Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2022

Today’s multiplicity of somatic modalities – therapeutic arts of bodily awareness – unite in their practitioners’ shared mission to provide a corrective for the mind–body severance lived out in western culture. Unfortunately, this severance often recapitulates itself in an anti-intellectual stance held by many champions of bodily wisdom. Yet, a look back at the origins of the somatics movement reveals a much more integral conception of the human being in the philosophical system of psycho-physical culture set forth by the performer, author, teacher and philosopher Genevieve Stebbins. A prominent influence in the world of physical culture at the dawn of the twentieth century, Stebbins’ work exemplifies the possibility of retrieving holistic conceptions of the human being from the history of western thought and creatively retranslating them in the light of modern consciousness Through such a view, the human body is revealed as visible spirit, instrument of living art.

This article investigates the usage of embodied imagery, metaphor and sensory awareness in the teaching and learning process of Odissi dance, an Indian classical dance from the eastern state of Odisha. It analyses examples of Odissi dance training used by chosen dance institutes and dancers in India. The discussion is undertaken in correlation with the psychophysical performers’, dance scholars’, somatic movement practitioners’, dance anthropologists’ and philosophers’ study of bodymind and embodiment. It proposes a shift from the objectified to a subjective approach to the dancer’s body that empowers students/dancers to reclaim the ownership of their bodies and movements. Altogether, it highlights a missing block in the training process that enables dance students to move towards the socioculturally imagined level of ‘perfection’, however, with a healthy, thinking, feeling, moving and agentive bodymind.

The aim of this article is to provide a brief overview of the use of improvisation in relation to choreography in Greece as an embodied practice. Although many dance scholars acknowledge the aesthetic potential and the freedom of spontaneity in the improvisational process, there is not direct theoretical reference to the choreographing methodologies that have been used in the Greek contemporary dance scene from the late 1980s until today. The research is qualitative and draws data from multiple sources, which include interviews with nine choreographers, attendance of live dance performances and/or performative events and references from the related dance literature. The authors’ reflections reveal important epistemological issues for further dance research on the current collaborative performing arts contexts.

In this article, I address Alessandro Sciarroni’s spinning practice as it was taught and perceived in the context of the choreographer’s workshop at the 2019 Na Prática summer school in Portugal. Drawing on my personal involvement as a participant, I begin by evoking my embodied experience to outline and characterize the different impressions raised by the spinning exercises. Therefore, exploring a possible understanding of my body-in-action within the experimental rationale that framed the workshop. I then take a closer look at the practice under Martin Heidegger’s conceptual dichotomy of ‘earth vs. world’ insofar as it provides a systematic scale of relational possibilities between our bodies, ourselves as individuals and our surrounding environment. Hence, contributing to the overall debate around the relation between somatic practices and knowledge reproduction. I build on this reflection by further exploring the potential that spinning practice has in stimulating new understandings of ‘being in the earth’, thus raising the great conversation about the urgency of human beings to ‘turn’ their attitude towards the planet.

Partnered practices reveal somatic insights into leaning-in and prompt us to consider how we can move responsively and interactively with others. Particular experiences of relational leaning are described through a motion-sensing phenomenological approach framed by the authors’ Interactive Function2Flow model of somatic education. With sensitivity to movement function, form, feeling and flow, this relational leaning is explored through the slow and controlled balances of acroyoga, the gentle forward and backwards lunges of push hands tai chi, the fast paced, rhythmical walking of salsa dance, and the effervescent gait transitions of equestrian arts. We consider the act of leaning-in and the relational awareness of each partnered practice in terms of the life lessons of connecting with a partner, responding to conflict with composure, giving less or more of oneself in a given situation and, in so doing, moving with enhanced motion-sensitivity into a state of interactive flow.

Break-in’ Point, a 2012 arts and science performance and community engagement research initiative, was presented in the spring and fall semesters at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom at Stage@Leeds. The outcome of a collaboration between dance artist A3 and theoretical physicist A2, under the direction of performance researcher A1, Break-in’ Point is based on a series of real-life encounters at intersections of arts and science – exploring force, risk, exposure and resilience. The Break-in’ Point performance offered an interrogation of the critical point at which physical, mental, and/or emotional strength give way under stress – causing structural degeneration and the experience of what lies beyond. This article is an examination of the performance, reviewing and analysing it as an imagined somatic zone – embodied encounters that transcend temporal bound-ness, compelling and igniting new possibilities – that engaged spiritual and epistemological transformation of performers and audiences. The article addresses three main periods in the life of Break-in’ Point: (1) the development period – script building and rehearsals, (2) the performance – live encounters between and among performers and audiences and (3) beyond the theatre – digital engagements in the classroom and pedagogy. The article contributes new concepts and new ways of thinking about science education, the role of digital technology in pedagogy, dance/theatre public engagement and community arts practices as practices of healing, health and resilience.

Review of: Writing and the Body in Motion: Awakening Voice through Somatic Practice, Cheryl Pallant (2018)

Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, Inc., 180 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-47666-824-6, p/bk, $33

ISBN 978-1-47663-171-4, e-book, $17.99

Review of: Through the Prism of the Senses: Mediation and New Realities of the Body in Contemporary Performance: Technology, Cognition and Emergent Research-Creation Methodologies, Isabelle Choinière, Enrico Pitozzi and Andrea Davidson (2019)

Bristol: Intellect, 288 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-78938-079-8, h/bk, £75.00