This two-day intensive workshop invites experienced movers to delve deeper into their solo movement practice through gently guided explorations, prompts for improvisation and open frameworks for returning to movement. Explore the relationship between subtle sensations of the body’s internal landscape and your evolving movement vocabulary while in the company of others.
Each afternoon will move through two phases. The first phase draws from the practice of Experiential Anatomy and is likely to incorporate material from the fluid and or nervous systems as impetus for solo improvisation.
In the second phase, you will be invited to explore the process of returning to (self-selected) movement content as an invitation to grow and deepen the relationship with it. Variations on moving and witnessing, in pairs and in a group, will incorporate into our dancing an awareness of the relational field that is both within us and around us. You will explore how returning to your emerging movement vocabulary can be further influenced by the witnessing of others moving, as well as being witnessed yourself.
The workshop is underpinned by Amy’s ongoing research interest in the improvisational values of the mover-witness framework and how such improvisational values might support a process of solo dance-making across an extended period of time.
“I am curious about how ‘staying with’ something might cultivate the qualities of discernment, insight, surprise, transformation and tolerance of inner variation in the presence of the dancer-maker”
Please note that this workshop is designed for experienced movers with particular interests in sensory and holistic approaches to solo dance-making. The workshop is open to those with interdisciplinary practices who feel comfortable holding their own process and practice while in the company of others.
The workshop will include plenty of breaks with time for personal reflection. Participants are also encouraged to bring their own specific movement research, dance forms or experience, fully into the space.
‘The overall intention is to cultivate sensitivity to the emergence and quality of movement alongside an imaginative and atmospheric pleasure in solo-dancing.’
Booking open from 11am, Monday 10 February
Access
Independent Dance is resident at Siobhan Davies Studios. To find out more about accessibility and the amenities available within the building please see here.
If you have any questions about the accessibility of our programme and would like to discuss any specific access requirements, please feel free to reach out to us via email info@independentdance.co.uk or by phone on 0207 091 9665, to speak directly to a member of the Independent Dance team. Alternatively, you may phone the main reception at Siobhan Davies Studios on 0207 091 9650.
All participants are welcome to take breaks, observe, exit and enter the space as they wish. Lounge areas are available on the first and ground floors of the building. Yoga mats, blocks, cushions and ear defenders are available for use. We also welcome you being in contact if you would like to discuss the option of bringing your access support worker. Please speak to a member of the ID team if you require any assistance.
Amy Voris (she/her) is a contemporary dance-maker and facilitator based in Manchester, UK. Her practice is process-oriented and collaborative, driven by the desire to develop enduring relationships with people, places and movement material. The outcome of the work is contingent on hunches and interactions that occur during the process and varies widely. Examples of current work include a site-responsive project (enter & inhabit), a collaboration with a jewellery maker (flockOmania) and an artist-led curatorial project for experimental performance practices (accumulations). She has completed training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley which informs her approach to dance-making and facilitating.
“My approach to facilitating experiential anatomy and the mover-witness framework is profoundly informed by training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley. In addition, my approach to facilitating experiential anatomy within a creative context has been influenced by practitioners such as Andrea Olsen, Caryn McHose, Miranda Tufnell, Satya Dunning, Natalie Garrett Brown and Fabiano Culora who work with the anatomical materiality of the body as a sensory, poetic and imaginal resource. There are also strong nods to the practice of choreographer Marguerite Galizia and to the creative work and research of Jane Bacon and Vida Midgelow (and their Creative Articulations Process).”
Experiential anatomy is an umbrella term used in different ways within a variety of movement, somatic and bodywork practices to refer to the dual processes of learning about human anatomy while at the same time exploring the processes of sensing/feeling/moving subjectively ‘from the inside’. The idea is that the anatomical information (or anatomically-inspired prompts) might offer ways of noticing and learning about our own ‘anatomy’ or tissues through the sensorial, movement, emotional and imaginal response to such prompts.
‘[Experiential anatomy] encourages the individual to integrate information with experience’ (Olsen 1998: 8).
To borrow an adage from Andrea Olsen who writes in the foreword to her experiential anatomy book Bodystories: ‘The function of a book about anatomy is not to demystify the body – it is to help embody the mystery.’
So here too, rather than de-mystifying the moving body, it is hoped that these workshops/sessions support creative engagement with its mysteries.
‘Authentic Movement’ was first developed in the 1950s and 60s by Mary Starks Whitehouse (1911-1979), a North American dancer with some training in Jungian analysis. The practice arose out of a unique fusion of Modern Dance, Dance Movement Therapy and Jungian approaches to creativity inspired by the Swiss psychologist and theorist Carl Jung.
Whitehouse sought to develop a format for movement practice which would enable the unconscious (or that which we do not know) to surface through open-ended movement exploration. She initially called the practice ‘movement-in-depth’ and later ‘inner-directed movement’.
Since Whitehouse, Authentic Movement has evolved in a number of directions with therapeutic, contemplative/spiritual and artistic applications. Underlying these varying applications of the practice is a common basis which has become known as its ‘ground’ or dyad (one-to-one) form which involves closing one’s eyes and allowing movement to arise in the presence of a witness.
Explicit boundaries related to time, space and roles offer a clear counterpart to the openness of the practice. Periods of moving are always followed by periods of reflection during which mover and witness seek to articulate their experience to each other.
Since Whitehouse’s founding of the practice, Janet Adler has noted that the development of Authentic Movement can be charted in terms of its ‘three root systems’ or theoretical foundations which she identifies as dance, psychotherapy and mysticism.
Authentic Movement is not concerned with being ‘authentic’ per se, but rather refers to an open and enquiring attitude toward experiencing and reflecting upon movement. Many practitioners thus choose to adapt alternative terminology for the practice such as ‘the mover-witness framework’.
Olsen, A. (1998) Body Stories, A Guide to Experimental Anatomy. New York: Barrytown Press
Adler, J. (2002) Offering from the Conscious Body. Vermont: Inner Traditions
Bacon, J. (2015) ‘Authentic Movement: A field of practices’. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices 7(2), 205-216
Chodorow, J. (2007), ‘Inner-Directed Movement in Analysis, Early Beginnings’. in Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 32-34
Frantz, G. and Whitehouse, M. (1999) ‘An Approach to the Center, An Interview with Mary Whitehouse.’ In Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 17-27
Goldhahn, E. (2015), ‘Towards a new ontology and name for ‘Authentic Movement’’. Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 7(2), 273–285
Lowell, D. (2007a) ‘Authentic Movement’. in Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 50-55
Lowell, D. (2007b) ‘Authentic Movement as a Form of Dance Ritual’. in Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 292-320
Pallaro, P. (ed.) (2007) Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved, Volume 2. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Pallaro, P. (ed.) (1999) Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Whitehouse, M. (1999a) ‘Creative Expression in Physical Movement is Language without Words.’ In Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 33-40
Whitehouse, M. (1999b) ‘The Tao of the Body.’ In Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 41-50
Whitehouse, M. (1999c) ‘Reflections on a Metamorphosis.’ In Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 58-62
Whitehouse, M. (1999d) ‘C.G. Jung and Dance Therapy, Two Major Principles.’ In Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. ed. by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 73-101