Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformations through Dance, Yoga, and Touch

sensate

their own phrases or changing their use of time, space, and energy. This opens options in “owning” the material as they shade it with their own

In dance conceived somatically, we can excavate body memories and possible selves. This is so precisely because somatic conceptions of dance concentrate on what the mover is experiencing, rather than on impressing an audience. The attitude and focus of the performer is key. Thus any form of dance might be conceived with first-person attention to th

Clearing away stress and holding patterns in hands-on processes is a major purpose of listening through touch. Flow repatterning of movement, finding easy developmental pathways through matching, and then providing guidance, depends on sensitivity to touch and movement. One cannot repattern movement without first finding what patterns are present t

Dance as theater is an important kind of

Kimerer LaMothe also publishes extensively on dance in the natural environment and eco-somatics. She is a dancer, philosopher, and scholar of religion, with a doctorate from Harvard, where she has also taught.

Somatics, as a genre, centers on the individual who is having the experience in the present moment.

Let us pause on this word affect, because it has several definitions. The one we cultivate in somatic studies is delimited to influences of

If there is one technique that has stayed with me in my quest for silence, it is how to send worries out on the breath, and how to let my thoughts flow by on a river. This is an image, and I say I don’t use these. Well, I use very few, and I try not to guide people through an entire mediation with words.

Both are being moved through touch.