22/07/09 INHABITATION: a personal account by Cristina Santolin
(much of this process has already been outlined by Marnie Orr and Rachel Sweeney http://orrandsweeney.blogspot.com/, I will therefore be commenting on my own thoughts and experience of this project.)
I came to W.A. to understand Marnie's process from the lens of a participant who had yet to immerse myself in bodyweather practices. My relationship with Marnie was the principal instigator for this journey as I do not identify as being a dancer or artist. What enabled me to join this R&D project was the open invitation to research, through personal investigation, bodyweather training as a forum for creativity and expression. I brought with me the intention to expose my 'felt sense' (focusing terminology http://www.focusing.org) to the elements of body-place relation. I set out to explore my own focusing practice within a bodyweather frame.
Another personal objective was to meet with all participants at the interface of the group communication process so as to engage in creative collaboration, using it as a platform from which to further articulate my experience and share its meaning; bringing my own internal process to a larger, external axiom within the group body.
I don't find it appropriate to compare focusing and bodyweather practices as I am not a spokesperson for either and believe they stand alone in their theory of operation and intention. Rather, I find myself to be more interested in the experiential vessel where both practices can be embodied. My own objective to investigate and explore bodyweather from my 'felt sense' needs to be acknowledged because it is the lens I view and share my experience from. The dialogue about the shared experience has been the jewel of this forum, the real protagonist in this narrative and what has refined and continues to redefine my own process.
The terminology used to describe and get a handle on focusing as well as bodyweather, and indeed many other disciplines, crosses over in its jargon. As a training therapist and as a media person, the process of embodying terms such as macro, micro, mapping, focus, aperture, triangulation and sensing (to list a few) allowed me to deepen, stretch and even transmute the original meaning I had ascribed to these words. I have been able to expand my interpretation of the language shared by varying processes, which in turn has enriched my own focusing practice, and consequently, the process of collaborative connection. The shared experience is where the understanding resides, the communication about it is how the experience thickens the sharing. For me, this was developed at Noonyara and fleshed out through the practical contact with MB training and the process of entering on site tasks as a group, as well as other creative processes such as micro sharing and sharing dialogues with onsite photographers. (Viewing the documentation together could be a macro sharing process).
Through the documentation of group body performance I was able to see further into the practice I was engaging in. The images that were captured served as a witness to the process and offer yet another perspective, which may add or even subtract from the experience. Shared language is part and parcel of all of this. Sharing a language became the meeting ground for all participants but obviously even language has its limitations. While the words from the conversations surrounding this experience continue to change with time and space, the words can only ever point to what actually transferred on the day. I personally question wether the images and dialogue should remain peripheral to my 'felt sense' memory of the experience. I'm particularly interested in a dialogue which exposes what we make it all mean, patterns of how we work, how we fill up space and how we speed or drop into time.
I appreciate the opportunity to revisit the experience as a result of viewing the documentation together. It would be interesting to map the shifts in perspectives through this dialogue as we see beyond our experience of the past and enter new ground that will no doubt drive the shared group body movement for the upcoming exhibition. Through my eyes, the group body has two layers: the dancing group body and the photographic group body, both engaging with the enviroment.
I look forward to another opportunity to participate in a future installment of Inhabitation so as to continue on this venture to conceive in collaboration with others and to discover new pathways for connecting with my environment through my senses. All this informs and adds experience to my knowledge bank. It also parallels and compliments my own macroshifting work, a strand of my focusing practice, which sets its eye on transformation. For me, transformation on the bodyweather platform could occur through personal investigation of one's own process as well as through the dialogue which arises from set tasks and exercises.
Mapping the shift will be invaluable for me throughout the stages of changing perspectives and widening horizons. My personal goals, being somewhat creative as well as therapeutic in nature, are to allow experiences to unfold, to emerge as they will without amputating their natural flow by using language openly to anchor the experience rather than labelling it. My efforts are aimed towards yielding a space where I can experience as well as create for and of myself. I'm looking to find new edges in my work and to fill existing gaps in my process in this way.
To really do this within a bodyweather frame I would personally need more time to immerse myself in this practice. Three to four weeks feels like a good time frame to put flesh on the bones of this type of process. I would be more interested in exploring the place and sensory experience as an individual and then inhabiting the creative space in relationship with the group body, in this chronological order. I would be also be intent on having a set time to discuss language, share experiences and knowledge. I would have liked more time scheduled into the structure to utilize the research facilities that were provided. To have set tasks slowed down and stretched out within this extended time frame would help me explore with more detail bodyweather practices, and unpack them with more consideration and within context. I believe that with this extended time frame the group body may become more cohesive and intimate. I benefited most from the dancing group body because of the time spent at Noonyara. I had bonded with the members enough to move synergistically alongside them. Being rooted in community supported me in the group process.
I feel I have only begun to answer the question, which remains: How can I incorporate bodyweather language systems and practices to enhance my own process?
22/07/09
ReplyDeleteINHABITATION: a personal account by Cristina Santolin
(much of this process has already been outlined by Marnie Orr and Rachel Sweeney http://orrandsweeney.blogspot.com/, I will therefore be commenting on my own thoughts and experience of this project.)
I came to W.A. to understand Marnie's process from the lens of a participant who had yet to immerse myself in bodyweather practices. My relationship with Marnie was the principal instigator for this journey as I do not identify as being a dancer or artist. What enabled me to join this R&D project was the open invitation to research, through personal investigation, bodyweather training as a forum for creativity and expression. I brought with me the intention to expose my 'felt sense' (focusing terminology http://www.focusing.org) to the elements of body-place relation. I set out to explore my own focusing practice within a bodyweather frame.
Another personal objective was to meet with all participants at the interface of the group communication process so as to engage in creative collaboration, using it as a platform from which to further articulate my experience and share its meaning; bringing my own internal process to a larger, external axiom within the group body.
I don't find it appropriate to compare focusing and bodyweather practices as I am not a spokesperson for either and believe they stand alone in their theory of operation and intention. Rather, I find myself to be more interested in the experiential vessel where both practices can be embodied. My own objective to investigate and explore bodyweather from my 'felt sense' needs to be acknowledged because it is the lens I view and share my experience from. The dialogue about the shared experience has been the jewel of this forum, the real protagonist in this narrative and what has refined and continues to redefine my own process.
The terminology used to describe and get a handle on focusing as well as bodyweather, and indeed many other disciplines, crosses over in its jargon. As a training therapist and as a media person, the process of embodying terms such as macro, micro, mapping, focus, aperture, triangulation and sensing (to list a few) allowed me to deepen, stretch and even transmute the original meaning I had ascribed to these words. I have been able to expand my interpretation of the language shared by varying processes, which in turn has enriched my own focusing practice, and consequently, the process of collaborative connection. The shared experience is where the understanding resides, the communication about it is how the experience thickens the sharing. For me, this was developed at Noonyara and fleshed out through the practical contact with MB training and the process of entering on site tasks as a group, as well as other creative processes such as micro sharing and sharing dialogues with onsite photographers. (Viewing the documentation together could be a macro sharing process).
Through the documentation of group body performance I was able to see further into the practice I was engaging in. The images that were captured served as a witness to the process and offer yet another perspective, which may add or even subtract from the experience. Shared language is part and parcel of all of this. Sharing a language became the meeting ground for all participants but obviously even language has its limitations. While the words from the conversations surrounding this experience continue to change with time and space, the words can only ever point to what actually transferred on the day. I personally question wether the images and dialogue should remain peripheral to my 'felt sense' memory of the experience. I'm particularly interested in a dialogue which exposes what we make it all mean, patterns of how we work, how we fill up space and how we speed or drop into time.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the opportunity to revisit the experience as a result of viewing the documentation together. It would be interesting to map the shifts in perspectives through this dialogue as we see beyond our experience of the past and enter new ground that will no doubt drive the shared group body movement for the upcoming exhibition. Through my eyes, the group body has two layers: the dancing group body and the photographic group body, both engaging with the enviroment.
I look forward to another opportunity to participate in a future installment of Inhabitation so as to continue on this venture to conceive in collaboration with others and to discover new pathways for connecting with my environment through my senses. All this informs and adds experience to my knowledge bank. It also parallels and compliments my own macroshifting work, a strand of my focusing practice, which sets its eye on transformation. For me, transformation on the bodyweather platform could occur through personal investigation of one's own process as well as through the dialogue which arises from set tasks and exercises.
Mapping the shift will be invaluable for me throughout the stages of changing perspectives and widening horizons. My personal goals, being somewhat creative as well as therapeutic in nature, are to allow experiences to unfold, to emerge as they will without amputating their natural flow by using language openly to anchor the experience rather than labelling it. My efforts are aimed towards yielding a space where I can experience as well as create for and of myself. I'm looking to find new edges in my work and to fill existing gaps in my process in this way.
To really do this within a bodyweather frame I would personally need more time to immerse myself in this practice. Three to four weeks feels like a good time frame to put flesh on the bones of this type of process. I would be more interested in exploring the place and sensory experience as an individual and then inhabiting the creative space in relationship with the group body, in this chronological order. I would be also be intent on having a set time to discuss language, share experiences and knowledge. I would have liked more time scheduled into the structure to utilize the research facilities that were provided. To have set tasks slowed down and stretched out within this extended time frame would help me explore with more detail bodyweather practices, and unpack them with more consideration and within context. I believe that with this extended time frame the group body may become more cohesive and intimate. I benefited most from the dancing group body because of the time spent at Noonyara. I had bonded with the members enough to move synergistically alongside them. Being rooted in community supported me in the group process.
I feel I have only begun to answer the question, which remains: How can I incorporate bodyweather language systems and practices to enhance my own process?