their ideas. Towards the end of the session, small groups of participants will share their developed ideas with the group. The session will conclude with a discussion that considers new possibilities and directions for somatic education. Becky Dyer is an assistant professor in the School of Dance at Arizona State University where she teaches Laban/Bartenieff Praxis and Somatic Studies, dance pedagogy and contemporary postmodern dance technique. Becky received her Ph.D. in Dance Philosophy with an emphasis in dance pedagogy and somatics from Texas Woman’s University in Spring 2010. Her research focuses on somatic approaches to teaching and learning, somatic epistemology, transformative learning perspectives and collaborative inquiry process.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3
1100 – 1230 ET221: Panel 9A Structures of Thought Chair: Kirsty Alexander Experiments in Movement and Writing: Documenting Somatic-‐Based Performance Practice In my research, I have sought for ways of writing about somatic-‐based performance practices that value the body-‐mind connection and subjective position of participants. Drawing on the work of John Weir, Janet Adler and Alys Longely, I will discuss my process of developing a writing practice to document the work of Irish choreographer Joan Davis and my own practice-‐based research. My writing journey has included experiments in revisiting dynamic performance moments and deepening my sensory memory before writing distilled reflections on the practice. The paper will be both a subjective “description” of performance moments and an outline of my approaches for generating the written material. Along with offering ways for articulating somatic practice for different contexts, this paper also opens a debate about the idea of documenting somatic movement. Emma Meehan is a performer and researcher whose interest focuses on physical approaches to performance. She has recently completed her doctoral research at the Drama Department, Trinity College on the work Irish choreographer and dancer Joan Davis. Her research was supported by Trinity College Dublin and The Irish Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. She is currently teaching part-‐time at the Drama Department in Trinity College and developing a new performance piece on body image. Moving Identities – Reforming The material processes of the dancing body can be lost beneath layers of projection, interpretation and representation. My recently completed PhD research examined ways of uncovering the inner experiences of the dancer through utilising narrative-‐based approaches in conjunction with somatic attention. In my research, I developed both a philosophical rationale for including the dancer’s perspective in dance studies and written methodologies which emerged from practical choreographic research with four contemporary choreographers: Rosemary Butcher (UK), John Jasperse (US), Jodi Melnick (US) and Liz Roche (Ire). The outcome was the formation of a dancer-‐centred perspective on contemporary choreographic practice. This paper will disclose conclusions from this PhD research, as well as pointing to new research directions that propose ways of deepening the phenomenological mapping of choreography and dance practice through the dancer’s somatic awareness of her inner terrain. Jenny Roche is a dance artist based in Ireland. She has worked as a contemporary dancer since the early 1990s performing with choreographers including: Michael Keegan-‐Dolan (Ire), Janet Smith (UK), Rosemary Butcher (UK), Jodi Melnick (NYC), John Jasperse (NYC), Yoshiko Chuma (NYC) and in work by Dominique Bagouet, re-‐staged by Les Carnets Bagouet (France). She co-‐founded Rex Levitates Dance Company with her sister, choreographer Liz Roche in 1999 and completed her practice-‐based PhD in Dance at Roehampton University in
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3 2009. She recently joined the faculty of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Notes on a shared dialogue Manny Emslie and Sarah Spies will facilitate a joint practical presentation that is performative in nature and that provides a series of provocations. These will be used to activate action and dialogue leading to connections of the mind with the body without a body-‐centric agenda or purely conceptual turn. It is anticipated that from this will emerge considerations of mindful bodily articulations and different thinking intelligences in soma-‐centric research. Manny Emslie is a Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Chester and a certified Skinner Releasing facilitator and practitioner. She is presently touring a solo work -‐ Wanderings (2011) -‐ that is somatically informed and which draws on autoethnographic processes. Manny also thinks that we shouldn’t think too much! www.mannyemslie.co.uk Sarah Spies is a Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Chester and she focuses on choreographic and somatically informed screen work and improvisation. She is currently commissioned to create filmic projects for Cinedans (Amsterdam) in 2012 and is a founding and active member of artists-‐networks Embassy of… (Vienna) and Performance Matters (London). She holds an MA in both Choreography and Existential Phenomenology. Sarah is an enthusiastic supporter of practice -‐ based thinking … Sarah and Manny are co – founders of the experimental company The Oblique Strategists.
1100 -‐ 1230 ICE Studio: Interactive Installation 9B (2 x 12 places) Chair: David Bennett NB The ICE Studio is a 5-‐10 minute walk from the Ellen Terry Building; guides will be available to escort delegates from Ellen Terry at 1045 & 1130
Navigating the Site Map: From Analogue to Digital Space A space where research takes place.... My PhD research seeks to examine and interrogate the assumed pre-‐eminence of face-‐to-‐face pedagogy, exploring the creative possibilities made available with the introduction of video, pre-‐recorded instructions and photography as modes of transmission for movement. At the centre of this research is a movement vocabulary titled In All Languages which is comprised of 9 sets of physical action; each suggest starting points for individual and group choreography. The next major phase in the research is the development of a website that will house the practice; it is this shift from analogue to digital space that is central to this interactive installation. It seems essential that in order to develop a website that functions as a tool for stimulating movement, one should first develop a real time analogue assessment, recording how participants interact and navigate their way through the material. The analogue 'homepage' will invite delegates to participate, recording personal pathways on to a site-‐map that I hope will inform and direct the construction of digital space.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3 Louise Ritchie is based at Aberystwyth University UK where she is now in her final year of practice led AHRC doctoral research, under the supervision of Professor Mike Pearson and Dr Heike Roms. Alongside her PhD research she teaches on the Performance Studies undergraduate program at Aberystwyth University.
1100 – 1230 University Square: Participatory 9C Chair: Katye Coe NB University Square is a 5-‐10 minute walk from Ellen Terry Building
Open Movement Practice An opportunity to digest and integrate your experiences of the conference through movement. Please join Helen moving at University Square. No structure, no instructions – come for as long as you want – rain or shine! Helen Poynor runs the Walk of Life Workshop and Training Programme in Non-‐stylised and Environmental Movement on the World Heritage Jurassic Coast in East Devon/West Dorset, www.walkoflife.co.uk. As a director and performer she specialises in site-‐specific and auto-‐biographical performance and cross-‐art form collaborations. She is a visiting professor of Performance at Coventry University.
1330 – 1530 ET221: Keynote A conversation about Choreographic Thinking Tools How might we develop new ways of augmenting creativity in movement generation? How can we better connect intellect, imagination and the physical body and enrich their relationship? Can a scientific understanding of the organisation of the mind provide clues and ideas that can be put into practice and how can somatic approaches contribute? The dance world is already rich in choreographic expertise that is constantly seeking new means to create and to inspire movement generation. To help create a platform for debate and discussion, the three presenters will outline some challenges that need to be addressed and specific illustrations of current studio practices and tasks. The illustrations will focus on research on the use of multiple forms of imagery in movement generation being explored in R-‐Research (The research arm of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance). Scott deLahunta has worked as writer, researcher and organiser on a range of international projects bringing performing arts with a focus on choreography into conjunction with other disciplines and practices. He is currently Senior Research Fellow Coventry University/ R-‐Research Director, Wayne McGregor|Random Dance and Program and Research Coordinator Motion Bank/ The Forsythe Company. He serves on the editorial boards of Performance Research, Dance Theatre Journal and the International Journal of Performance and Digital Media.
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3 Gill Clarke studied English and Education, and more recently Social Sciences, and has spent her career as an Independent Dance Artist: performer, teacher, director, researcher. She was a founder member of the Siobhan Davies Dance Company. as well as a working with Janet Smith and Rosemary Butcher, performing with many other choreographers. ,.Gill was Head of Performance at Laban, co-‐directs Independent Dance (ID) and developed a new MA in professional practice: a partnership between ID, TrinityLaban and Siobhan Davies Dance. Her teaching practice is influenced by her studies of Alexander, Feldenkrais and Ideokinenis techniques and her ongoing g independent research. Philip Barnard worked for the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, where he carried out research on how memory, attention, language, body states and emotion work together. His ICS model of the human mind has been applied to the design of computer interfaces, and to help understand emotional disorders. He is currently using it to account for the way in which human mental and emotional skills have evolved. Since 2003, he has been collaborating with Wayne McGregor | Random Dance to develop productive synergies between choreographic processes and our knowledge of cognitive neuroscience.
1530 – 1600 ET221: Closing Remarks & Conference Ends Sarah Whatley and Natalie Garrett Brown
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3
Throughout the conference The Emergence of Form This experimental framework proposes to explore the emergence of form in the context of an intertwined exploration of different somatic practices and time-‐space related strategies for an extended period of time: the duration of the complete conference. It would consist of a continuous and open process articulated as a sequence of frames. Form emerges when the actual experience is perceived as operationally coherent. Form is understood here not as produced or constructed but as perceptive emergence, defined as spontaneous appearance arising from the interaction between the performed movements, their environment and the perception of both. “The emergence of form” will create conditions to research this subtle process through its immediate observation. The main questions to be addressed are: when and how does form emerge in the practice of somatics? Which are the conditions of this emergence? And: how does this kind of experience change our concept of form? Aesthetic Practice and Embodiment Research Group (Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin – HZT), represented by: Elisabeth Molle, Katja Münker, Ka Rustler, Alex Arteaga Elisabeth Molle's dance background is Ballet, the Cunningham technique, Trisha Brown and the "post-‐modern dance". After spending 6 years in New York, where she also graduated as an Alexander teacher (ACAT) in 1983 she moved to Berlin. There she developed her work connecting the Alexander Technique to movement and improvisation, teaching and performing in a process-‐oriented way. She teaches presently at the Master for Choreography at the Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT), has a private praxis for the AT and has been working on Alexander Technique training schools for over 20 years. Katja Münker is a freelanced dancer/choreographer, Feldenkrais-‐Practitioner, physiotherapist based in Berlin; New Dance + performance training with Keriac; movement-‐studies + performance projects with Amos Hetz; self-‐organized learning + research in dance et al. during ‘Transploration’ with Ingo Reulecke + Martin Nachbar as mentors; performance projects + regular teaching in various context; part of the artists collective ‘Bergrecherche’. www.MOveMENT-muenker.de Ka Rustler is a dancer, performer, choreographer, movement educator and researcher. Her work experience also includes somatic psychotherapy and worldwide top management trainings. She teaches internationally applications and methods derived from BMC® and their relevance in Movement & Artistic Research, Choreographic Exploration and Embodiment. At present she is in the Team of the HZT in Berlin. Alex Arteaga is a researcher in the fields of aesthetic practice and embodiment theories. He develops his research through his artistic practice, as academic researcher at the Collegium for the Advanced Study of Picture Act and Embodiment (Humboldt University Berlin) and as visiting professor at the Master of Choreography (Inter-‐University Centre for Dance Berlin).
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3 Stopping in Interesting Places A series of works by Antony Wall drawn from movement explorations in the natural environment and studio practice. An exploration of arriving in moving and in stillness as an ongoing practice through visual art. The works chosen for this exhibition focus around a sense of moving and of arriving both in my own movement practice and within the creation of the works themselves. My inspiration stems from a connection to the natural environment through embodied and somatic movement. The aim is to convey a sense of pure experience, perception and event through a grounding of awareness in the moving body. The title comes from a quote by Paul Gardner "A painting is never finished -‐ it simply stops in interesting places". This what I have been doing in my practice and through this exhibition you are invited to share in the journey! I suffer from that primal drive to find meaning in the world and to somehow capture it in image, in word, in movement or event. In a sense to express ones very soul and in doing so recognizing the soul nature of everything. Antony Wall brings the full weight of his many years training as a visual artist, Shiatsu therapist, Martial Artist and movement artist to his work. He graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1998, is devoted to exploring creativity as fundamental to the human experience. He has recently been training with Helen Poynor in the Walk Of Life training programme. everything is at once everything is at once is a collection of photos from a collaborative site project, Enter & Inhabit. This project seeks to explore our changing experiences of the outdoor spaces that we pass through by drawing on durational movement improvisation, photography and writing. In January 2011 Enter & Inhabit began a project in Kenilworth Common. In these woods -‐ a popular thoroughfare local to our homes -‐ we are beginning to translate processes from previous sites and projects, further afield. Interests in the processes of sensory perception and the shifting textures of the seasons are feeding into our scores for the site. The images in this collection evolve from the ongoing project process which involves inhabiting space and place, through a practice of staying open to the present. Through simple camera movements the colours and textures of the woodland merge and layer. Created from and by the site, existing forms are transformed into images which are abstract and familiar. Characterised by a sensorial playfulness, the resulting images are not the place, the dancer or the dance, but are something parallel, folding back into collaboration with the site and each other. The images considered here seem to gently resonate with the outdoor movement practices being explored. Enter & Inhabit www.enterinhabit.com Natalie Garrett Brown, Christian Kipp & Amy Voris
Dance & Somatic Practices Conference 2011: Sun 10TH July – Day 3 Natalie Garrett Brown lectures in Dance at Coventry University where she is associate head for Performing Arts. She is associate editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and she is on the editorial board for the Dancelines section in Research in Dance Education. She has just completed her Somatic Movement Educators Training in Body-‐Mind Centering. Her research interests are theoretically situated within Feminist understandings of embodied subjectivity and is focused on the ways in which Somatic practices inform performance making, creativity and writing. Informed by the work of Helen Poynor and others her most recent performance projects have explored moving outside. These include an ongoing collaboration with photographer Christian Kipp and dance artist Amy Voris. Christian Kipp is a photographer based in Essex. He splits his time between working on his own in the natural landscape and collaborating with a variety of dance artists. He is interested in the ways that these two areas feed and reflect each other. For Christian, photography feels like a way of connecting more strongly with nature and people. www.christiankipp.com Amy Voris is a dance artist based in the West Midlands and assistant organiser for the Summer Dancing Festival in Coventry. Her current practice is inspired by authentic movement and by collaboration with other artists. She was a founding member of Rose's Thoughts Dance Company (choreographer Ruth Segalis, London 1996 -‐ 2003). She currently teaches at Coventry University and is training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley.