BEING, DOING, and the SPACE IN BETWEEN

what is, what could be, and the unknowable

Jennifer Polins

space, the final frontier.

the space between frontiers,

the space beyond the frontier.

how we articulate the space between

our ribs and spine...our organs with each other.

how we articulate the space between

our soft palate and anus...within a duet, a trio.

how we articulate the space between

our thoughts and our actions.

how we move in space.

how we displace space.

how we occupy space.

how we are space.

how we include and exclude the space we are in.

how we include and exclude the charged space around us.

how space smells, sounds, tastes.

how we are defined by the moment,

comprised of all the space holds.

(Polins, poem from 2011 Underscore practice)

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I will define the term “somatic values” and explore ways these values affect the creative process of dance makers and the final product of dance performance. I share the responses from interviews I conducted with current dance makers who merge the fields of somatics and dance in their performance work, including: Miguel Gutierrez, John Jasperse, Sara Shelton Mann, and RoseAnne Spradlin. I focus on Body-Mind Centering (BMC) and contact improvisation (CI) as the in-common somatic influences. It is important to note that there is so much cross-pollination at this point between dance and somatics, it is impossible to truly isolate one approach from another. Also, as expanding the field of possibilities is a main point of somatics, separating forms seems beside the point. All artists interviewed source from many approaches, somatics being one. I give a brief description, history and development of BMC and CI  related to performative aspects of dance and share interviews with the founder of BMC and CI, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Steve Paxton, respectively, discussing where they are now in relationship to performance.

My focus on the aesthetics of performance created by approaches that merge somatics and dance is inspired by my own artistic path from an early career in classical ballet to an ever- widening perspective and approach to contemporary dance making and teaching. This paper articulates my personal experiences and reflections as well as those of current dance makers, fueled by the question: What happens when a field that honors and prioritizes a practice of not knowing – a field that values respect for individual histories, unravelling patterns, yielding, and cultivating skills to develop agency – affects the creative process of dance makers?

Dance and somatics arise from the same synaptic and physiological threads, and share some of the same goals. As Kimerer LaMothe says so eloquently in her paper, “The Movement I Make is Making Me”:

“Both dance and somatics, as disciplines of bodily movement, share this commitment to overcoming mind over body dualisms” (LaMothe, 2008 p.1)

Performance artists are in an intimate relationship with an unpredictable audience body, a cross section of citizens from our modern Western society, a culture that has perfected a mind over body way of life. An embodied approach to dance with somatic influence and conscious consideration of the concept that “the movement that we are making is making us” (LaMothe 2008, p.3) creates a meeting ground for performer and audience outside of the definitions of “doing it right.” Bridging somatics and dance performance ignites a dynamic relationship between being and doing that offers a kinesthetic experience of embodiment to the audience and shapes the dance itself. Bridging somatics and dance also ignites a dynamic relationship between a performative world that places the highest value on rigor, technical ability and virtuosity and a therapeutic world that values yielding, releasing and acceptance. By combining these approaches, we hone our skills as dance makers and create new pathways of perception. We expand our range of movement on many levels: through embodied explorations of space, the liminal space, the space between the synapse, the space between the organs, the permeability of membranes, the space between the occiput and coccyx, the space between the inhale and the exhale, the space between the vertebrae. Somatics can be looked at as a technical field of study that provides skills to become articulate, embodied, conscious makers.

Primary to my interest in the space between somatics and dance is my interest in potentiality. I engage potentiality as a state of sustained hope, a rigorous practice of holding space for possibility. Perhaps the act of performing is the act of dancing in the electrically creative space between potentiality and actuality. It is the inclusion of – and negotiation between – the unknowable, what could be, and what is happening, that I am most interested in. What potentialities do we compromise as we negotiate to survive in this imperfect world, this Western culture with its unconscious and insidiously embedded heteronormative, hierarchical, misogynistic, greed-based tendencies? Life is a negotiation process; what is the quality of our negotiation? How is that negotiation embodied by the dance makers interviewed?

During my interview with BMC founder Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, she spoke about potential in relationship to human embryology. Early in our process, after the sperm delivers its half of the DNA into the egg, the identity of the new being is not yet formed. The egg holds the father's DNA and the mother's DNA, but it isn't until the DNA combines by replicating and dividing into two identical cells that the DNA of the mother and the DNA of the father become unique twin cells that will eventually form a person. As the cells continue to divide, from 4 to 8, the relationships of front and back, up and down and side to side become real. At this simple state, each cell holds the potential to become a whole human. This mass of cells eventually forms two spheres: the sphere in front becomes the yolk sac and the sphere in back becomes the amniotic cavity. Where the front and the back meet – the space between – is the beginning of the person. The cells from the front sphere become the endoderm, which gives rise to our organs, and the cells from the back sphere become the ectoderm, which gives rise to our nervous system and skin. Eventually the space in-between grows a new middle layer of cells – the mesoderm - which forms the bones and muscles.

As specialization occurs, potentiality is reduced. As we develop skills to function in specified ways, a global sense of potential becomes less accessible, but still available. When we choose a path of action or response, we are actively not choosing other paths. One of the questions BMC leads us into is, How much are we able to practice a spacious approach as we choose? This in turn leads us to examine, What amount of potential is appropriate for any given situation?

On a fundamental level, I see the somatic field offering skills to reconnect to our dormant potential by creating safe space in which to slow down and witness habitual responses. At best, we reconnect to a cellular process of becoming and dissolving. This awakening of consciousness affects how we choose to live, what we choose to make, how we choose to act. In metabolic process and throughout the natural world, bodies are constantly becoming and dissolving: 300 million cells die in the human body every minute; every day an adult body produces 300 billion new cells; we are 80% water; there is far more space than matter. (icantseeyou.com)

Dance is powerful. It is of the body, negotiating and illuminating what is and what could be and what was. Dance makers whose creative fabric includes somatic values participate in the evolution of dance making that unites internal and external space. We share our vulnerability as we practice re-imagining the world by relating to the things that make the world the way it is, as we physiologically embody our poignant and futile attempts at living in the ever-evolving, present moment.

SOMATICS

From the Greek word soma – the living body – somatics is the study of the body experienced from the inside out. Although the word somatics was created in the 1970s by academic, philosopher and Functional Integration

Practitioner Thomas Hanna to summarize the many approaches developing globally at the time, around the body-mind connection, the concept of listening and cultivating the wisdom of the body has been around for centuries. From the ancient Eastern traditions of yoga, acupuncture and martial arts, to the sacred rituals of indigenous peoples globally, to the growing field of somatics in mental and physical health, scholarship, and the arts – and most primary to this paper, throughout the development of dance in the West – somatic inquiry has been present. But something shifted in the ‘70s when the term “somatics” was coined. The assortment of methods that value “listening to the body and responding to these sensations by consciously altering movement habits and movement choices” (Eddy 7) was united and a new field applicable to psychology, the sciences, body work, the arts and higher education was created. This field has been merging information and approaches into the dance world since it began.

Martha Eddy, dancer and founder of Somatic Movement Therapy Training, states that there are over 37 different somatic movement certification programs today (Eddy, 2008, pg 15). I have compiled a brief overview of what Eddy defines as Somatic Pioneers at the turn of the century, with her own words in quotes. (Note: not very many of them were dancers).

Rudolf Laban (1879-1958), Hungarian, founder of the Art of Movement Centre in England during World War II; “developed a system of movement exploration that epitomized freedom of expression through the human body”; created Labanotation – a movement notation still used today – and Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Teacher of German dance makers Mary Wigman and Kurt Jooss; peer of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze.

Fredrick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955), Australian, “an actor with laryngitis who began to question deeply the cause of his vocal problems and wondered if they might have something to do with how he was using his vocal apparatus and his body.” Founder of the Alexander Technique.

Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984), Russian, immigrated to Palestine at 13 years old. Motivated by a knee injury and WWII, developed Awareness through Movement and Functional Integration. He studied engineering and physics and was a martial artist practicing Judo and Jujitsu.**

Mabel Todd (1880-1956), American, wrote The Thinking Body (1937), and The Hidden You (1953). Originally a voice teacher, she developed and taught ‘ideokinesis’ after she had a paralyzing accident and taught herself to walk again despite her doctors saying it was impossible. Teacher of Lulu Sweigard.

Gerda Alexander (1904-1994), German, founded the somatic discipline Gerda Alexander Eutony, connecting anatomy and the emotions. Dancer and gymnastics teacher.

Ida Rolf (1896-1979), American, raised in New York City, exposed to Eastern practices and sciences. Became a scientist also interested in yoga. Wrote Rolfing: The Integration of Human Structures (1977). Ph.D in biological chemistry, investigating the body and health.

Milton Trager, MD (1908-1997), American. Born with a congenital spine deformity, dealt with weakness and illness his whole life. Founder of the Trager Approach to Psychophysical Integration. Was an athlete and a dancer.

Irmgard Bartenieff (1900-1981), German. A dancer, performed with her husband Igor, studied dance and movement analysis with Laban. Escaped Nazi Germany and settled in NYC, developed Bartenieff Fundementals. “Irmgard always taught through improvisational exploration and somatic inquiry, emphasizing attention to breath and developmental processes.” (Eddy, 2009, pg.15)

There is a growing number of remarkable contemporary artists contributing to the merging of somatics and dance, a few of the most prominent being: Anna Halprin, Joan Skinner, Simone Forti, Deborah Hay, Martha Myers, Elaine Summers, Sondra Fraleigh, Nancy Topf, Irene Dowd, Mary Overlie, Eva Karczag, and Meg Stuart.

SOMATIC VALUES

“The somatic is a perspectival investigation.” (Petra Kuppers, 2011)

Although each somatic discipline developed from an international mix of dancers, artists, scientists and scholars has a unique approach to body-mind integration, they share what I would call somatic values or common features, some of which Eddy identifies in her article:

Each person and their newly formed ‘discipline’ had people take time to breathe, feel and ‘listen to the body’, often beginning with conscious relaxation on the floor or laying down. From this gravity reduced state, each person was guided to pay attention to bodily sensations emerging from within and move slowly and gently in order to gain a deeper awareness of the “self that moves”...Students were directed to find ease, support, and pleasure while moving - all while paying attention to proprioceptive signals...” (Eddy, 2009, p. 6)

A somatic approach offers practices and cultivates skills to become aware of personal patterns. It also offers techniques to unravel patterns of perception and physicality that block one’s ability to be present in the moment. A somatic approach values a non-goal oriented state, a state of not-knowing, a state of questioning rather than answering. In a somatic approach, being is as important as doing; the process is as important as the product.

A difference between somatic disciplines is how much space and time is given for personal investigation and playful inquiry. I am attracted to both BMC and CI because they include time to personally investigate, and invite play more than other disciplines I have studied. Their membranes are less fixed.

BMC provides an in depth physiological investigation of every system of the body and their interrelationships, the developmental patterns, and ample space for personal investigation. Because of the width and breadth of material covered, BMC fosters many perspectives and experiences of being. “Cohen” speaks of her background in improvisation, dance, performance, and growing up in the circus as key factors in how she organized her curriculum.

Beyond a fantastic accumulation of experience, information and imagery that illuminates the states of being human in a body – a radical re-visioning of the learning process. Wisdom wells up from inside the body, literally from within each cell. (Dianne Elliot, BMC newsletter, in Sensing Feeling and Action)

CI is based on releasing the dominance of the vertical, honoring the fall and all that being off balance incites in our nervous systems, our physiology, our psychology. It reclaims touch, play, and body-to-body exploration, so in addition to sexuality and childhood nurturing, there are options to be in contact/relationship with people, space and time. The exploration is the dance.

“We were focused on the phenomenon, rather than the presentation.” (Paxton quote from Banes, p. 67)

BODY-MIND CENTERING

“Staying present in the not knowing of the beginner’s mind...”(Hartley, 1995, introduction)

Lisa Schmidt, seven year veteran of the Trisha Brown Dance company and BMC practitioner, described studying BMC to be “like taking all the parts out of a car, looking at each part from many perspectives and then putting them all back together.”

Speaking both from personal experience, and from interviewing other dancers who have studied BMC, I can say that after that, the car is definitely not the same;something new has been created. Once the parts have been looked at so deeply, they become enlivened and transformation continues to unfold.

This phenomenon of being transformed by looking deeply into the body can happen experientially or by literally just observing. As an example, last night I watched a clip from the 2011 BMCA conference where Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen was describing a stage in human embryological development. She spoke of a moment around day 11 of the embryo, where the heart is actually OUTSIDE of the body, sort of near where the mouth will be, and as the ectoderm envelopes itself in preparation to become the nervous system, it seals and becomes a tube in which amniotic fluid flows freely from the bottom AND top. As the spiraling forces continue, the tube folds over, creating what will be the frontal lobe of the brain resting very closely to where the heart is pulsing; a suction is created which pulls the heart back into the body and from that moment the arm buds start to develop from the heart.

The mapping of energetic and physical relationships between parts is one of the gifts of BMC to dance. My jumps improved after exploring connections between my knees and kidneys; my port de bras became more meaningful when I connected my heart to my fingers. I find endless options of expressive quality that I apply to making work, using the performative characteristics of bone, fluid, and organ. I balance the compositional shifts of a piece by examining the sections’ relations to flexor and extensor tone, translating our human experience of embryological development to consider that “things” are not what they seem. The paths to get to the here and now are filled with shifting identities and relationships.

It was not until I started to experience a sense of release in my movement that I could do a true pique arabesque. That release has many layers, it’s muscular, it’s in the nervous system, which in BMC language can sometimes be “reversed” or have too much tone. It was a release of the identity I carried as a dancer, a woman: a release of my perceptions of mass and momentum, as well as my assumptions of where I begin and end. I shifted from being motivated by a need to perfect and accomplish to the infinite journey fueled by the question “What if?” What if women could lift men? What if falling into each other and being supported is powerful? What if I can initiate movement from my exploration of the space between my pineal and pituitary glands? My inquiry into a plié was the beginning of my discovery of agency. My perspective transformed from a motivation to do it “right” – be most beautiful, be acceptable to the teacher or choreographer – to a motivation of questioning what is possible, what is the possible articulation in my subtalar joint? Where am I fixed in the bones of my foot that might be blocking the range of my plié? What does releasing into gravity even mean? Why am I here in this ballet class anyway? Where do I want to go now?

BONNIE BAINBRIDGE COHEN

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen is the developer of Body-Mind Centering® and the Founder and Educational Director of the School for Body-Mind Centering. For over thirty-five years she has been an innovator and leader in developing this embodied and integrated approach to movement, touch and repatterning, experiential anatomy, developmental principles, perceptions and psychophysical processes. She is the author of the book, Sensing, Feeling and Action, (Contact Editions, 2008). Cohen is a Registered Occupational Therapist, a Registered Movement Therapist, and is also certified in Neurodevelopmental Therapy, Laban Movement Analysis, and Kestenberg Movement Profiling. (Bio from BMC website)

Cohen grew up at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, where her mother was a performer and her father a ticket seller. With circus performer parents, show business and performance was a part of her life. She studied dance from childhood and went on to Ohio State University where she studied occupational therapy and dance, as well as studying in NYC with Erick Hawkins.

When I asked Cohen about her identity as a dance maker she said, “I am a movement artist, researcher, communicator, therapist. The certification programs are choreographed; class is a performance – different venue but principles are the same – my background in improvisation always a key factor.”

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