Choreography through a somatic lens

Training for dancers has long been informed by somatic perspectives, with curricula in dance conservatoires and higher education drawing on knowledge from practices such as Body Mind Centering, Skinner Releasing Technique and the Feldenkrais Method. The inclusion of these practices is often rationalised in relation to pedagogic agendas about developing dancers’ self-knowledge and agency. Through framing movement in experiential and subjective terms, somatic practices are understood to encourage dancers to make qualitative distinctions about their movement by attending to feeling, rather than relying on external forms of validation (such as mirrors or musical accompaniment).

While the pedagogic rationale for applying somatic knowledge in participatory dance practice or professional dance training is well established, systematic accounts of how somatic perspectives might reframe choreographic practice are less widespread. This chapter analyses the implications of applying somatic knowledge within choreographic practice, drawing on contributions from choreographers Hannah Buckley (UK) and Nita Little (USA). It investigates what might be understood as ‘somatic choreography’ – exploring how centering feeling, sensation and attention within choreographic processes raises novel questions about dance aesthetics. Through bringing together reflections on processes and approaches from Buckley and Little’s work, the chapter argues that somatically informed choreography establishes an approach to dance-making that foregrounds consideration of the aesthetics of emergence, relationality and care.