PhD Thesis: The Ecological Body ~ extracts
Move into LifeMove into Life offers movement training in the environment. Within this practice, a kinaesthetic awareness of environment through movement is as important as the expression of moving body itself. This distinctive feature of my work which has led me to develop the sense of an ecological body. My approach moves away from a mechanistic, intrapersonal approach to body work, towards a systemic and dynamic style of movement training, which is deliberately self-reflexive.
Move into Life is a training for performers, psychotherapists, dance and drama therapists and others who wish to develop an embodied, ‘contextual’ or ecological awareness through the medium of the moving body, as part of their professional or personal skills. In Move into Life, the core programme is taught as a seasonal cycle of four modules, through a series of ‘building-blocks’ or inter-dependent dynamics, which are adaptable to circumstances and can be taught in almost any order. I pay attention to the total discourse of my movement practice at any given moment – the season, the choice of locations, the length of time of each workshop, the selected theme for the workshop and the size of the group. Each participant’s movement style receives individual attention within the context of the group. In Move into Life, ecological movement supports the mover to expand their embodied awareness to include the broader context from a position of ‘being among’, rather than ‘central to’. From that position they may experience their own system as an intrinsic part of a wider set of systems and act accordingly, rather than perpetuating an attitude of usage towards themselves, others or the environment. |
Thesis pages
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