Embodiment Theory Course
Class Activities
Discuss Readings
All Classes
PURPOSE: To develop confidence in speaking about one’s ideas.
Before class, on the course website, students will have given written responses to the week's reading and then read at least some of their colleagues' responses. One way I've found to effectively organize and generate discussion is to have all the students give their responses in turn before moving into general discussion.
Walking Meditation
Multiple Classes
PURPOSE: To bring attention away from verbal thinking and into experiencing one's own kinesthetic sensations, specifically through the movements of walking and the contact of one’s feet with the ground. To unify the class together in this experience.
INSTRUCTIONS: Remove your shoes (so you can be aware of the progression of each foot hitting the ground). Begin to slowly walk so that you follow the progression of contact in your feet. For example: forward heel touches, then midfoot, then forefoot and toes, weight (pelvis) shifts from rear foot onto forward foot, back foot lifts from the floor starting with heel and through to toe, then back foot is in the air, and again heel, midfoot, forefoot touch, etc. Continue to walk slowly with awareness of this progress of the contact your feet make with the floor and of how the weights shifts.
Can add: How are you breathing as you do this? In coordination with or independent from the rhythm of your walking?
Depending on instructor preference, a writing component can be included.
Note: Peripheral thoughts may be present, but if you discover that your mind is wandering bring your attention back to the sensation of your feet on the ground. Just as the breath is an exchange with the world, your feet are always “in conversation” with the ground. Be aware of your contact with the outside world through your feet.
Kinesthetic Memory
Week 1
PURPOSE: To give you a reference point for self-knowledge, a sense of continuity between your past and your present. To connect up somatic and verbal ways of knowing and, especially for dance students, to develop confidence in verbal intelligence and writing. Poetic form, drawings, sketches, photos, collages are welcome.
INSTRUCTION: Take a comfortable position and follow your breath to drop down so that awareness follows your breath into the depths of your belly.
Once there, bring up an incident in your early life helped shape your kinesthetic sensibility. It can be a transforming experience that had a profound effect on who you are today as a dancer. The event might or might not be about dancing itself: perhaps it was an experience of crawling or jumping or playing sports; perhaps it was seeing movement that brought you to a moment of epiphany. What comes to mind at one moment may be different from what comes to mind at another, so just allow yourself to focus on what calls your attention at this moment.
Does the memory arise as a visual image? As words? As music or other sound? As kinesthetic sensation? Mentally take note of this and return to the memory. Gradually let it fill out, bringing to mind as many details as possible.
- See the event in visual memory, re-viewing body positions from all angles, discerning the details of movement, expanding your focus to take in the setting.
- Hear it in sound, re-calling its layers of soundscape, music, voices, rhythms.
- Re-embody its kinetic feel, re-membering its energy and dynamics, the sensations of moving, the feeling of positions and gestures.
[Allow ample time for memory to unfold].
Slowly, keeping your attention on the gradual shift of awareness, allow yourself to return to the sensations of breath. Before you “return,” remind yourself that this is a space of memory you can revisit at any time. With eyes still closed, let awareness be with your body as it is at this moment, the sensations of all its parts, its position, its situatedness in the room. Gently wiggle or otherwise move one small part. Try out movement in other parts until your attention is re-oriented to the present. Before opening your eyes, lift your hand before your face so that on opening your eyes you will see your own hand. This sight will help you to keep your somatic focus.
When you feel adjusted to the present, and while keeping the thread to your memory, take up paper and pen and write down what you experienced. Try to evoke the memory in all its details.
[Allow at least 10 minutes for writing]
Campus Movement Observation Tour
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Free Write
Multiple Classes
PURPOSE: To get the verbal juices running and create a written record of thinking.
Write for the entire time, usually 5-10 minutes. Keep the pen moving even if you feel that your logical mind has nothing to say. Save all your freewriting exercises as they may be useful when writing your final essay. Subject matter for each free write to be determined by class content/instructor. See class schedule for example topics.
Drop Down with Free Write
Weeks 1, 3, 9, 11
PURPOSE: In spite of the cliché that what is danced cannot be spoken, the transformative effects of movement are not necessarily ineffable. Words remain permeable to their somatic reverberations. Dipping into memory from a space of somatic attention, one can allow the permutations of thoughtforms, including kinetic sensations, to take form as words (or pictures, or choreography). Here, we translate sensations into words, sampling the possibility of writing in a somatic mode.
INSTRUCTIONS: Take a comfortable sitting position that you can maintain for 5-10 minutes, undisturbed by the people around you. Become aware of sensations: your back against the chair, the restriction of clothing or shoes, any muscular knots or tensions. Take a large and deep breath, letting go any unnecessary muscular effort. Become aware of any verbal chatter occupying your mind. Take another deep breath and let the thoughts go, bringing your attention, instead, to your breath. Follow the passage of breath in and out, through the nostrils, into the chest, down to back and belly, up again across the throat. Try to catch the change of direction, when the out-breath reverses to in-breath and the in-breath lets go into an out-breath. Let the breath become a figure “8” and follow its full passage. Any time you find your mind wandering, simply acknowledge the passing thoughts and bring your attention back to the breath. Now let your attention come to rest in the breath’s depth, the interior space held within belly and lower back. Awareness is in your body, familiar and deep, warmed and nourished by breath. Keep your attention on the physical, on sensation and breath. Then follow instructions for the free write to write about your experience.
Listening to Kinesthetic Memories
Week 3
How do we give each other the kind of support we want for ourselves: without judgment and without comment about our own version of the other’s experience? We help each person to have confidence in putting out their work. For this kinesthetic autobiography, we give each other the space to hear ourselves, to essai [try out] the expression of oneself in words, and to be heard by each other speaking our choices Our job is to hear each other, to listen respectfully and honor what each person is saying without making judgments. We want to both "feel with" the person speaking and also to "be objective" about what they're saying (i.e. not projecting our own feelings onto their words). It's a combination of acceptance and respect, hearing and letting be. After each person speaks, leave time for everyone to take in what they've said. The next person waits at least a minute before beginning to read their writing.
Questioning Movement Awareness
Week 3
PURPOSE: To be able to switch from unconsciously moving to being aware of the whole mental/kinesthetic process of fulfilling an intention in movement. To recognize the difference between unconscious and conscious moving.
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose an everyday action and do it (i.e.. fulfill your intention) For e.g. Go and open the door... Get up and put your jacket on/off... Go fill your water bottle, etc. Now do it again trying to be aware of how you do what you do (Do you actually start a whole neurological/muscular process as soon as you have the thought and before you start moving? Which part activates first to initiate movement? Visualize the way the bones of your arm (leg, back…) change their configuration? Feel which muscle activates to lift your leg. See and feel your whole self changing shape.... Minutely and slowly become aware of how you turn your head, etc.) Come back to doing the action with the purpose only of achieving your intention. Is this still possible? Note the difference. Can repeat with another action.
Ticks Theater Game
Week 6
PURPOSE: To begin observing habitual, cultural, and individual movement patterns and become aware of social habits of gesture.
INSTRUCTION: During a class discussion, imitate the posture and gestures of someone else in class. Keep with that imitation until your attention moves to someone else. Pay attention to detail. Of course you yourself are also speaking and gesturing in your own habitual mode and so people will be imitating you.
Note: This experiment can be difficult to do, and it can generate laughter.
Campus Movement Observation Tour
Week 6
*I am grateful to my teachers, especially Marcia Siegel and Elsie Dunin, on whose work I’ve based these guidelines
PURPOSE: To hone movement observation skills. To notice the relationship between movement and environment.
NOTE: This exploration can be done solo or in teams of 2 or more, so that people can discuss what they discover. You may elect to divide the elements among groups, or assign only one or two elements per outing. It is best to allot at least ½ hour to it and more is better. The experience can be repeated more than once in the same or different environments.
INSTRUCTIONS: Imagine the campus as a dance performance, and you are a writer trying to understand its meaning. As a group, we are trying to decipher its "lexicon" (a la Marcia Siegel), i.e. the most significant performance elements.
The key question, as you walk around and observe, is :
What claims your attention?
The following are suggestions to help you notice more widely and deeply
Space:
- Environment elements: large (like vistas, buildings, landscaping) and small (furniture, doorways, other people)
- Movement in space: how are people responding to environment; how constrained by it (for example, walking on pathways); how rebelling against it (walking on grass); the relation between the natural, the built, and personal space; the transitions between spaces.
- Notice gatherings and dispersals of people; Where do people tend to congregate? Alone? In small groups? Large groups?
- Note your own intuitive responses to spaces, where you are comfortable and uncomfortable, where you tend to gravitate, where you want to walk or sit; note the "feel" of different spaces.
Time: (This is a slippery thing to observe; here are some clues)
- What are the rhythms of movement (both large scale general movement of people and individuals)? The term “rhythm” combines duration and stress as in “even,” staccato” or “syncopated,” etc. What's the "feeling" of time moving? For example, not just “fast” or “slow,” but “racing,” “ponderous,” “erratic.” (Can sometimes get this by singing along with someone's movement or counting it).
- Is there a continuous flow in time or does it seem to be punctuated? Do there seem to be beginnings and endings of activities or interactions? Are there ebbs and flows? Are there temporal boundaries, like class endings, hunger, "clocks"?
- Do groups of people move “in synch”? If not, can you notice individual rhythms?
- Note your own impulses to move fast, slow, stop in different spaces.
Shape:
- What kinds of posture and gesture are you seeing? How would you describe these?
- Are people's postures a response to the environment? (such as slumping in chairs, hugging" the walls, etc.?)
- How are people responding in bodily shape and gesture to each other? Do they seem to imitate each other?
- What kinds of distances are there between people?
- Do people touch, creating group shapes?
Sounds:
- Note sounds, their sources, and the way they effect/don't effect movement.
Smells: Any?
Sensation: (this part is checking in with your own felt sensations)
- Consider changes in in your own sensations in different environments, the feel of the ground in different places, the air.
- Are there particular places you feel comfortable/uncomfortable, gravitate toward? Avoid? Consider why a space has this kind of effect. What happens if you go against your own inclination?
Focus (gaze)
- Where are people focusing their attention (inward? environment? spaced out? etc.) What direction are they looking?
- Are there places where the environment creates long vistas? shortens visual possibilities?
Discuss what can be gleaned about people’s values from these observations ….
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