Somatics in Dance, Ecology, and Ethics

Sondra Fraleigh

Description

This book of highly original essays addresses the field of movement-based and dance somatics through lenses of ethics and ecology. It is based in methods of phenomenology.

A new collection of essays previously published with Intellect as journal articles, with the addition of new essays and editorial material. The text considers body-based somatic education relative to values, virtues, gender fluidity, lived experience, environmental awareness, fairness, and collective well-being. In delineating interdependent values of soma, ecology, and human movement that are newly in progress, the collection conceives links between personal development of subjective knowledge and cultural, critical, and environmental positionality.

The text raises questions about defining somatics and self, gender dynamics, movement preferences, normative body conceptions, attention to feelings, inclusiveness, ethics of touch, and emotional intelligence in somatics contexts. I include these crucial concerns of somatics and ethics as relational, globally complex, and ongoing.

Like much of Sondra Fraleigh’s writing, these essays utilize phenomenology as a method to investigate embodied relationships—often through lenses of ethics and aesthetics. In providing some examples, the text explores specific values of gratitude, listening, and emotional intelligence in somatic bodywork and learning environments.

Introducing Scripts and Dances

1. Ethical World Gaze


2. Body and Nature: Quest for Somatic Values, East and West


3. Mind Matters: Portal and Precarity in Somatic Experience


4. A Future Worth Having: Somatic Ethics of Flow and Curiosity 


5. Walking Well: A Play of Touch and Restoration in Three Acts


6. Everyone Needs to Breathe


7. Talking to Tremors: Somatics in Dance, Dialogics and Silence


8. Back to the Dance Itself: In Three Acts 


9. Phenomenologies in the Flowing Live Present


10. On Dance and Phenomenology: An Essay Interview with Sondra Fraleigh


11. Enacting Embodiment and Blue Muffins


12. Attunement and Evanescence

Postscript Notes to Self

Bibliography

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Movements
• Performing Arts
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Dancers
• Phenomenology
• General officer
• Dance
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 05 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789387216
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Somatics in Dance, Ecology, and Ethics
Somatics in Dance, Ecology, and Ethics
______________________________________________
The Flowing Live Present
Essays by
Sondra Fraleigh
First published in the UK in 2023 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2023 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2023 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: MPS Limited
Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas
Cover image: Ashley Meeder gazing at a misty-red sea star on Holbox Island in Mexico . Photograph Rames Xelhuantzi, 2016.
Production manager: Debora Nicosia
Typesetter: MPS Limited
Hardback ISBN 978-1-78938-719-3
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-720-9
ePUB ISBN 978-1-78938-721-6
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This is a peer-reviewed publication.
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introducing Scripts and Dances
1. Ethical world gaze
2. Body and Nature: Quest for Somatic Values, East, and West
3. Mind Matters: Mind as Portal and Precarity in Somatic Experience
4. A Future Worth Having: Somatic Ethics of Flow and Curiosity
5. Walking Well: A Play of Touch and Restoration in Three Acts
6. Everyone Needs to Breathe
7. Talking to Tremors: Somatics in Dance, Dialogics, and Silence
8. Back to the Dance Itself: In Three Acts
9. Phenomenologies in The Flowing Live Present
10. On Dance and Phenomenology: Interview with Sondra Fraleigh
Amanda Williamson
11. Enacting Embodiment and Blue Muffins
12. Attunement and Evanescence
Postscript Notes to Self
Figures Figure 1.1: Ashley Meeder. Gazing at a misty-red sea star on Holbox Island in Mexico. Photograph © Rames Xelhuantzi, 2016. Figure 1.2: Ashley Meeder. Dancing to match beached driftwood on Holbox Island in Mexico. Photograph © Rames Xelhuantzi, 2016. Figure 1.3: ‘Blue Muffins in Snow Canyon', dancing into the soft sandstone. Left to right: Sarah Gallo, Denise Purvis and Meghan Brunsvold. Photograph © Tom Gallo, 2015. Figure 1.4: Sondra Fraleigh. Photograph © Tom Gallo, 2015. Figure 1.5: Kimerer LaMothe's charcoal drawing of a white-lined sphinx moth of Colorado and Utah, also called 'hummingbird’. Photograph © Kimerer LaMothe, 2017. Figure 2.1: Amber Watkins walking the Desert Rose Labyrinth in Kayenta, Utah. Photograph © Kay Nelson, 2015, used with permission. Figure 2.2: In ‘Sounding Earth', Robert Bingham explores voice with dance in Snow Canyon, Utah. Photograph of Robert Bingham by Sondra Fraleigh, 2018. Figure 2.3: Florentis , a film on ageing and loneliness by Ruth Way, a performance and somatics professor in the United Kingdom and a graduate of Eastwest Somatics. Video still of Florentis by Ruth Way, 2018. Figure 4.1: Cave improvisation in Mukuntuweap (Zion Canyon, Utah). Photograph © Sarah Jeffreys, 2019. Figure 4.2: Tree Reflection in Water. Oak Creek in Mukuntuweap (Zion Canyon, Utah). Photograph © Sarah Jeffreys, 2019. Figure 5.1: Philip Barr in Somatics Class with Sondra Fraleigh and Kelly Ferris Lester at the State University of New York, Brockport in the early 2000s. Figure 5.2: Eastwest Graduate Alaina Deaver lifting and cradling the leg from side-lying. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2017. Figure 5.3: Eastwest Graduate Alaina Deaver lifting slowly with attention to movement potentials from under her partner's elbow and wrist. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh 2017. Figure 5.4: Eastwest Graduate Alaina Deaver lifting the arm slowly and a little higher. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2017. Figure 5.5: Eastwest Graduate Alaina Deaver waiting for Denise Purvis's arm to settle into her hands. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2017. Figure 5.6: Eastwest Graduate Alaina Deaver settling the head gently on its horizon. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2017. Figure 5.7: Eastwest Somatics Graduates practice in class, with Darby Sheridan and Ruth Way. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 5.8: Sondra Fraleigh's hands finding breath in the neck. Photograph courtesy of Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 5.9: Eastwest students in classwork. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2012. Figure 5.10: Eastwest students assisting each other. Photograph by Eastwest Graduate, Michelle Ikle, 2010. Figure 5.11: Amber Watkins-Olpin practices Mountain Stride in walking the Desert Rose Labyrinth in Kayenta, Utah. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 5.12: Michelle Akane Sugimoto assists Ann Guhman. Assistance in standing tall, balancing the head on top of the spine, and walking well. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2012. Figure 5.13: Classwork with Sondra Fraleigh: checking in with each other at the end of a hands-on therapy session. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2006. Figure 6.1: Warren Fraleigh in 1944, a veteran of the Second World War and 95 years old in 2020. Figure 6.2: Photograph of Sondra in ‘Cow Face’ from Hatha Yoga. Photograph by Kelly Ferris, 2002. Figure 6.3: Annabella with Warren. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2020. Figure 6.4: Annabella with Christina. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2020. Figure 6.5: Annabella on her way to the park. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2020. Figure 6.6: Nathalie Guillaume, an Eastwest Somatics graduate, with Joan Englander at the Eastwest Retreat in Santa Barbara in 2012. ‘Seahorse', music and video by Sondra Fraleigh. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2012. Figure 6.7: SIMBI, Nathalie Guillaume. Photograph courtesy of Nathalie Guillaume, 2020. Figure 6.8: Ashley Meeder, Dancing Back the World. Selfie photograph by Ashley Meeder in 2020. Figure 8.1: Squishy Toes in Reciprocal Play. ‘Selfie', 2017. Copyright Ashley Meeder. Courtesy: Eastwest Somatics Mexico, principal teacher, Ashley Meeder. Figure 8.2: Sondra Fraleigh dancing in Snow Canyon, 2015. Copyright Robert Bingham. Figure 8.3: Three Blue Muffins in Snow Canyon, 2017. Dancers: Megan Brunsvold, Sara Gallo, and Denise Purvis. Photograph © Tom Gallo. Figure 8.4: Matching Hands, 2017. Photograph © Ashley Meeder and Eastwest Somatics Messico. Figure 9.1: The Flowing Live Present, a somatic improvisation directed by Sondra Fraleigh at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. Dancers: Megan Brunsvold (top) and Denise Purvis (bottom). Photograph © Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 9.2: The Flowing Live Present, a somatic improvisation directed by Sondra Fraleigh at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. Dancers: Devise Purvis (top), Megan Brunsvold (middle), Robert Bingham (bottom). Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 9.3: The Flowing Live Present. Dancers left to right, Denise Purvis, Robert Bingham, Megan Brunsvold. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 9.4: Photograph of Sondra Fraleigh in the furrowed potato fields of Circleville Utah. Photograph © Robert Bingham. Figure 10.1: Sondra Fraleigh leading discussion at an Eastwest Somatics workshop in Saint George, Utah, 2014. Photograph © Richard Biehl (Eastwest student). Figure 10.2: Sondra Fraleigh teaching a Bodywork section of an Eastwest Somatics workshop in Auckland, New Zealand in 2011. Photograph © Karen Smith (Eastwest student). Figure 11.1: Robert Bingham in Blue Muffins, a work in process. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 11.2: Lesly Chamberlain and Roman Morris in ‘Magic Egg Butoh', a metamorphic Place-Dance by Sondra Fraleigh. Photograph by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 11.3: Other Stories (2007). Photographed by Devon Cody. Dancer Inka Juslin. Figure 11.4: Other Stories (2007). Photographed by Devon Cody. Dancer Susan Kozel. Figure 11.5: Whispers (2004). Photographed by Elisa Gonzalez. Co-directed by Thecla Schiphorst, Susan Kozel, and Sang Mah. Figure 11.6: Sondra Fraleigh in ‘Visiting Butch Cassidy's Cabin’. Place-Performance collaboration with Robert Bingham. Video and computer-generated music by Sondra Fraleigh, 2015. Figure 12.1: Sondra Fraleigh at age 75 near her home in Southwest (Color Country) Utah. Photo by Kay Nelson © 2014, used with permission. Figure 12.2: Ohno Kazuo in his 90s, photographed by Koko Kiyama, in 2001 in Tokyo's Shinjuku Park Tower Hall. Used with permission of Ohno Kazuo archives. Figure 12.3: Sondra Fraleigh in Ancient Body Butoh (2014), Snow Canyon, Utah. Photo by Kay Nelson © 2014, used with permission. Figure 12.4: Sondra Fraleigh dances Ancient Body Butoh (2014) in a burned out trailer home. Photo by Kay Nelson © 2014, used with permission.
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge several wonderful authors, editors, friends, and advisors in the United Kingdom who have supported my somatic work over the years. The essays in this book have been edited or reviewed by them and first published through Intellect Press journals.
Amanda Williamson is first among them, having edited several essays in this book and encouraged more. She also elicited my explanations of phenomenology and its growth in dance studies through her interview in this book. Sarah Whatley, who I met through our shared interests in dance scholarship, subsequently reviewed and edited work on my behalf, for which I am also grateful. Vida Midgelow edited Blue Muffins' and dedicated an entire issue of Choreographic Practices to my curation of ecosomatic work with Robert Bingham and others. 1 What can I say? My associations with the publishing community for somatics in the United Kingdom have brought me many friends and colleagues, including Juliet Chambers- Coe and Lily Hayward-Smith. They edited the most recent work in this book.
I became acquainted with the poetic style of Canadian, Celest