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Living in Movement: Development of Somatic Practicesin Different CulturesSylvie Fortin aa Dance Department , Université du Québec à Montréal , Montreal, Quebec, CanadaPublished online: 18 Mar 2011.

To cite this article: Sylvie Fortin (2002) Living in Movement: Development of Somatic Practices in Different Cultures, Journalof Dance Education, 2:4, 128-136, DOI: 10.1080/15290824.2002.10387221

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Over 20 years have passed since MarthaMyers1 published her seminal articles onthe uses of somatics by the United States

dance community. In this article I will reflect onthe evolution of somatics in different dancecommunities around the world. My standpoint isbased primarily on personal encounters withpractitioners from different countries who havegenerously shared their experiences andperspectives. More specifically, my voice isinfluenced by my position as a French Canadianwho has worked with colleagues in Australia,Brazil, France, Québec, New Zealand, and theUnited States. I will examine the continuouslytransforming field of somatics, alongside descriptionsof several practitioners’ pathways. Thus I aim tosuggest some international trends of somatic practiceas well as aspects of somatics that shift and evolvewith each individual practitioner in her or his uniquecultural context. My intention is not to present amulti-site ethnography. The goal is to share my viewas a woman who has been immersed for the past 20years in the fields of both dance and somatics, andwho has witnessed different orientations shaped byindividual propensities in different socioculturalcontexts.

Somatics is an umbrella term used to assem-ble experiential bodily practices that privilegesubjective experience. As both a way ofperceiving one’s body and a specific field ofknowledge, somatics includes practices such asAlexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method,Body-Mind Centering, Continuum Movement,and Ideokinesis among others. At the outset, itis important to say that referring to the field ofsomatics as an entity is in itself hazardous. Aspointed out by Jill Green, “the term is not amonolith; not everyone uses it in the same way.”2

That being said, in the United States, the termis increasingly widespread. Over time, termssuch as body therapy, bodywork, body awareness,or mind-body practices have faded in favor ofthe term “somatics,” probably because this termfavors the notion of soma rather than body. Tho-mas Hanna, who first defined the term“somatics,” explains that the soma is:

… the body as perceived from within by firstperson perception. When a human being isobserved from the outside, i.e., from a third-person viewpoint, the phenomenon of a humanbody is perceived…. The soma, being internallyperceived, is categorically distinct from a body,not because the subject is different but becausethe mode of viewpoint is different: it is imme-diate proprioception — a sensory mode thatprovides unique data.3

This distinction between body and soma cannotbe considered a mere rhetorical point of view be-cause it has implications in how somatics is per-ceived and has evolved in different countries.

Living in MovementDevelopment of Somatic Practicesin Different Cultures

Sylvie Fortin, Ph.D.

Sylvie Fortin, Ph.D., is in the Dance Departmentat the Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal,Quebec, Canada.

Correspondence and reprint requests: SylvieFortin, Ph.D., Dance Department, Université duQuébec à Montréal, C.P. 8888, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3P8.

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Naming our FieldThe French dance community does not use theterm “somatics” because to the lay person it re-fers to different therapies that use the body toremedy a relational, emotional, or structuraldysfunction. In France the term “soma” is his-torically associated with somato-sociotherapy,somato-psychotherapy, or structural somato-therapy. Therefore the dance community, whichclearly favors an educational/artistic standpointand not a therapeutic one, uses the title “AnalyseFonctionelle du Corps dans le Mouvement Dansé(AFCMD).” This descriptor is unwieldy, both inFrench and in English. It has the untoward con-sequence of being confusing when translatedinto English: Functional Analysis of the Body inDanced Movement. The French refer to them-selves as movement analysts. This title does notpertain to the Effort Shape system as it usuallydoes in America. However, the French titleAFCMD, presents the double advantage of be-ing both representative of and specific to thedance field.

In English, the title “somatic educator” is ge-neric and does not provide any information aboutpossible specialization in specific fields (e.g.dance, sport, or psychology). Many factors mustbe taken into consideration when selecting adescriptor for the field. In France, as said, thetitle “somatics” has been rejected because it isnot meaningful to French society. Another essen-tial criterion when selecting a descriptor is itsuniqueness. The French used the term “kinesi-ology” for a while but finally rejected it becauseanother profession used it. Finally, in 1999, theterm AFCMD was formalized nationally in theFrench Dictionary of Dance.4 For convenientreading of this paper, after defining AFCMD, Iwill encompass it under the large umbrella termof “somatics.” Its overarching purpose and meth-ods of inquiry are the same as those of somaticsalthough the history and forces that have guidedits evolution remain specific to France.

The notion of an internationally unified so-matic field must be treated with extreme cau-tion. In France, however, it is easier to treat theAFCMD as a homogeneous community since itis part of a national diploma that is required foreveryone who wants to teach dance, regardlessof the style or setting. The national diploma,established in 1989, is offered with the finan-cial support of the state. So far, thirty or so dancemovement analysts (somatic educators special-ized in dance) have been accredited and havetaught more than 2,500 dance teachers. The

AFCMD borrows from three main sources: 1.functional anatomy, biomechanics, neurophysi-ology; 2. the work of theorists such as Delsarte,Dalcroze, and Laban; and 3. the practice of pio-neer somatic educators such as Feldenkrais,Alexander, and Bainbridge Cohen.

Cultural ContextsTwo main leaders of AFCMD who gradually de-veloped individual interests are Odile Rouquet,originally influenced by Ideokinesis and Body-Mind Centering, and Hubert Godard, whose ini-tial background was in Rolfing. They now pur-sue different orientations, Rouquet working atthe Conservatoire National Supérieur deMusique et de Danse de Paris, helping elite clas-sical and modern dancers to improve their per-forming skills; Godard working at the UniversitéParis V111-Saint-Denis, focusing on aestheticanalysis of dance styles. Through their institu-tional work and their involvement in the statediploma and in different continuing educationprograms, they have shaped the somatic land-scape in France. Their publications offer practi-cal tools for performing skills in ballet and con-temporary dance, in the case of Rouquet,5 andillustration of aesthetic style analysis, in thecase of Godard.6 Both Rouquet and Godard pos-sess an incredible capacity to merge physiologi-cal, biomechanical, social, aesthetic, psychologi-cal, and symbolic concerns into a specific practiceof embodiment, which is then targeted towardartistic development. They combine objectiveand subjective information from many disci-plines to help dancers avoid pathological atti-tudes throughout their career. Dancers are in-vited to develop strategies for adapting tointernal factors such as fatigue or aging, as wellas with external factors, such as choreographer’sdemands or the work environment. In a work-shop, for example, dancers might be invited toexplore “pre-movement” through gentle move-ment sequences, visualization, or partner touch.

Rouquet, relying on current information aboutthe functional anatomy of the soft tissues of thespine, might focus on dancers’ back muscles toexplore different internal movements that areonly slightly visually noticeable. Fascia, bones,and muscles are distinguishable support sys-tems with different emotional tones. Perceptualshifts might reveal the subtle movement qual-ity that differentiates a good dancer from aninternationally acclaimed one. Within Rouquet’spractice, pre-movement is addressed as a per-ceptual shift or as a mental anticipation of the

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action that affects the initiation and sequenc-ing of a dancing phrase. Godard shares a focuson the notion of pre-movement when he encour-ages the physical release of the largely involun-tary postural holding muscles in order to allowexpressive freedom in the voluntary muscles. Hemight provide different hands-on experiences tostudents who are jumping, gently pushing ontheir shoulder or under their rib cage to helpthem feel their habitual tendency toward grav-ity or levity. He can then illustrate this conceptwith his comparative study of Gene Kelly andFred Astaire, inviting students to acquireAstaire’s style by playing with their peripheralvision, which results in lengthening of the spine.He relates orientation in space to a desire toreach, an attitude toward nomadism.

The above description of Rouquet andGodard’s practices is too brief to transmit thedepth of their approaches. However, these ex-amples have been provided in order to show howthe unitary label of AFCMD, supported by a na-tional structure, has allowed the emergence ofslightly diverse, yet ideologically similar paths.The national structure encourages a certain de-gree of conformity and coherence in the field.The teacher certification program, although flex-ible, progressively results in homogeneity ofapproaches. In other countries, where there isno national structure, more diversity hasemerged and different somatic educators tendto pursue individualistic somatic practices with-out a common anchorage. In the United States,it is common for somatic educators to deepen oneor more somatic approaches and start design-ing their own. As Ninoska Gomez explained:

Tuning and refining a somatic practice mayprogressively lead us to the limits of that prac-tice. This may in turn challenge and motivateus to continue learning from our somatic real-ity, perhaps by pursuing a practice of our owndesign. This is what many of us eventually endup doing.7

After years of teaching sensory-motor developmentin a Canadian university, Venezuelan-born Gomeztrained in Body-Mind Centering and moved toCosta Rica to open a private studio. She developed“Somarhythms,” an approach to training usinginflatable gymnastic balls that helps to releasechildlike playfulness. Gomez currently uses ex-pressive and artistic activities in her work withindividuals and community groups.

Transformation is an integral aspect ofsomatics. The somatic field is continuously

changing as its practitioners develop methodsin unique ways. Sondra Fraleigh is an excellentexample of this trend. Fraleigh works at thedepartment of Dance at SUNY Brockport in ad-dition to directing the East-West Somatics In-stitute. “Moving with nature,” she wrote,” is thecore principle of East-West Somatics.”8 She be-lieves that healing the earth and ourselves willbe the major work of dancers in the twenty-firstcentury. Her eclectic work, with a backgroundin the Feldenkrais Method, craniosacral therapy,myofascial release, yoga, and Zen meditation,reflects a view of the earth as an evolutionarysystem of inter-connected relationships, in whichwe are a part of the web and cannot be sepa-rated from the other living organisms on earth.9

Other examples of individuals pursuing theirown path from an eclectic background includeGlenna Batson who developed her own synthe-sis “Movement Re-Visions” from a backgroundin the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method,Body-Mind Centering, Tai Chi, yoga, massage,craniosacral therapy, and physical therapy. Hermain focus is on health and injury prevention.She has developed a reeducation process com-bining principles of somatics with specific tech-niques from physical therapy. Her contributionis significant in bridging traditional medicineand somatics, an objective mechanical modelwith subjective bodily experience.10

Martha Eddy is another active somatic edu-cator in the dance field in the United States. Sheco-founded “Moving On Center,” an organizationthat integrates body-mind health and interdis-ciplinary arts with community life. Her maininfluences, Body-Mind Centering, Laban Move-ment Analysis, and Bartenieff Fundamentals areintegrated in an idiosyncratic practice, bridgingthe private and public domains in addressingcontemporary issues such as violence inmulticultural environments. Her teaching showsa strong commitment to engaging students be-yond their individual perspective into an activeparticipatory consciousness rather than a pas-sive observing one.11

There are other somatic educators who havenot developed a specific approach or techniquebut have clearly developed a personal recogniz-able signature by emphasizing a specific themeor conceptual framework. For instance, JillGreen’s work and writings have highlighted,from a feminist perspective, how the body is bothshaped by power and employed as an instrumentto maintain it. Somatics as a way of coming toknow oneself, she claims, can resist the domi-

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nant trend to uniformity within dance institu-tions. She articulates in a persuasive way thenotion of somatic epistemology when she insistson knowing as inseparable of our body, language,and social history.12

Many more somatic educators, who should benamed, have brought together a myriad of in-fluences and have developed idiosyncratic so-matic approaches through their self-observation,personal inquiry, and creativity. They sometimesshare their work in certification programs thatthey have developed themselves. In the UnitedStates this approach has not had a national im-pact, whereas the approach taken in France hasresulted in government certification being con-ferred.

Somatics in the dance field is growing in un-expected ways, as are its players who eventu-ally tend to pursue a practice of their own de-sign. Somatic educators in the United Statesprovide different options to the dance commu-nity; some accentuate health, spirituality, aes-thetics, pedagogy, feminism, sociology, and poli-tics. While this might appear to be a dispersionof the central tenets of somatics, it does reveal apredictable unfolding that can also be observedin the evolution of other disciplines. As an ex-ample, computer science has branched into manydiverse applications and any one of these canbe applied in several different contexts. Patternrecognition, for instance, might be used in radi-ology to detect tumors, in a post office to readhandwriting, or in the military to detect targets.In a similar way, we might think that the emerg-ing branches of somatics are finding their wayto different aspects of dance. For example, so-cial somatics, which implies “taking context andculture into account and being activist to strivefor holistic models,”13 might guide the work of adance teacher. A social somatics orientation in ateaching context might mean listening to thesubjective and specific experiences of the learn-ers. In a choreographic context, it might trans-late to recognizing a dancer’s ability to embodyand enact the dance. The umbrella term“somatics” is useful in that it is a broad conceptthat allows several perspectives to emerge. How-ever, that engenders some cautiousness.

Considering the process of cross-fertilizationamong different somatic practices, somatic edu-cators must question the internal coherence oftheir resulting idiosyncratic practices. Borrow-ing from different models might look coherenton the surface but reveal contradiction of val-ues when looked at in depth. One cannot, on one

hand, embrace a model that supposes a linearsequence of change, and on the other, a model inwhich change emerges according to the needs ofthe organism within the constraints of the envi-ronment. In devising an eclectic practice, RaeJohnson offers useful guidelines for reviewinginternal consistency and forming “a cohesivewhole from our own mixed bag.”14 She sees theprocess of integrating different somatic influ-ences as “sorting the mixed bag,” a self-learnedskill that is not taught to the majority of somaticeducators in their initial training. A short lookat the history of somatics may be interestinghere.

The Evolution of SomaticsMichele Mangione15 distinguished different peri-ods in the development of somatics:

• From the turn of the century to the 1930s,when a need for self-healing prompted theearly pioneers to develop their methods;

• 1930-1970, during which the individual lin-eages were established by former studentsof the pioneers; and

• 1970-1990, a time that has seen the integra-tion of the different approaches into thera-peutic, educational, psychological, or artisticdomains.

Looking at the last two decades, I would add twomore periods:

• The development of idiosyncratic practicesand

• The growth of a community of researchers.

The 1990s were characterized by the devel-opment of idiosyncratic practices derived fromdifferent combinations of the original somaticmethods. The twenty-first century definitelyleaves behind the protective thinking of the firstgeneration of somatic educators. The first so-matic pioneers typically demonstrated a sectar-ian attitude that led to standardization of thepractices; for example, you could join a class ofFeldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, or Alexanderin different countries around the world and feelat home after managing basic local language.From the start, there has been standardizationand a globalization of the methods, the pioneerstraveling around the world to disseminate theirpractice beyond territorial boundaries, while re-maining concerned about the integrity of theirmethods. Early in its development, somaticsformed a “community of practice,” a connectedbut dispersed group of individuals revolving

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around the pioneers who often gave their nameto their methods. In order to become a memberof a specific community of practice, you had togo through a training certification varying inlength and focus from one training to another.This is still the case, though today there is agreater variety of somatic practices, more inclu-siveness, and more pathways to studying somaticmethods. Practices are mutating in a context ofcross-fertilization with people sharing the samekind of interests. Today, somatic educators havea deeper appreciation of their wider community.After periods devoted to refining specific ap-proaches, a kind of security has been establishedthat provides the supportive background to en-gage in understanding different practices intheir own terms. We move from being ego-so-matic, centered on individuals, to a philosophyof eco-somatics, promoting relationships be-tween knowledge bases and people in differentsociocultural contexts.

As we enter the twenty-first century, there hasbeen an increase in somatic research inacademia. This raises the question of how toapproach and design studies that respect thephenomenological nature of the field. Findingthe appropriate means for measuring the effec-tiveness of a given method is a challenge. It hasbeen argued that several studies have used con-ventional methods to measure the non-conven-tional somatic approaches, and that this has re-sulted in questionable results.16

In the dance community, collaborative re-search projects have been conducted with thecooperation of practitioners from different so-matic methods and different countries. One ex-ample is the research performed in Australia byJacqueline Simmonds (senior lecturer in danceat the University of Western Sydney), GregHoldaway (Alexander practitioner), ZoranKovich (practitioner of the Feldenkrais Methodand Ideokinesis), and Rebecca Gregg (lecturerin dance at the University of New South Wales).These four people spent two years working withdance students exploring the integration of so-matic material into contemporary dance classes.They developed a manual for dance teachersdescribing the benefits of somatic processes indance training. In Australia, somatics has beenpart of major dance training institutions suchas The Victorian College of the Arts, the West-ern Australian Academy of Performing Arts, andThe College of Performing Arts in Adelaide. Theuse of the term “somatics” is not as widespreadas in the United States, as can be demonstrated

from the way the classes are listed using a vari-ety of terms.

Another example of collaborative research,this time among different countries, is my cur-rent project with Madeleine Lord, a professor ofpedagogy at the Université du Québec àMontréal; Zoran Kovich, a lecturer at the Uni-versity of Western Sydney, Australia; andWarwick Long, a senior teaching fellow at theUniversity of Otago, New Zealand. Our aim isto share teaching and reflection on how somaticsis integrated into contemporary technique danceclasses. This line of inquiry is relevant to manyeducators using somatic approaches in dance, es-pecially as there are numerous claims about theinfluences of somatics on dance teaching, butlittle research documenting how this concretelyoccurs. An initial data collection in Montreal fo-cusing on the teacher’s perspective was followedby data collection in New Zealand focusing onthe student’s perspective.

In New Zealand, as in other countries,somatics in the dance community evolved froman adjunct training to gradually becoming inte-grated into technique and choreography classes.The first tertiary dance program opened in NewZealand in 1989 at UNITEC under the directionof Ali East, who studied the Skinner Releasingtechnique and promoted a somatic approach.Today, Skinner, Alexander, and Feldenkraisclasses are offered at UNITEC along with aneclectic somatic class offered by Felicity Molloy.In our conversation, Felicity19 touched upon thesubject of isolation, which is interesting in rela-tionship to New Zealand which is geographicallyisolated. From my encounter with somaticpractioners in different countries, I remark thata feeling of isolation is an experience shared bymany regardless of geography.20 That, I believeis related to the fact that somatic practitionerswork in a landscape where immersion in sub-jective embodied work is a conceptual leap frommainstream thinking. Isolation has advantagesand disadvantages since it gives freedom to cre-ate singular practices that draw on individualskills and interests.

I would like to reiterate how different orien-tations of somatics are shaped by individual pro-pensities in different sociocultural contexts. Theindividuals who create the field of somatics, andare shaped by it, are part of an internationalweb linking people, philosophies, and practices.In Brazil, Marcia Strazzacappa,21 professor atthe University of Campinas (UNICAMP), re-counted the evolution of somatics in Sao Paolo.

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She distinguised three sources of somatics de-velopment:

1. The importation of methods through visitingforeign teacher,

2. The importation of methods through thereturning of Brasilians who studied abroad,and

3. The development of methods by some localpioneers who used their own bodilyexperience as well as experiences of theirstudents to assist them in their artistic work(such as Luis Otavio Burnier, Klauss Viannaand Jose Antonio Lima).

As elsewhere in the world, the result today isthe presence of a variety of somatics approachesin dance academia. Somatics is prospering inacademic settings in many countries,challenging Descartes separation of body andmind, in which the mind is of higher order thanthe body. Somatics inside and outside academia,I always believed, answers the needs of occiden-tal dancers who have, unfortunately, too oftenbeen disembodied from their experience.Through mechanical repetitions of movements,dancers often cultivate attitudes and habits thatlater impede their capacity for sensing,perceiving, and changing. The issue ofembodiment leads me to address dancers’ moti-ves for engaging in somatics in different cultu-ral contexts.

Somatics Within and Beyond CulturesWhen I first went on a “somatic tour” in Brazil,I questioned the soundness of my visit. So far, Ihad facilitated dancers’ learning in Anglo-Saxonor European countries. I was wondering whatecho I would find of somatics in this culturecharacterized by its sensual carnival andexuberant energy. Would somatics be irrelevantin this culture that portrays such a corporealidentity? I came to the conclusion that the in-ternational sub-culture of dancing is verypervasive. Dance is a specialized andhomogeneous community in many aspectsregardless of where you are around the world.For example, dancers from different places facesimilar challenges presented by dance injuries,career longevity, power relationships, andattempts to meet the aesthetically ideal body.Many dance writers have addressed how danceconstructs and inscribes our body. ElizabethDempster22 and Susan Foster,23 for example,have presented comparative analyses of danceforms illustrating how different techniques

construct a specialized body with a specific idealbody image. Inspired by Foucault’s work, JillGreen24 and Clyde Smith25 have addressed theissue of the creation of docile bodies in the danceworld. Dance practices discipline bodily behaviorin ways that often escape critical consciousness.As elsewhere, Brazilian dancers conform to orattempt to resist the ideal dancing body. But ifdance practices inscribe our bodies, can ourbodily practices also challenge it? I believe so. Ihave argued26 that awareness of bodilyexperience is closely tied to the development ofpersonal authority and hence provides leveragefor empowerment. I expressed to Sylvia Soter,professor at the UniverCidade-Rio Janeiro, myinitial wonder about why Brazilians engage insomatics given the physicality of the country, andshe explained to me that there is a lot of pres-sure for many Brazilian dancers and non-dancers to conform to the external image of thebody provided by the media, their body beingexposed all year long to the gaze of others in theall-year sun along the beaches in urban areas.She explained that men and women come to apoint of not being able or not wanting to meetthe external criteria imposed on their body.Referring to her private practice with non-dancers, she said, “I help them to get older.”27

Somatic classes give students a sense of innerauthority from which they have beendisconnected. In that respect, somatics istranscultural. As Helena Wulff wrote about theballet world (and her writing applies as well tothe somatic and dance world in general): “thetransnational nature of ballet world does notmake national culture… obsolete. Ballet peopleare constantly negotiating transnational and na-tional cultural processes.”28 The relationshipbetween somatic practices and national cultureis a stimulating and thought-provoking subject.

The way any given somatic practice is de-signed reflects the culture as well as the somaticcharacteristics of its creator. Moshe Feldenkrais,for example, was a male, endomorphic, Jewishphysicist and judoka who developed a criticalapproach to notions such as energy and emotion.Mathias Alexander was an ectomorphic Austra-lian actor who developed a method reliant oninitiating verbal directions, an expression famil-iar to him. Somatic methods are born in specificcultural contexts and are received in a givenculture.

There is much to say about the particulari-ties of culture in which, for example, the rhythmof language affects the rhythm of breathing,

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which in turns affects the kind of somatic ex-ploration people will need the most. However,Johnson makes a claim about somatics as pro-viding experiences that go beyond specific cul-ture. He writes: “We are torn asunder by reli-gious and secular ideologies; but we are unitedin our breathing, digestion, pattern of movement,and neurological functioning.”29 The issue ofsomatics transcending culture is, I repeat, a com-plex and puzzling one to me at this stage.

Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum Move-ment, addresses transcultural aspects ofsomatics when she focuses on cellular and sub-cellular levels of awareness.30 She believes thatthis level of experience might constitute a com-mon, unifying ground for the participants. LikeBrainbridge Cohen, she uses evolutionary theo-ries as metaphors.31 Human beings evolved fromsingle bacteria, into more complex organismsleading to fish, amphibian, reptile, ape, and man.This past is still within our selves. From an evo-lutionary perspective, humans still share ances-tral processes with all living organisms. “Thehistory of the soma begins with the history ofthe cosmos,”32 writes Hanna. From bacteria, thesmallest kinds of life, to the largest – the livingearth itself – living organisms followed the samerules, asserts the scientist Margulis, in her bookSymbiotic Planet: A New View of Evolution, abook recommended in the reading list of Con-tinuum students:

Proprioception as self-awareness, evolved longbefore animals evolved, and long before theirbrains did. Sensitivity, awareness and re-sponses of plants, protocists, funci, bacteria,and animals, each in its local environment,constitute the repeating pattern that ulti-mately underlies global sensitivity….33

My point here is not to develop the baseline ofContinuum or Body-Mind Centering, but to showthat some somatic practices touch upon the issueof culture when the somatic exploration goes tothe depth of cellular experience; a place sharednot only by human beings but by all living organ-isms.

Cooperation Over CompetitionSomatics is part of a larger paradigm charac-terized by emphasis on a whole system perspec-tive, ecology, decentralization of decision-mak-ing, and a shift from outside authority toself-responsibility. Somatics, as part of a largerparadigm, has provided me a base from whichto develop my thoughts about a variety of issues,

from the training of dancers to the geneticallymodified body. Retrospectively, I see that my so-cial stand is an extension of my private con-sciousness to a public one. After a long periodfocused on my intimate somatic experience, Ibegan to use somatics to guide my quest fortransformation of educational practices. I be-came instrumental in the implementation ofboth an undergraduate dance training programbased on somatics and a graduate diploma forsomatic educators in Quebec. Indeed, since 1996,the undergraduate program at UQAM is builton an approach inclusive of different somaticpractices.34 In Fall 2002, a graduate diploma insomatic education has been offered for the firsttime to meet the needs of professional somaticeducators working in different domains such asart, health, and business education. The programencompasses theoretical and practical classeswith part time teachers coming from the somaticcommunity.

This innovative program is the result of a longprocess in a specific cultural context. In 1995,Montreal’s somatic educators created an asso-ciation (Regroupement en Éducation Somatique,RES) including six different somatics methods.The intent was first to get to know each otherbetter, then to establish quality standards, andfinally to lobby the federal and provincial gov-ernments for recognition. Probably because ofthe small size of the province and the personal-ity of the leaders (among others Yvan Joly, ini-tially a social psychologist, who has worked forthe last 15 years as an international trainer forthe Feldenkrais Method), what could have be-come a competitive relationship between differ-ent methods became instead a fruitful coopera-tion within a dynamic community, resulting inthe emergence of a graduate diploma.

ConclusionWe have examined a number of themes: the de-marcation and naming of the field; the develop-ment of hybrid practices that share an empha-sis on the public domain; the presence ofsomatics in academia with the challenge of con-ducting research that retains somatic integrity;and somatics within culture and maybe beyondnational and transnational culture. This broadperspective should be useful to somatic educa-tors wishing to position their work more clearlyin a global picture. This review may also helpdancers, choreographers, and dance teachersrealize the diversity of options in the field ofsomatics currently available to assist their work.

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Engaging myself with practitioners in Quebec,France, United States, Brazil, New Zealand, andAustralia made me appreciate, in a visceral way,our shared quest for a better life. From our indi-vidual heightened somatic sensibility, we developcompassion for others, our community, and planet.We can come to question, for example, the qualityof the air around us from feeling our breath morefully. Fraleigh writes about the place and spiritwe are looking for:

When we find the full and easy length of ourbreath, we find this place in our body’s con-sciousness…. Our quality of awareness is suchthat we are sensitive to the presence of othersand respect their space as our own. We aregraceful, because we are fully present with noneed to control others. We are at ease in ourenvironment with no wish to be elsewhere. Ourmovement is self-regulating, secure in itsemergence, not interfering, not manipulating,not apologetic. It radiates from the core, andincludes others.35

AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank all the practitioners who helpedme to grow in my understanding of somatics. Specialthank to Linda Rabin for her insightful comments onthis article, and Alys Longley for proofreading.

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