- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Dance, Movement & Spiritualities
- Previous Issues
- Volume 1, Issue 1, 2014
Dance, Movement & Spiritualities - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2014
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2014
-
-
Dance as a moving spirituality: A case study of Movement Medicine
By Eline KieftAbstractThis article describes dance as a moving spirituality through the case study of a specific practice called Movement Medicine. It addresses how a danced spirituality differs from other forms of spirituality, such as meditation and contemplation, and attempts to explore some of the aspects that make dance a unique medium for an embodied, lived and creative spirituality. ‘Feel good feelings’, as well as emerging from difficult emotions encountered on the dance floor, generate a sense of meaning which is translated to taking sustainable, socially just action. Through dance, different states of consciousness can be experienced through which ‘other’ knowledge is accessed and subsequently embodied. In these states, people can also meet and relate to spirit beings, and simultaneously express that relationship through the moving body. Finally, three qualities of dance are discussed, which contribute to concrete, lasting changes in existing life structures.
-
-
-
Seiki jutsu: Transformation and healing through spontaneous movement
Authors: Bradford Keeney and Hillary KeeneyAbstractSeiki jutsu is a unique self-healing and revitalization practice based on spontaneous expression. The transformative art of handling seiki, the presumed vital life force, consists of transmitting enhanced seiki, a daily practice for its development, and healing modalities that address body movement and therapeutic conversation. Seiki jutsu differs from other movement-based practices in that it emphasizes spontaneity over choreographed form, and has little concern with explanation. This article introduces a brief history of seiki jutsu, and its relevance and application as a member of the somatic and conversational healing arts.
-
-
-
Transformation: An ecokinetic approach to the study of ritual dance
More LessAbstractPeople move their bodily selves. Something happens. Those present, whether dancing or watching, are different than they were before. They perceive that difference in terms given by their religious tradition as healing or reconciliation; as communion with spirits or a revelation from ‘God’. Yet despite the frequency with which such transformations occur in human culture, they are notoriously difficult for scholars in either dance studies or religious studies to explain. This article introduces an ‘ecokinetic’ approach to studying transformation that reveals how and why bodily movement is effective in catalysing the kinds of experiences that participants claim occur. This approach to the study of religion and dance guides scholars to pay attention to patterns of bodily movement made by participants; imaginatively recreate the kinetic experience of making those movements; and discern the trajectories of thinking, feeling, and acting that these movement patterns open in those who perform them.
-
-
-
Love Poems to God: The contemplative artistry of Dianne McIntyre
By Veta GolerAbstractModern dance choreographer Dianne McIntyre has been creating dance for film, and concert and theatre stages since the early 1970s. Much of her work brings together a modern dance vocabulary, and African American movement and music to convey universal messages. A major reason that diverse peoples respond so favourably to McIntyre’s choreography is the contemplative practices that undergird her artistry. This article explores McIntyre as an artist who draws on eastern and western spiritual and cultural traditions to create dances that offer transcendent experiences to both audience members and performers. Through her use of improvisation (which can been viewed as a contemplative practice), her incorporation of spiritual themes, and the energy she brings as an individual and as an artist, McIntyre – a long-time meditator – captures mystical elements that empower people to recognize their own greatness, and work to make the world a better place.
-
-
-
Emanating awareness: Tracing the impact of Bharatanatyam and Iyengar yoga on my contemporary dance and choreographic practice
More LessAbstractThis article examines and reflects on the interdisciplinary dialogue between Bharatanatyam, Iyengar yoga and contemporary dance within the field of choreographic practice and performance. I detail the principles appropriated from Bharatanatyam and Iyengar yoga that have, in a layered and intrinsic manner, directly and indirectly contributed to a heightened kinaesthetic awareness within my dance and choreographic practice.
This practice reflects a strong somatic and philosophical ideology, out of which multiple body-mind perspectives emerge. Moving away from the Cartesian fragmented and objective view of the body, this article presents a holistic body-mind stance originating from a non-dualistic experiential approach. The principles appropriated from Bharatanatyam and Iyengar yoga are highlighted through a mixed-mode framework that includes experiential writing and images in an attempt to evoke the immediacy of the moving body and its sensory experience, as well as the ineffable nature of the creative and choreographic process. These experiences are contextualized with reference to specific choreographic work I have created for my company, Shakram Music and Dance.
-
-
-
Dancer – Dance – Spirituality: A phenomenological exploration of Bharatha Natyam and Contact Improvisation
Authors: Aparna Ramaswamy and Daniel DeslauriersAbstractThis article explores the intersections between the dancer, forms of dance and emergent spiritual experience. It articulates different kinds of dancing experiences that are co-created while practicing two forms of dance: Bharatha Natyam (a classical Indian dance) and Contact Improvisation. Inquiry into the phenomenology of dancing reveals commonalities in the emerging spiritual experience, while also recognizing their distinctive techniques and artistic forms. The exploration suggests that the dance, dancer and emerging spiritual experience co-create each other within the process of dancing irrespective of its form. This exploration and inquiry also offers a descriptive language for what is spirituality in dance.
-
-
-
Freedom to move, freedom to stop: A somatic approach to empowerment in community dance
By Helga DeasyAbstractThis article examines the notion of empowerment through participation in dance in a community dance context. It presents the findings of an investigation that set out to search for a dance practice that has the potential to empower and transform people’s lives. A conceptual framework of empowerment is provided as a theoretical basis, which identifies ‘freedom’ and ‘self-discovery, authenticity and individuality’ as key features of an empowering dance practice. As a means to apply the conceptual framework to a practical context, an approach to dance is introduced based on the somatic principles of breath, touch and connectivity within the body and into the ground. Interview data from a participatory research project involving four participants over the course of eight dance sessions gives an insight into how participants experienced the proposed dance practice, and whether it has the potential to evoke feelings of empowerment.
-
-
-
Bodyself: Linking dance and spirituality
More LessAbstractInner-directed movement is a sacred practice that can heal emotional wounds lodged in the body. When the body is attended to with ever-present openness to arising sensations, feelings and images, and drawn on to move and be moved from an inner wholeness, emotional and spiritual transformation occurs. This article reveals the ways in which dance and spirituality co-mingle in girls’ and women’s lives through creative dance. The author presents a qualitative arts-based inquiry – which was her doctoral dissertation – to explore how creative movement impacts adolescent girls from a first-hand perspective. To locate herself within the research, the author explores her encounters that led to dance and spirituality as an inquiry of bodyself discovery, rupture, healing, insight and ecstasy. Findings include body-image acceptance, authenticity with peers, and bodyself respect and reverence as a result of individual and group dance work. Narratives are framed within Jungian active imagination, Authentic Movement, spirituality concepts of self and bodyself, and a feminist perspective of female embodiment through creative movement.
-
-
-
West African dance education as spiritual capital: A perspective from the United States
More LessAbstractThis dance ethnography highlights the work of the Dambe Project (DP), a non-profit organization based in Tucson, Arizona that specializes in West African dance education. The study demonstrates Guinea dance to be a provider of transformative knowledge, and analyses how the pedagogy and final performance provided high school students the opportunity for constructing (post)colonial and self-knowledge that enriches their lives both culturally and spiritually. This research strives to provide a West African understanding of dance that informs teaching philosophies, as well as what Karen Clemente (2008) calls ‘the spiritual realm and potential of our pedagogies’.
-
-
-
Dancing: Creative, healthy teen activity
By Sam GillAbstractFocused on the Cuban social salsa dance rueda de casino, which has been especially developed for teens, Sam Gill argues that dancing is an exemplar of the most important activities that teenagers can do to nourish their development and to assure that they will achieve their potential. Gill demonstrates this claim in some detail from a variety of perspectives, including motivation and happiness, touch and contact, movement and the kinaesthetic sense, physical exercise, community and diversity, creativity and individuality, gender, music, and his own theoretical construct self-othering. Gill argues that while teens need to engage in many kinds of experience, and need to learn language arts, history, mathematics, social sciences, natural sciences, and so much more, dancing is one of the fundamental experiences that make our humanness possible.
-
-
-
Book Reviews
Authors: Caroline Frizell, John C. Thibdeau and Dunja NjaradiAbstractSoul and Spirit in Dance Movement Psychotherapy: A transpersonal approach, Jill Hayes (2013) London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, ISBN 978-1-84905-308-2, p/bk, £17.99
Dancing Culture Religion, Sam Gill (2012) USA: Lexington Books, 250 pp., ISBN 9780739174739, p/bk, $30
Nietzsche’s Dancers: Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and the Revaluation of Christian Values, Kimerer LaMothe (2006) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 269 pp., ISBN 978-0-230-33844-9, h/bk, $95.00
-