Embodying Our Longing to be Seen
Reflections on Authentic Movement, Performance
and Dance
Tannis Hugill MA, RCC, RDT, ADTR
The human need to be recognized and accepted is one of the driving
forces of life. This need is demonstrated in infinite ways and
shapes the entirety of our experience from our most intimate relationships
to the formation of cultures and civilizations.
This deep motivation forms a part of all creativity and is particularly
manifest in the performing arts, especially dance and theatre.
What, then, happens when we express the truth of our selves, through
our bodies from the depths of our souls before another? What happens
within our bodies and psyches? This profound and mysterious process
is the substance of much psychological, philosophical and religious
discourse, though the body’s experience has only begun to
be included.
All of these issues are the focus of Authentic Movement, an embodied
practice that brings multiple levels of our human nature and consciousness
into form, always in relation to another. It develops the ability
to inhabit our bodies, without which we cannot feel truly seen
or be in relationship in any aspect of our lives.
What we now call Authentic Movement originated with Mary Whitehouse
in the 1950’s in southern California. She was a dancer who
became one of the founding mothers of what is now known as dance
therapy. Its roots are in dance, psychology and meditation practices.
Though at first used in dance therapy, Mary’s students
have expanded and evolved the form, which is now used for personal
and spiritual growth as well as for creative process. Interestingly,
relative to its popularity for psychology and personal growth,
it is little implemented formally for creative process in dance
and theatre . This, in spite of its having roots in dance and
its great potential as a creative and professional training tool.
The deceptively simple structure allows the complexity of human
experience to manifest. Its basic format is a dyad between a mover
and a witness. The mover delves into the body to bring out inner
impulses as movement, sound, and gesture. The witness follows
their own experience. They share to provide each with a deeply
felt acceptance.
Part of the first generation of modern dancers, Mary Whitehouse
studied with Mary Wigman in Germany and with Martha Graham. On
resuming teaching in Los Angeles, she became disaffected by the
kind of dance taught and performed and became more interested
in the symbolic, communicative, expressive functions of movement.
She had begun a Jungian analysis and eventually trained at the
Jung Institute in Zurich.
Whitehouse developed what she called “Movement in Depth”
which may be considered Jungian “Active Imagination”
in movement. Active Imagination is a Jungian therapeutic process
which permits a client to explore unconscious experience by freely
speaking whatever images and associations they have without necessarily
making “sense” or structuring thoughts logically.
In movement, the participant allows to movement “happen”
rather than performing learned, programmed actions, or actions
controlled by the mind.
...the inner sensation, allowing the impulse to take the form
of physical actions is active imagination in movement, just
as following the visual image is active imagination in fantasy.
It is here that the most dramatic psycho-physical connections
are made available to consciousness. (Levy, p.65)
The core of the movement experience is the sensation of moving
and being moved...Ideally both are present in the same instant,
and it may literally be an instant. It is a moment of total
awareness, the coming together of what I am doing and what is
happening to me. it cannot be anticipated, explained, specifically
worked for, nor repeated exactly. (Levy, p.67)
The symbols of the Self, which for Jungian psychology is the
unity of being, arise from the depths of the body, bringing material
from the personal, collective and transpersonal unconscious into
embodied form. This process is integrated into conscious awareness
through dialogue with the witness, the one who is observing while
the mover moves.
Whitehouse’s work became a major influence in dance therapy.
Many dancers and non-dancers, hearing of the power of these explorations,
came to study with her. They include Janet Adler, Joan Chodorow,
Neala Haze and Judith Koltai. These women have become major figures
in its development and spread through the US, Canada and Europe.
Of all of Mary Whitehouse’s students, Janet Adler, has
done the most to create what we now know as Authentic Movement.
In ‘Movement-in -Depth’ the role of witness was held
by the teacher/therapist. Janet expanded the role of the witness
so that the roles of mover and witness are interchangeable. The
form also grew beyond the bounds of therapeutic practice.
Janet describes her understanding of the relationship between
mover and witness as something that occurs on many planes. Gradually
the mover internalizes the positive regard of the witness so she
can see herself in this way. The witness internalizes the mover’s
process. Ultimately both feel seen by the other, creating profound
empathy and compassion in the presence of the inexhaustible wealth
of experience drawn through the body from unconscious depths.
(Pallaro, Who is the Witness) To paraphrase Janet, Authentic Movement
is about relationship - of ourselves to ourselves, to others,
to our God. (personal communication)
The way that each of us enacts this drive is developed by the
interaction between our basic nature and our environment. Our
sense of self grows in a complex evolution of increased awareness
by the sensing our bodies and through the mirroring feedback provided
by our early relationships. (Krueger, 3-17) The experience of
being seen is perceived by all of our bodies’ senses and
is actually a two way process. The mirroring interaction helps
us know we are alive and guides the way we create our reality.
Our
personalities and bodies grow in response to these interactions
which can support, and wound us, in the process of becoming
and sharing ourselves. Our gifts and talents help
define the paths we choose to actualize our desire to be seen.
Unfortunately, often we are not given the support that helps
us stay connected to our bodies as we grow. Thus we loose connection
to ourselves because the desire to be accepted and validated
is so strong that we may adapt according to the needs of others
more than to our own needs.
Authentic Movement is closely related to the art of dance. Both
are first and foremost embodied forms. The mover-witness dyad
is mirrored b the performer-audience relationship. The process
of creating dance is a process of sourcing the body for what it
has to express in ways that words can never replicate. Authentic
Movement does this and also provides a structure to translate
the embodied experience into the dimension of words so that what
is moved-danced can reach additional levels of shared experience.
Authentic Movement is superficially related to improvisation
at its best because it allows the mover to follow deep organic
impulses. But there is no goal or end product, no performance
to create or shape in the forming that occurs in the art making
process. The goal is the process itself of an evolution of greater
consciousness of self, a process that can only occur within a
compassionate, non-judgemental relationship. The performance audience
is there to be nourished by the art. The witness is there to nourish
and be nourished by the process.
In much of dance training we are taught to relate to our bodies
as instruments, while never really inhabiting them. Authentic
Movement is a process that gives ownership of ourselves, but never
in isolation. Performing can become an experience of self-negation
in the service of pleasing the choreographer, the audience and,
most crucially our internal critic. These are adversarial relationships
that deny, block and imprison us. Developed in order to make sure
we ‘do it right’, the internal critic can be the most
difficult to manage. These pressures frustrate our attempts to
feel seen, tantalizing us with the hope of approval. Unconscious
and unmet longings to be seen can cause considerable angst.
Authentic Movement encourages the development of an internal
witness who listens to our embodied experience with affirmation.
We learn to acknowledge our desire to stay in connection with
another without sacrificing our felt sense of self. We learn to
speak of and from the experience in our bodies with honesty, confidence
and self-acceptance, knowing what is our inner truth. We discover
paradoxically that by returning to our embodied selves, we gain
enhanced relationship to others. We are encouraged to trust that
we don’t need to do or to make anything happen, that by
moving from the living vitality of our bodies we will necessarily
engage others. We can begin to trust that our presence is enough.
Thus we may carry ourselves into professional arenas and remain
our selves, fully accepting who we are in and through our bodies.
Performing from this place encourages the audience to feel and
accept their own embodied selves, their vitality, the truths of
who they are. When fully inhabited, and positively acknowledged,
the longing to be seen is met and answered with love.
References cited:
Levy, Fran J. Dance Movement Therapy: A Healing Art. Reston,
Va.: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation
and Dance, 1998.
Pallaro, Patrizia, ed. Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary
Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. London,
Jessica Kingsley, 1999.
Adler, Janet. Personal Communication, March 1998.
Krueger, David W. Body Self and Psychological Self. New
York: Brunner Mazel, 1989.
Additional Reading:
Adler, Janet. Arching Backwards: The Mystical Initiation of
a Contemporary Woman. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions,
1995.
Brooks, Charles. Sensory Awareness: The Rediscovery of Experiencing
through Workshops with Charlotte Selver. Great Neck, NY: Felix
Morrow, 1974.
Contact Quarterly. “Authentic Movement: Special
Issue”. Sumer/Fall 2002. Vol.27,No.2.
Fry, Connie. “Speaking the Embodied Text: An Interview
with Judith Koltai”. A Moving Journal. Vol 5. No.
2. Summer 1998.
Johnson, Don. Body. Boston: Beacon Press, 1983.
Koltai, Judith. “Making Sense, Getting Through - ‘The
Words’ Body’”. Canadian Theatre Review.
No.109. Winter 2002. 5-7. |
