Dance, Movement & Spiritualities - Volume 11, Issue 1-2, 2024

How is your breath? I wish to invite you into a breath practice that brings us – people of the diaspora – into connection across time and place. I offer this article as a place of rest, a sanctuary for us to breathe freely. A place where our inhales and exhales are not constricted by the racialized structures that render us breathless. I carve out this space, a container, for us to breathe into each other, for each other, together. I guide this practice of breathing together through poetry because in poetry we breathe connection – to our sensual bodies, our communities and our Ancestors. In poetry and in praxis we breathe resistance. Learning from and responding to the resonant affects of Ev’Yan Whitney’s Sensual Dance Meditation, an ontologically Black movement practice, I explore the deeply embodied, shared and ancestral wisdom that we hold, that emerges through breath. Here, we breathe poetry together.

In our interdisciplinary research tandem of dance studies and psychoanalysis, we explore our ‘access to the world’ by seeking out, shaping, questioning experiential practices and the reading of bodies in these cultural spaces. By integrating conceptual perspectives from psychoanalysis and dance studies as culture theories, we analyse secular spirituality, cultures of consciousness and their bodily practices by employing a phenomenological approach. Here, we emphasize the fundamental, holistic kinaesthetic primacy of our own sensual experience, participation and involvement. We consider spirituality and cultures of consciousness as potentially epistemic practices and examine their modes of staging and their performativity. Linking this approach to a phenomenology of consciousness necessitates including the experiential character of spiritual practices in our analysis, focusing on how these practices manifest themselves. This conceptual investigation can be applied in the analysis of bodily practices and modes of performance that reactively engage, at least respond to or try to influence the current global state of crises such as mindfulness exercises, meditation practices or secular rituals, implying the possibility of moral attitude and social action. The combination of psychoanalytic exploration and embodied dance practice establishes the foundation for an ‘honest spirituality’ free from illusion or avoidance. It calls for a confrontation with psychological and physical realities while considering the broader impact of one’s actions on others.

A variety of manifestations of ‘prophetic dance’ exist in expressions of Christianity, from eclectic forms within professional dance companies to amateur offerings in worship services. Although scholarly writings talk about the notion of praise/worship dance and its benefits and characteristics, few examine the impact of prophetic dance on well-being. Examining different perspectives through a combination of auto-ethnographic research, interviews and selected case studies from church and para church dance practices, and arising from a holistic view of humankind, rather than the contrasting dualist nature embedded in some Christian theology, my research reveals a wide-ranging impact on the well-being of participants and viewers. The definition of prophetic dance or movement relates to different interpretations through varied means. These include storytelling, choreography and spontaneous dance which expresses abstract concepts such as joy or hope, bringing physical, emotional or spiritual healing and ‘release’.

In describing experiences of learning and practising the Chinese internal martial art of 太極拳 taijiquan in the context of artistic research, this paper asks how this movement practice opens ways of producing knowledge. By focusing on breathing and standing, taijiquan works with 氣 qi, often translated as ‘breath’ or ‘energy’, which philosopher Tu Wei-Ming has called ‘the continuity of being’. Contemporary forms of taijiquan have roots in movement and breathing meditation practices, now commonly called qigong (‘breath work’). Such movement is not intentionally expressive but a grounded form of philosophy wherein the self is not a subject, but rather a relation of qi circulation and cultivation. Through taijiquan practice, I ask how 感應 ‘mutual resonance’ can be sensed so as to understand the self as fundamentally (inter)relational. In exploring martial movement as a practical integration of cosmological whole-body thought, health and defence, this article traces breathing and standing in taijiquan, and how this embodied practice operates as a mode of inquiry.

This article examines associated site-specific experiences of embodied and somatic spirituality as they unfolded in a private performance performed by the author. The improvised experiment took place in a disused water tank in remote south-west New South Wales, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Ngiyampaa and Wangaaypuwan people. Housed within the confines of a 10-metre-high water tank is a 5 × 5 × 5 metre concrete tube repurposed by creator and sound artist Georges Lentz and architect Glenn Murcutt. Transformed from a water tank of unusual proportions to a non-secular sanctuary and influenced by the sheer size and incongruity of the location, there was an unexpected spirituality experienced that is hard to quantify. Through film, text and photography, the author – a female White older dancer – documents the journey of a body made visible in a strange location. As the article details, a deeply felt spiritual response to this bizarre environment emerged while navigating a previously unknown place with the expectations of performance from an ageing body.

In this article, I explore the aesthetic interconnectedness between Katherine Dunham’s ‘Shango’ and Haitian Vodou spirit possession (a sublime embodiment). I assert that Dunham’s ‘Shango’ catalyses an aesthetic of Black Dance Performance through the enactment of spirit possession as an aesthetic value within the choreography and Black Dance Performance largely. I employ an intertextual, phenomenological and auto-ethnographic lens as navigational tools through the foundational theories of Immanuel Kant, Roberto Strongman, Karen MCarthy Brown and Yvonne Daniel. Specifically centring the sublime as a philosophical anchor reveals the intersection of the sacred and the secular in performance as aesthetically enmeshed and entangled.

Dance is an expanded field that can be linked to states of consciousness, to devotional, healing, ecstatic and mystical aspects. This article explores these connections through the lenses of yogic science, specifically the yoga and meditation practices of Kundalini Yoga and Kriya Yoga. It delves into the profound connection between dance and consciousness, drawing on the author’s experiences as both a yogini and a dancer. Through a creative journey rooted in the fusion of yogic science, psychomagic and choreographic thought, the author navigates the intricate links between yoga, meditation and dance. By integrating different aspects of herself – creative researcher, yogini, artist, woman and academic – the author reflects on a transdisciplinary encounter that reveals the subtle essence of dance and its connections with yogic science. This article narrates a journey unveiling the sacred copulation between dance and yoga, birthing diverse forms of movement and creative expression. Through a practice-led research and creative process, the author embarks on a personal exploration, embodying the dance of feminine and masculine, pain and pleasure, bliss and contention, where the waters of her ancestral narratives and feminine lineage are ready to be cleared and alchemized. The article references trauma and healing-creative practices through dance.

This autoethnographic article explores the intricate relationship between ecosomatic experiences and academic pathways, illustrating how embodied and place-based spirituality informs research inquiries and personal development. Using the concept of ‘meta-ecologies’ – the interwoven ecological and cultural conditions that shape individuals – I reflect on how my experiences across varied environments have influenced my scholarly journey. Introducing the term ‘eco-body-story’, I highlight the role of the researcher’s subjectivity and emphasize how the relationship to place and body shapes a sense of belonging, personal well-being and research practice. The research is grounded in over a decade of autobiographical reflections, analysed through a symbiotic autoethnographic methodology and hermeneutic phenomenology. By outlining my own eco-body-story, I demonstrate the inseparability of practice and research, proposing that recognizing more-than-human influences can enrich both personal and academic growth. Ultimately, I suggest that an ecosomatic approach can bridge rational and spiritual ways of knowing, enriching research and foster a more inclusive academic environment by embracing diverse perspectives shaped by diverse contexts.

This article discusses some of the findings of my dance practice-based Ph.D. research, which investigated the application of Orthodox Christian ascetic practices to choreographic processes and dance performance. Four groups of international dancers participated in a trial workshop and three dance residencies and worked on a methodology blending Orthodox ascetic practices and choreographic techniques for the production of dance performances. This article focuses on the exercise of keeping silence for the duration of 24 hours and discusses specifically data generated through interviews on keeping silence during rehearsals. Emergent themes include difficulties with the practice; advanced focus; concise speaking by the choreographer; ‘slow’ and ‘heavy’ energy in rehearsal and the value of small talk.