Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2010

This article, written at the intersection of critical philosophy and somatics, explores the idea that somatic practices have something to teach philosophy. To do so, it places Frederic Matthias Alexander (1869–1955), the founder of The Alexander Technique, in conversation with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1779–1831). Alexander's autobiographical narrative provides an account of his revelatory journey that helps follow Hegel's philosophical journey. The article focuses on Alexander's third book, The Use of the Self, and on one section of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, 'The Unhappy Consciousness', to ask whether the discourse and practice of The Alexander Technique can provide a methodology for reading Hegel, a way to enter into the performance of the Phenomenology through a 'somatic mode of attention', one that privileges the lived experience of movement as a source for understanding philosophical texts.

This article examines the athletic/performative discipline of 'parkour' in relation to the ideologies of neo-liberalism and advanced capitalism. The author makes a distinction between the 'spectacular' form of parkour, and parkour as a participatory and somatic practice, with roots in the methode naturelle training of Georges Hébert. In its spectacular form, parkour may be read as a superficially subversive discipline that is under constant threat of absorption into the machine of capitalist production, evidenced by its representation in cinema and television, as well as its growing presence as a demonstration sport. As a participatory practice, however, parkour is a form of embodied ideological critique, as the body learns to respond to the inconsistencies and antagonisms of advanced capitalism that manifest in the built environment. This is argued to have a positive effect on the participant, building a greater sense of political agency. The author's methodology is based on theoretical critique within a Marxian and psychoanalytic framework, as well as self-reflection on his own training in parkour.

This article is an interview with Ray Chung, a leading Contact Improvisation teacher and dancer. The conversation revolves around three areas: it addresses CI's application into movement for actors, it unfolds the intricate relation between moving, thinking and feeling when training in and performing CI while it also gives an invaluable insight into Ray's teaching methods of confronting his students' habits.

In this article, I share insights from my choreographic practice. Through creative and reflective texts and photographs, I intend to create a connective field of knowledge, which supports the discussion and development of choreographic strategies based on somatic practice and the associated aesthetic implications. My main interests are the act of decision making in choreographic processes that operate neither with set movement material nor set aesthetics, and the strategies of navigation in creative processes based on somatic practice. I therefore reflect on the possibilities of non-verbal thinking and the role of imagination. I am interested in the use of somatic practices throughout a creative process. I thus refer less to the first phases of research of movement material and more on the overall process and requirements of a creation that enables sensuous sense-making and embodied communication, experience, knowledge and reflection. In the end, I am interested in the social relevance of this kind of art and aesthetics.

The exploration that follows takes up the phenomenon of our outermost wrapping, skin, and considers it as a horizon that both separates us from and puts us in touch with the world. The first part takes up skin phenomenologically, articulating the unique significance of skin as experienced in a somatic movement practice and exploring the potential of embryology as a narrative ground on which to re-interpret and flesh out touch and movement. The second part draws these two strands together in positing a thinking skin, or tactile cognition. Such a thinking is unfolded through Heidegger's Verstehen, his particular construal of understanding as situated and existence as fundamentally interpretive, as well as Maxine Sheets-Johnstone's seminal writings on animate life.

Joged Amerta is a somatic and performance practice developed by Suprapto Suryodarmo, a Javanese movement artist and teacher. The Padepokan Lemah Putih, Suryodarmo's interdisciplinary arts institution, is located in Desa Plesungan, in the northern part of Solo, Java. The garden surrounding the three main pendopos is landscaped to provide different environments for movement practice. This article suggests that Joged Amerta offers a model of somatic practice that differs in a number of ways from western somatic practices, and that these differences may offer useful insights for the developing practice of somatic ecology in the West. In particular, Joged Amerta differs in that it foregrounds the notion of 'non-self' (which is Buddhist in orientation) as well as the notion of 'surrendering' the self, which comes from Sumarah, a philosophy of life and a form of meditation that has its roots in Javanese culture. Both of these approaches refer to a conception of self untouched by the West's rendering of the unconscious. Additionally, as a model of practice, Joged Amerta differs from western approaches in the following areas. First, it has emerged from Suryodarmo's daily movement practice, a practice that has stimulated, step by step, a pattern of theoretical understanding. The complete methodology of Joged Amerta has taken 24 years to emerge and to find its form. Second, Joged Amerta pays attention to environmental embodiment and attaches crucial importance to the mutual interdependence and co-creation of organism and environment. Third, it offers an approach to education that respects the inherent 'difference' that our respective backgrounds create at a personal, sensory, social, cultural and spiritual level. Joged Amerta articulates how, in daily life, the way that each of us experiences the world is fundamentally mysterious to the other and cannot be 'cloned'. It recognizes and appreciates the influence of cultural conditioning on the study and transmission of Joged Amerta as a practice. Finally, this article points to the way that Joged Amerta is contributing to paradigms of ecological somatic practice and performance that are currently emerging in the West. The specific example of 'ecological movement' is offered as one application of Joged Amerta in Europe.

As a physical philosopher, I explore and name my methods of practice. I open the article by naming specific projects and collaborations that have taken place over the last ten years, and continue with an in-depth study of a current body of work as it weaves through the cycles of the element of water. The writing is supported by images that have arisen through collaboration with photographer Christian Kipp and serve to further illustrate the essence of my work. The article is interspersed with insightful haiku-like pieces of writing that reflect my 'noticing', as well as naming, aspects of the hydrological cycle. I have also included longer text-based 'images' that reflect specific moments in my land-based practice. I conclude with naming some of the myriad influences, relationships, readings and landscapes that are both visible and invisible within my work.

The incorporation of somatic practices into dance training and production has implications for a dancer's experience of their own body but also affects the audience's role in relating to the work. Joan Davis is an Irish choreographer who uses the practices of Authentic Movement and Body-Mind Centering in creating site-specific, participative performances that she calls 'Maya Lila'. In this article, I investigate how Davis develops strategies from somatic practices to provoke the self-reflective capacity of dancers and audience members, rather than focusing on the external appearance of the performer's body. The Maya Lila project has also had an impact on my work as a performer and researcher, and I conclude the article by drawing attention to the impact of somatic training on my experience of discipline, surveillance and subjective agency.

This narrative reflects the experiences of two graduate dance students and their university professor on their own pathways of somatic discovery, each exploring their moving, embodied identities and self-possibilities as individuals, artists and teachers inside a learning construct that is inspired by the psychophysical notions of the 'ego' and 'ego states'. The three descriptive accounts reflect processes of becoming, understanding and re-creating one's 'self' within the exploratory landscape of Laban Movement Analysis, the Bartenieff Fundamentals and related supportive somatic frames for experience. Each voyage has its own inspirations, discoveries, pathway and applications. Yet, it is in their intersecting experiences with others that each explorer has come to know themselves within and as they dance with the world beyond themselves. Accounts reflecting individual journeys of enquiry and practice are presented along with descriptions of pedagogical constructs, processes and theoretical foundations that inform and shape these related expeditions.

This article explores the interface between scientific and somatic principles within dance practice. It focuses on the combined use of science and somatic practices to correct alignment, and questions their exclusivity. Maintaining the physical well-being of dancers should take a holistic approach and extricating scientific from somatic principles may not be in the best interest of dancers. This article looks at the epidemiology of injury within dance and discusses the importance of injury prevention to promote dancers' health. It then considers how fundamental somatic principles may be useful in encouraging self-awareness among dancers and further describes how these methods may assist in the prevention of injury. Divergent third-person and first-person experiences are discussed, with reference to how a self-aware, subjective approach to correcting alignment could be a useful integration in to dance practice and enhance the objective approach of rehabilitation and injury prevention taken by injury specialists. With the use of examples of current practical applications of somatics within dance practice, the article concludes with recommendations for further potential applications of somatic principles within the dance class, rehearsal and performance.