Interests

My preoccupation with movement springs from two sources: a desire to overcome a history of movement problems since early childhood; and an interest in the performing arts. From early on in my engagement with movement as a field of study, both paths pointed towards what I later came to know as the general field of somatics.

Somatics

Somatics, as I understand it, is a study of the whole unity of is a study of what it is to be a whole human being. From early on I recognized that working with somatic techniques not only improved my movement abilities but improved everything in my life significantly. I noticed the connection between my physicality and my psychology.

The Feldenkrais Method

The first somatic discipline that I discovered, and for me the most significant, is the Feldenkrais Method (1991). It helped me to begin to develop the sensitivity and awareness that opened doors to many other somatic practices. It improved my ability to move and gave an added dimension to my performance work. It also got me thinking about how I learn and later, as I began to teach, about how everyone learns.

I studied with a Feldenkrais teacher for 11 years before beginning a training (2002-2005) to become a teacher of the Feldenkrais method myself. After entering the training I became increasingly aware of just how much my experience of the method permeates my whole approach to teaching, no matter what the form.

Post-Modern Dance and Contact Improvisation

Within months of discovering the Feldenkrais Method (1991), I found Contact Improvisation (1991) through it became interested in the field of Post-Modern Dance (1992) which I have been working with ever since. My study of Post-Modern Dance has included a number of somatic practices. Some, like Body Mind Centering, are forms which have been adopted into Post-Modern Dance training, while others, like contact improvisation and release technique, have evolved from within the field of Post-Modern Dance itself.

I have never been particularly comfortable with describing myself as a "dancer". I prefer to use the term "mover" since movement is what I am really concerned with. I never learned steps. Instead I study improvisation as a performance technique and take a somatic approach to improving movement range and quality both in my own studio research and in my teaching.

Experiential Anatomy and Developmental Movement

To me, the study of movement is inseparable from the study of our physical structure and perceptual abilities, and how we arrived at those structures and abilities within an evolutionary framework. Science doesn't offer a definitive narrative on how this came to be, how we came to be, though some times some scientists present their theories as facts. My approach is pragmatic, I am interested in exploring how working with scientific ideas and images about the body can change the way I move. This approach is not unique to any one discipline though it is often refered to as experiential anatomy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Move to Learn
• Interests
• Somatics
• Post-Modern Dance
• Background
• Movement forms that I teach and teachers who taught them to me
• Movement forms and teachers that influence my work