Somatics

Somatics

Here is a term that dancers and dance students hear all the time. When I asked people around me to tell me what it is I got various vague responses. So in this post I'll try define it from a dancer's perspective.

The word "somatic" comes from Greek and means "From the body", "Relating to the Body" and according to Wikipedia "Somatics" is a field which employs holistic body-centered approaches to assist people in integrating and transforming self through movement and awareness practices intended to promote psycho-physical well-being. The field contains distinct disciplines, each with its own educational and/or therapeutic emphasis, principles, methods, psychology and techniques.

All of these distinct disciplines concentrate on exploring one's own body through sensory awareness. Each technique, in its own way, is attempting to make us feel and listen to our senses (proprioceptors). The aim is mainly to get to know yourself better which, supposedly, often results in better health. Although most of the techniques were developed as a way to treat a medical problem I don't think this is where their appeal lays for dancers. I find the idea of exploring and discovering the body far more interesting. These techniques can help us be highly aware and connected to our bodies. This is more important as a dancer as it will help avoid injuries and dance better. If I know and feel my body better I will be able to listen to it when something doesn't feel right (physically) and I will also be able to quickly understand the complexity of a new movement quality.

Thomas Hanna is the person who first coined the term "Somatics" in the 1970's. He was looking for a term to describe this new field that was being developed by him and others. He then went on to create "Somatics Magazine" and "The Somatics Society". Since then the field has grown and developed into what it is today.

The amount of disciplines that came out since the 70s is quite astounding. You will most certainly have heard of some of them, to only name a few.


Hanna Somatic Education created by Thomas Hanna
Body Mind Centering created by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Feldenkrais Method created by Moshé Feldenkrais
Alexander Technique created by Frederick Matthias Alexander
Bartenieff Fundamentals created by Irmgard Bartenieff
Rolfing created by The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration (Ida Pauline Rolf)
Progressive muscle relaxation created by Edmund Jacobson
Ideokinesis created by Mabel Todd, Barbara Clark and Lulu Sweigard
Authentic Movement created by Mary Starks Whitehouse
Gyrotonic Expansion System created by Juliu Horvath

All these practices are often criticised for their complete lack of scientific evidence to back up their therapeutic claims. This is the reason why I want to show that we can ignore these claims and use these techniques as the brilliant tools that they can be for dancers. Tools that will help us know our bodies (mind included) better. Consequently making us better dancer, and I don't only mean better technically but also creatively and artistically.

Authority

I am just back from 2 weeks in the south of France teaching basic anatomy to future dance teachers.

It's a group of women ranging from 15 to 35 years old. Most of them choose to come to this 2 weeks intensive program. They get to refine and discover a variety of topics from ballet to music and anatomy.

Because the majority of them is here willingly and because a few of them are either the same age or older than me, it is easy to quickly become friendly. They are good students and we spend a lot of time together during two weeks. We joke a lot and because they feel comfortable, they tease me or laugh at me which, of course, I don't mind. I think that it's healthy to be able to laugh at yourself. The only thing is, that at the end of the two weeks, I will decide whether or not they pass on to the next level. I have an authority over them.
The question then is, how do you find the right balance between a good authority (laugh with my students, comfortable working atmosphere) and a bad authority (no control over the group or a dictatorial control)?

During these last two weeks everything went very well but for the first time I started questioning the meaning of the authority (power) I had over these women. I was joking with all of them but then had to make sure they worked enough to get their diploma.
How do you tell someone with whom you've been having a good time, that they didn't get their diploma and that they need to come back next year?

I had teachers, in the past, who would always keep a very strong dividing wall between themselves and us. We would never have laughed at one of them. I don't want to be like that, because when I was a student I kind of forgot that my teachers had lives outside the dance studio. This dividing wall, they used, made us forget that they were human beings.

I just hope that the students understand that a comfortable working atmosphere (where you can laugh at me) doesn't mean we're friends. I won't give any of them their diploma because we're friendly with one an other. That's why they need to know we're not friends.

The idea of authority and power reminds me that as teachers we have responsibilities.

New blog about dance teaching

After a thorough research on the web trying to find a blog about dance teaching I decided to start my own. I am intending to use it as a place to share my thoughts and experiences on teaching contemporary dance. I am a freelance dancer living in London and I teach on a regular basis in between my dancing contracts. I can not pretend to be an expert in pedagogy but it is a subject that fascinates me. I will try to tell you about my mistakes and successes. I mainly teach technical classes but also creative workshops and every summer I train future teachers in basic anatomy. Please feel free to comment or argue against anything you read. Debating is one of my favourite hobby. Questioning and reassessing are two very important things in order to be a good teacher. And this will be the subject of my first post.