divergent dancing: body place space time (Mortiss 2018)
quotations from section 'what I have come to know'
In a sense one’s practices are the embodiment of the frame through which one engages or perceives the world. I can sense the possibility of considering the world acting on me as I act on it, and that there are other perspectives of me that might be considered or reflected upon (p. 9).
My body is the site for many different facets and modes of my self. I shift between different states/levels of alertness, involving variations in tension and ease. My state at a particular time place is reflected and written deeply in and out of my body. I am the embodiment of that time and place and the state of me (p. 12).
There is an aspect of this research that is self-actualizing. Through the acts of physical immersion in place(s) comes a reflexive shaping, the force of the environment acting upon my being, soliciting my own embodied response (p. 17).
My somatic experiencing interacts with a metaphysical world of my imagination. It seems a sense of myth and mythology is evoked indirectly and often metaphorically in my practice (p. 23).
Inter-corporeality can involve a capacity to feel movement. Kinaesthesia and proprioception are intrinsic to this aspect of feeling. Inter-corporeality involves reading bodies and isn’t limited to vision recognition but can be through touch and the other senses (p. 25).
This study of my experience as dance artist living in country New South Wales, Australia, raised questions of belonging, the body’s capacity for tacit understanding, and many relational considerations between my being and my place. The latter allowed the corporeal aspects of my dancing being, my flesh and bones, my shape and shapings, and the space I occupy or displace to be noticed and felt.
The practice based heart of the study provided anchorage whilst also allowing emergent themes and related interests to unfold. The poetics of my dancing provided a steady flow of expression and ephemeral metaphors that on reflection offered a basis for interpretation and meaning making (p. 28).