Music credit: Clouderr; Downstairs
Somatic movement combines principles from Vipassana meditation and dance movement improvisation. It is a practice of cultivating an awareness of the felt-sense, or sensations in the skin and the body as a way to listen to the inner self. By applying these principles to a movement practice, we can both generate and enhance sesnations in the body in order to allow the body to speak through the movement. Once we fine tune this deep listening through presence we can then explore moving from impulse, generating sequences and mark-making to materialise embodied knowledge.
Every practice is unique to the relationship and embodied subjectivity of the person I move with. Whilst the somatic, embodied, dance movement improvisation practices I draw from are the same, the application and configuration of the practices may vary according to the needs and particular situated entanglements of the person. I also regularly run group somatic movement workshops which offer a glimpse into this practice.
Three main elements we may work with in ongoing somatic movement therapeutic sessions are:
- Embodying emotions using somatic and dance movement improvisation which may or may not include a movement sequence. We work with the felt-sense to facilitate a practice of tracing stories in the body.
- Communicating emotions through repetitive gesture, a movement sequence and/or working with rhythm. While I facilitate the process I may include witnessing exercises, mirroring or improvising with you.
- Articulating the somatic experiencing into words which may take the form of storytelling, creative writing or drawing and talking.
-Somatic movement may be combined with guided imagery and reiki as part of ongoing embodied theraputic arts journeys.
- These sessions last 60 min, are available as one-to-one somatic experiencing and healing or in groups as part of wellbeing and creative workshops, in-person or online.