Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices - Embodying Eco-Consciousness: Somatics, Aesthetic Practices & Social Action, Dec 2021

In this article, I present a brief introduction to somatic practice of felt thinking in movement, as a contemplative practice for ecological belonging. Accompanied by illustrations, coming from my personal practice, the text introduces the reader to three phases of experiential immersion and presents felt thinking as an inclusive method of embodied re-connection with the natural world. Through the lens of embryological development and dynamic activity patterns observable in movement, it also elaborates on different realities of time/space experience. Finally, alongside the first-person narratives, as examples of outdoor practice, I also introduce some major references to the theoretical framework of the work and underline the importance of an ontological principle of movement as relational, thus infused with meaning and care, which can be accessed and practised in felt thinking starting with gentle attention to the movement of the breath.

This article revisits the ‘doxa’ of somatics discourse identified by Isabelle Ginot, situating them in relation to embodied eco-consciousness and ecological and environmental orientations in somatics. The intention is to begin to unpack how they manifest in this particular strand of somatic enquiry and how (or if) they potentially risk undermining the contributions being made in this area. To do so, the term ‘eco-somatics’ is examined along with the wider prevalence of ecology and the ecological in somatics discourse, and both somatics and ecological/environmental discourse are situated within the condition of modernity–coloniality. The aim is to think through some of the potential pitfalls relating to eco-somatics, and this article is an attempt to wrangle with the complexity of these issues as well as an opportunity to pose some questions to the wider field.

Dance and somatic educators have an important role to play addressing estrangement from the natural world. In this article, author Robert Bettmann considers how an experiential education model may apply to design of public eco-somatic programmes, and how such programmes may empower practitioners within broader efforts to reconnect humanity to the natural world. Many eco-somatic programmes focus on transmission of information from a teacher directly to a student in a natural context, and an experiential education curriculum model may encourage design of more self-guided approaches appropriate for larger groups. The author reviews theories at the intersection of dance, somatics, and the environment, including the theory of Somatic Ecology, and the example of the Anacostia Swim Club.

When was the last time you danced and sang together with other people, just for the joy of it? As the COVID pandemic exacerbates mental health issues, we are seeing also a rise in so-called eco-anxiety. Awareness of humans forming part of larger ecologies can no longer be ignored as a medically relevant topic. Can contemporary eco-somatic practices contribute to shifting eco-anxieties, and to shaping human awareness of ecosystemic diversity and embeddedness? Singing–dancing together are time-honoured ways of maintaining and restoring individual or group health and happiness, and engendering embeddedness. Drawing on research with egalitarian Baka groups in Central Africa and with shifting–sliding fascia connective tissues, the proposition made here is to activate singing–dancing–laughing, not only as a method of somatic vocal training or pedagogy, but also as a way of shaping community and honouring ecosystemic nestedness. Through this, we may further come to appreciate Earth as co-guider in eco-somatic practices.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent era of social distancing, it has become imperative for many artists to maintain somatic embodied practices. This article will address the embodied nature of collaborative creative process at a distance. Using Walter Mignolo’s ‘pluriversal worlds’ as a starting point, the article will explore how artists can maintain collaborative migrant knowledge production across geographical and imaginary spaces. We will analyse the digital dialogue commission ‘Third Nature’ and how it applied the Authentic Movement somatic dyadic technique in a digital format. The article will also reflect on how the ‘third nature’ co-sharing and co-witnessing process allowed the artists to dwell in the imaginary and natural border territory and to still feel upheld by one another.

This article contains two case studies that are shaped as ‘suitcase stories’ referring to collaboration. These stories address the relationships between human and more-than-human beings as they journey through creative processes guided by the perspective of ecological relationalities. The stories presented here are echoes of entangled narratives, in an attempt to voice the perspective of an artist who found resilience through togetherness and co-labouring. Both cases are responses to damaged worlds, and they sought reflection through the embodiment of somatic experiences on eco-conscious experimentations in dance practice. The notion of invitation poetics is presented as a political and poetic framework of ‘becoming’ through practices of coexistence.

This article explores how dance is currently understood as a medium for reshaping our relationships to the more-than-human. It reviews literature across the field of dance and ecology to present keys clusters of understanding and pathways for future research. These areas include (1) body as place/Earth, advocating practices that work to re-embed our sense of self within wider ecologies, (2) embodying shared agency, which examines the agentic capacity of place and the radical displacement of human subjectivities, and (3) rhythms of co-becoming, which invites dancers to consciously participate in the co-creation of reality towards ecological balance. Key authors across these areas draw from theories in materiality, feminist theory, phenomenology, object-oriented ontology, ecosophy/deep ecology and somatic ecology to demonstrate the necessary inclusion of dance in strategies for ecological renewal. Overall, these areas contribute to a bold vision for dance in catalysing more embodied ethical relationships with the living ecologies we belong to. This review also importantly reinstates the body as a site of evolutionary intelligence that can guide us towards necessary shifts in relational ontologies for our collective survival.

Eco-consciousness has its foundation in an active relationship between the individual soma and the larger body of the natural world. Embedded within this relationship is our innate sensorimotor intelligence and our natural instinct as children to spontaneously play as living, sensing, expressive bodies coming to know ourselves and our environment. In this practice reflection, I delineate a map and a process with sample activities for embodied creative engagement to cultivate our capacity to witness, contact, mirror, respond and rest in partnership with the living planet. This approach – ‘embodying nature’ – is highly adaptable for various ages and degrees of experience, inviting participation at any level and in whatever natural environment is available.

In this article, I use Romain Rolland’s oceanic feeling as an entrance point to explore the transformative nature of dance improvisation. Oceanic feeling includes both a feeling of dissolution of the boundaries of the self and a feeling of unity, embracement and openness. The feeling of interconnectedness, with living and non-living entities, indeed with the cosmic world as such, is a vital force in dance improvisational practice. Dance improvisation is deeply relational: it is concerned with contact, with touching-the-world as well as being-touched-by-the-world. Through the synchronization of our moving bodies with others and the world, we feel a sense of connection, of parts that merge (temporarily) into wholes. In this article, I will elaborate further on Rolland’s notion of oceanic feeling and its relevance for dance improvisation. I suggest a fluid philosophy of moving bodies that is informed by eastern philosophy and poststructuralist theory.

Practice-led, somatic research comes to understand fascia not only as structure, but also as a relational mediator ranging from the interior to the exterior. Reflections from this research also reveal fascia as an experienced otherness within us, a matrix modulating inside/outside perception through varying fascial tone. Embedded in the philosophies of feminist scholar Karen Barad and ecologist Timothy Morton, experiential movement of fascia discerns ‘nature’, and thus the body itself, as queer. Fascia connects with-in and with-outer and acknowledges strange strangers living within us. Dissolving the binary of the inside/outside leads to an understanding of the body in its surrounding as ecological, interdependent part of its habitat.

This joint contribution by four members of Areal_Berlin approaches the topic of this Special Issue by presenting three individual but related strands of practice by dance and performance artists who specialize in working in urban and rural landscapes. The focus in each of the three contributions is on how somatic practices are employed as a means to sensitize bodies in relation to the environment and how those practices are (re-)designed in order to meet the specific demands of outdoor work. In the first part of the article, Joa Hug introduces Areal_Berlin as an association of research-oriented artists and as a habitat that has fostered the development of the three different artistic practices. In the second part, Bettina Mainz, Katja Münker and Sabine Zahn outline key aspects of their choreographic-somatic approaches to environmental research. The third section is a posed ‘interview’ and looks at possible connections between the three different choreographic-somatic approaches and the notion of ‘eco-consciousness’.

Through a somatic approach to my ongoing encounter with the River Wyre, Lancashire, I consider land – its material presence and immaterial spirit/ancestral relations – as primary collaborator. I explore the capacity for land to witness and propel human ethics and expression through the porous and influx body. This opens a mode of witnessing which both bears witness to historic trauma (the less visible entanglements of ecocide, femicide and epistemicide), and to more-than-human manifestations (in this case river and stone) that guide an ‘otherwise’ possibility to this colonial violence. Vocal sounding with more-than-human collectivities opens the capacity for the body to be ‘in two places at once’ – one of Silvia Federici’s articulations of witchcraft – and troubles colonial-capitalism’s division of Life and Non-life. The practice expands Kelly Oliver’s definition of witnessing as inter-human ‘response-ability and address-ability’, through addressing – and being addressed by – more-than-human existents.

In this article, Tiago Gambogi analyses his artistic trajectory looking at the range of his creative works and disciplines, unveiling the concepts and strategies used in his artivist practice.

For a year, I walk every morning and most evenings witnessing the land evolve and change with the lengthening and shortening of days. As a long-time student of the Discipline of Authentic Movement, I pay close attention to how I witness the land and non-human animals, and how witnessing changes my experience of place. I question: how is it different if I take in the whole of nature or focus on the singular wet body of a slug? What can I learn from tracking the experience in my own body as I witness the slow turning of a flower towards the sun or the swift bounding of a humming bird? And if I am witnessing the land and non-human animals, are not they witnessing me? Inspired by David Abram’s work and phenomenology’s concepts of ‘intersubjectivity’ and the ‘life world’, this article explores the reciprocal relationship between myself and the land through the Discipline of Authentic Movement.

This article summarizes the findings of the Evolution Project, a series of workshops using the masks of past species to study our human evolution from fish to human. It shares insights on the patterns of movement, body relationships and somatic experiences at key stages through evolution. Experience of the underlying sensory states from earlier times in evolution prompts an exploration of nature connection practices. I identify key principles for these physical practices and discuss their role in our perception of, and interconnection with, the natural world.

This artist reflection presents an overview of a nature-based approach to movement education for children and youth. Using a pedagogy that has evolved over more than four decades, the author shares personal anecdotes and student reflections that present compelling evidence to the efficacy of connecting creative movement exploration with nature and environmental awareness and demonstrates how nature-inspired dance provides students with opportunities to learn about themselves, develop new ways to see and interact with the natural world, and create dances that articulate their knowledge and concerns about water, wildlife, climate change, eroding habitats and the future of our planet.