do you care about, and how is that reflected in your work? Open your writing journal. Begin with “I care about,” and write for 10 minutes; then change to “I don’t care about” and continue for 10 more minutes. Fill pages. Write faster than you can think. Be open to surprise; don’t preknow the answer.
Hubert Godard teaching at Resources in Movement; Caryn McHose (facing)
Photograph © Kevin Frank
About the Tonic System
There are nerve endings in the soles of your feet, the palms of your hands, and the inner ear longing to orient you to the present moment. This is called the tonic system. These specialized nerve endings evolved to feed the movement brain, the parts of your nervous system that need information about context, answering the question, Where am I?*
*Kevin Frank writes in Tonic System (2004): “Tonic Function is the name for a model of structural integration developed by French dance professor, researcher, and Rolfer, Hubert Godard. Tonic function links structural integration to current scientific research and historical studies of movement and development” (16–18).
Photograph © Marilynne Morshead
STUDIO NOTES
BONNIE BAINBRIDGE COHEN addresses the distinction between yielding and collapse in this section of her article “Dancing through the Transitional Fluid,” published in Contact Quarterly (2009):1
Everyone has a different fluid-membrane balance [in the cells]—a basic constitutional preference that also varies from day to day. Many people don’t know how to maintain balance. Balancing involves flow toward the earth and/or space, flow coming back to self, and transitional fluid: flowing in or out. Flowing in gives the sense of more fullness of self; flowing out gives the sense of a release into gravity or space. Many accomplished dancers are most often flowing out. How do they perceive self-nourishing? For the dancers who are more inwardly focused, how do they perceive what other dancers and audience members are feeling/doing?
Distinguish between collapsing—letting go of the membrane so there’s flow only in one direction, toward gravity—and yielding, where there is reciprocity of fluids flowing into and out of the cells. Collapsing, you give up your weight to gravity, surrendering totally. Yielding involves release into gravity with rebound and resilience.
Collapse is not necessarily a bad thing; it may be the first step in recuperating. If you’re exhausted, it takes time to become activated again. Let go of the membranes until there is another kind of energy that creates a desire to move that is not connected to the will. If you are pulling away from gravity (holding the cell membranes so you can’t feel your own weight), you might need to collapse until you discover the relationship that goes both ways. It is only by giving your weight to gravity that you can perceive the weight itself and then feel the rebound. Feel the fluids flow through the membranes, finding the return to self and the release of self into the earth and into the universe. This cycling of the fluids is a natural phenomenon.
Exploring Collapse and Yielding
• Lying on the floor, explore the sensation of collapse—letting go of your membranes so you feel flow in only one direction, toward gravity.
• Explore yielding, feeling release into gravity with natural rebound (awareness of “antigravity,” that is, levity or support), where there is reciprocity of fluids flowing into and out of the cells. If you are fatigued, this may take time. Rest until you feel restored, with enough rebound/sense of self that you have energy for motion.
• Change—spontaneously move in space, yielding toward heaven.
• Flow into stillness.
• Change—again release and move into space. (Keep the moment of change spontaneous—faster than you can think. Then it goes wherever it’s going.)
• Flow again into stillness. (Never lose connection to the earth or to yourself; be comfortable while you explore.)
• Alternate between spontaneous transition into movement—yielding toward earth (gravity), yielding toward heaven (space)—and flowing toward stillness (self), feeling the relationship and rebound.
• While moving, transitioning, or being still, notice the fleeting moment of surrender that precedes change—of consciousness, movement, or presence. Enjoy the surprise of transition, the possibilities of change.
• Now forget it all and release your spirit into the dance!
DAY 2
Grupo Corpo
Benguelê
Photograph © José Luiz Pederneiras
Attitudes
What We Bring with Us
I can’t believe how long we go without dancing; I mean days, minutes, hours….
—Janet Adler, interview
People have complex views about the dancing body: it is respected and ignored, craved and forbidden, celebrated and scorned. Historically, dance has been feared and banned by both governments and religions. It challenges convention, threatening the status quo.1 Who knows what will happen when the body speaks? In the media, dancing is harnessed to sexuality, co-opted by commercialism, and dressed up by fashion. Is that why we are so afraid of dancing?
Body schema is one term neuroscientists use for overlapping maps in the brain that make a person aware of what his or her body is doing. Body schema is fed by sensory nerves throughout the body that tell us about our selves in relation to the world. Body image, in contrast, describes the constructed representation developed through life stories and attitudes accumulated from birth. Body schema and body image may not match—what your body actually feels and looks like and how you imagine you look may be worlds apart. This is what science writers Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee describe as “dueling body maps.”2
But perception is a construct, and attitudes change. It can be useful to take a look at familiar views and values, and discern how those ideas were formed. Patterns that you established at age twelve, eighteen, or even last week may no longer be appropriate for who you are now. Conditioned habits in coordination can result in overcontraction of muscles (think tight hips). Mental seeds about the dancing body manifest in action. We choose what to plant and what to nourish. This requires uncoupling biography and biology—personal story and genetically endowed structure. Receiving sensory signals, updating interpretation, and allowing communicative expression changes us. The ways we construct meaning are impacted: our view of the world and what we think is real.
We rebuild perception daily, moment by moment. Because dance is both a visual and a kinesthetic art form, dancers learn to see-feel movement. Hence the relevance of eyes-closed and skin-focused somatic work to feed and enhance the sensory maps, along with “outside eyes” offered by teachers, mirrors, cameras, and—eventually—audiences to corroborate sensation. The opportunity to perform various roles requiring new connections—beyond typecasting—enhances neurological plasticity. Working with diverse teachers, choreographers, and dancers keeps the body image responsive, refreshing sometimes-compromised sensory maps.
Pre-movement is the readiness state in the body at any moment, and it determines outcome of actions.3 Attitudes toward ease or distress continually create the conditions in which movement unfolds.