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Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices - Current Issue

Volume 17, Issue 2

Volume 17, Issue 2, 2025

  • Articles

      • Wild knowing: An exploration of contact improvisation and surfing

        https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00142_1

        The practices of both contact improvisation and surfing are deeply improvisational, and they rely on the practitioner’s capacity to trust and access embodied knowing. Whether moving with a spontaneous unpredictable body or wave, heightened states of awareness arise and draw one into a state of deep presence. I have been exploring contact improvisation for 30 years and surfing for three years. As a new surfer, I notice my body being stimulated and opening in ways that are very similar to contact improvisation. I often leave the beach feeling deeply present and embodied, connected to a community of surfers and sea life and in an expanded open state of awareness. This article explores my experience as I press, yield and play with both body and ocean.

    • Suprapto Suryodarmo and my quest for Ke-Jawa-an

      https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00144_1

      During my interaction with Suprapto Suryodarmo between 2013 and 2019, as a researcher and as a student of Amerta Movement, I became curious about what it is to be ‘Javanese’. The term ‘Ke-Jawa-an’ in Bahasa Indonesia is a translation of the term ‘Javaneseness’ in English. Ke-Jawa-an (‘Javaneseness’) is closely related to ‘kejawen’ the Indigenous religious practices and beliefs of the Javanese people. In my quest, I learned about the Javanese as conceived through the studies by foreign scholars, such as Thomas Raffles, Denys Lombard and Clifford Geertz. Searching for my own understanding, I approach Suryodarmo as my Javanese interlocutor. Through Amerta Movement, his meditative movement art, his work opens a dialogue between Java and the rest of the world, with Javaneseness no longer confined within a particular time and space. This article is my personal reflection as a Javanese social researcher in dialogue with Suprapto Suryodarmo and his movement approach.

    • Intwining dance, somatics and sustainability

      https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00145_1

      This article offers a dialogue intwining dance, somatic practice and sustainability. This interweaving offers possibilities for relational ways of understanding how our embodied actions can impact our resiliency and increase our capacity for relational empathy. By enlivening, cultivating and valuing our somatic intelligence, our sensorial experiences and actions are brought to consciousness, which can enhance self-awareness and foster more congruent, compassionate and perceptual relationships with self, others and the natural world. An intersectional perspective is explored using somatic practices to strengthen our sense of sustainability from the inside out. Focus is on increasing the awareness of overlooked resources from a felt sense, attunement and embodied processes. Using classroom examples, the article describes the philosophical context and development of a new undergraduate curriculum in somatic sustainability. Over time, systemic connections are strengthened as focused, body-centred practices develop our human potential, aiding personal growth and nurturing a sense of community stewardship.

  • Visual Essay

      • : An embodied journey through creative collaboration and deferring judgement

        https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00148_3

        () was an immersive non-traditional research output (NTRO) and the culmination of my transdisciplinary doctoral research into dance and somatic practice, framed through the lens of deferring judgement – understood as a deliberate attunement to possibilities. The research approached transdisciplinarity as a way of being and knowing and redefined choreography as a somatic practice of sensory engagement and collaborative making. embodied this approach as an immersive event structured through multisensory making stations, which served as the site of inquiry and generated conditions for creative collaboration, ethical attunement and more-than-human connection. These qualities emphasize sensing through the body, relating with the environment and making together to cultivate attentiveness, relational awareness that extends beyond the human. They connect with somatic traditions of embodied perception, ecological reciprocity and correspondence through making. The event demonstrates how immersive choreographic design can function as a somatic method in its own right, cultivating presence, relationality and more-than-human awareness.

  • Article

      • Remote touch: Chronic pain participants’ experiences with touch-focused audio recordings

        https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00147_1

        People living with chronic pain often face barriers to accessing supportive care, including limited mobility, touch sensitivity and the emotional toll of ongoing symptoms. While touch-based interventions like massage or proprioceptive movement can support relief, they are not always accessible or appropriate. In response, ‘Audio Snacks for People Living with Chronic Pain’ explored how remotely delivered, touch-focused audio recordings might support individuals living with chronic pain, not by promising a reduction in physical symptoms but by inviting new forms of sensory engagement that could shift the felt experience of pain. Drawing on somatic approaches, including release-based dance methodologies and approaches that emphasize sensory awareness, the recordings framed touch as an embodied language, allowing participants to explore it through self-directed movement or guided mental imagery. Ten participants with chronic pain engaged with guided audio recordings designed to remotely activate their sense of touch. Through qualitative surveys, a focus group interview and creative responses, participants described feeling more connected to their bodies, supported during overwhelm and able to meet pain with greater softness and agency. Although gathered over a short period, participants’ reflections point to promising possibilities for further development.

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