Journeying from Sensation into Words: Dancing Language in the Tamalpa Life/Art Process

By Hiie Saumaa, PhD

he arms reach into an uneven my words will strike a chord: “When imaginative, and physical responses to horizon. The torso begins a I saw you hold your elbows like this, movement and sensation. While some roundward journey. The gaze physically I felt ‘held.’ Emotionally I practices, such as Authentic Movement, softens to connect to the in- felt safe. Mentally I saw an image of you include verbal articulation, in many Tner eye. Sitting on the studio floor at embracing yourself or someone else.” somatic methods, particularly those Earthdance in Plainfield, Massachu- Growing more confident, I proceed: practiced primarily in group settings, setts, I watch an experienced Contact “When I saw you thrusting your right participants’ opportunity to articulate Improvisation dancer move in front arm vigorously forward and turning their movement experiences, either in of my eyes, this time in solo form. His side to side, I physically felt energy written or spoken formats, remains lim- dance is a response to three elements coursing through my torso. Emotion- ited. The scene above brings to light an in a drawing that he completed ten ally I felt agile and present in the mo- aspect that is frequently overlooked in minutes ago. The drawing, now in ment. In my mind’s eye, I imagined somatic approaches to movement—the front of my toes, with its squares, lines, a skilled martial artist moving with exploration of language in the experi- and hieroglyphic shapes in vibrant or- a sword.” Responding with a nod of ence of the mover. ange, black, and purple, grew out of a acknowledgment, he takes his turn to Language is a crucial tool in so- movement exploration of the question, speak, conjuring in words a snapshot matic education: the instructor’s or What are your legs and feet telling you of his own movement: “When I did this facilitator’s words—in the form of in- right now? He immediately places the move with my head, physically I felt . . structions, questions, or guided medi- body in contact with the ground, as if . .” tation—can lead a participant into in love affair with the earth, and moves This scene describes an exercise deeper levels of inner sensing, align- on low and high planes with such ease in partnering and expressive embodi- ment, and relaxation. Somatic instruc- and relaxed alertness—I can see the ment in the Tamalpa Life/Art Process, tors’ mindful use of language shapes aesthetics of Contact Improvisation developed by the legendary choreog- a space where sensations and varied here, I notice, giving this dancer my rapher, dancer, and performance artist movement options can be explored. full attention. Many of his movements Anna Halprin and her daughter Daria However, what is the participant’s, during these five minutes communi- Halprin, who have been carrying forth not the instructor’s, experience with cate something quite different, how- the practice at the Tamalpa Institute, expressing his/her sensations or visual ever. A yearning, a struggle, a pushing in existence since 1978. What is notice- images in words? Somatic educators through, tension, a range of different able in the above encounter is the fact might share a set of questions around feeling states. Having finished, he that both the mover and the movement the use of language: comes and sits in front of me. I clear witness speak and use a particular for- 1. Are language and speaking neces- my throat and carefully start, hoping mula for rendering their emotional, sary components in the practice one

16 Somatics 2017-18 teaches? Is it important to create a daughter Daria’s work has moved in up dance, connecting participants to space where students can speak and re- the therapeutic direction. their felt sense, followed by a focused late their sensations as words? Tamalpa practitioners use expressive movement exploration of a body part 2.What potential for growth would arts—movement, visual art, sounding, or an element in their surrounding result from verbalizing one’s move- and writing—to improvise, gain in- environment (see Figure 1). After that, ment experience? sights into the inner and outer world, participants segue into drawing, re- 3. If rendering movement experi- and acquire tools to live life creatively sponding to a question such as, “What ences in words is a value in students’ and in constant awareness of one’s is it like to arrive in this dance space?” self-growth, how can one make verbal embodied state. Dur- expression of bodily feeling more ing trainings and precise, considering that for many par- workshops, the goal is ticipants putting movement sensations not to come up with into words can be challenging? polished choreogra- 4. If the practice includes witnessing, phy, artistically skilled how can one translate this experience drawings, or publish- into a safe, respectful, yet impactful able writing, although verbal encounter? a foundation for such In what follows, I discuss Tamalpa work might be laid. Life/Art Process’s approach to some of Rather, the aim is to these questions. I offer a brief glimpse create an environ- into this practice’s main ideas of ex- ment in which partici- pressive embodiment and somatic pants can explore and inquiry. Then, I examine a few differ- express themselves ent ways in which the practice employs kinesthetically, verbal- written and spoken language. I aim to ly, visually, and aurally, highlight the need for a deeper investi- as individuals and as gation of the dynamics between move- members of a com- ment, physical sensation, imagination, munity. The practice language, and verbal expression in the emphasizes curiosity experience of a somatic practitioner about the potential of Figure 1. across different somatic methods. movement and art to unlock creative or healing powers. or “What are your feet telling you right Tamalpa Life/Art Process and “Movement is the first language” is now?” Only then—after moving and Movement Language a primary tenet of the Life/Art Process. drawing—is verbal language evoked. The Life/Art Process is “an approach Movement and nonverbal expressions For example, students can be asked to based on working with people’s own of the body in the form of sensations write a journal entry on the question, life experiences as the utmost source are guiding forces of this practice, “If your drawing could talk, what would for artistic expression” (Tamalpa In- a feature shared across a range of it say?” or “How would it like to be stitute, n.d.). The practice stems from somatic practices. Elisabeth Osgood- titled?” On the basis of these writings, experimentation and fascination with Campbell, of Tamalpa Institute’s teach- participants could be asked to step into improvisation in the 1960s and 1970s. ing faculty, has noted that she is very creative forms of written expression, Anna Halprin’s students included careful with how much language she such as composing improvisational po- dancers, choreographers, and contact uses when facilitating Life/Art Process ems or fairy tales. improvisers such as Simone Forti, workshops and classes: “Our culture is Two points are important to un- Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, and language and text heavy. There is too derline here: first, there is a range of Robert Morris, among others. Cynthia much reliance on words” (Osgood- written genres that participants can Novack (1990) has noted, “The rela- Campbell, personal communication).1 explore through free-flow, improvisa- tionship of Halprin’s work to Contact She creates a space where the mind tional writing: journal writing as well Improvisation is clear: it involved does not lead or direct the body but as more narrative and poetic forms. improvisation, lessening the control can listen to and observe physical expe- The options of writing reflectively ver- of the choreographer; it emphasized rience. Heavy use of words in instruc- sus writing artistically or aesthetically, kinesthetic awareness and moving in a tions or in students’ responses can lead writing from the position of the “I” or ‘natural’ way; and it occurred outside participants to mental analysis, intellec- creating a fictional story or a haiku-like of New York” (p. 30). From workshops tual processes, and the thinking mind poem based on elements from journal for dancers, poets, musicians, and art- rather than connect them to their ac- entries, allow the person to relate to ists on the West Coast in the 1960s, tual physical sensations. written language and to the self differ- Halprin’s work gradually moved away However, verbal language is not at ently. from training artists and “toward find- all ignored in the Life/Art Process. Second, the sequence of the tasks ing the artist within ordinary people” This modality offers several ways in places movement and drawing ahead (Banes, 2011, p. 9). She started creat- which a somatic practitioner can con- of writing—participants thus do not ing movement experiences and dance nect deeply to language and through turn to their perhaps more habitual rituals for communities and used life language gain more awareness of his/ ways of relying on language first. situations as a basis for movement cer- her physical intelligence. The practice Rather, movement and visual arts pave emonies. Since then, Halprin’s and her starts with movement, a gentle warm- the way for language (see Figure 2).

Volume XVIII Number 1 17 makes one more per- a poem. Working with partners or ceptive of the other’s small groups, participants can also be and one’s own move- asked to do movement explorations in ment on multiple response to specific words that their levels. Answering the partners are simultaneously vocalizing. question of “what At other times, words might be done did I feel physically away with altogether, and participants while watching this use only their voices and different movement?” directly sounds, pitches, and vocal registers to engages one’s kin- guide their partners’ improvisational esthetic sense. By movement. In solo embodiment ritu- asking the viewer to als in which each participant’s impro- track his/her sensa- visational movement is witnessed by tions while watching the entire group, participants can the other move, this include language, for example by ask- question connects ing a partner to speak particular words the viewer to his/her while the performer is moving or to own inner, felt sense. read out loud a piece written by the “What did I see in performer him/herself or by another my mind’s eye?” de- author (see Figure 4). In these cases, liberately expands language stems primarily not from and trains one’s movement—language does not come Figure 2. imaginative faculties after movement—but rather gives rise and highlights the to, shapes, inspires, or supports further Physical and visual expression create a idea that movement is an important movement. Language here moves out space for imagination to emerge from source for nourishing imagination. from the participant’s inner world to perhaps more subconscious parts of “What did I feel emotionally?” invites group settings, into the context of a so- the self that might be more difficult to one to record verbally one’s own feel- matic performance experience. access in language. This feature aligns ing states in response to movement. the Tamalpa Life/Art Process with the The participant can thus learn a lot Conclusion Jungian theory of “active imagination” about movement and inner sensing Dance scholar Helen Thomas (2003) in which clients bring unconscious im- in this practice not only through his/ has pointed out that dancers have pulses into a creative form (see Jung, her own movement but by observing “great difficulty in translating their 1997). others’ movement and making these experiences of dancing into verbal Spoken forms of language come observations concrete by articulating language” (p. 88) and that “the diffi- into play most expressively in partner them aloud. culty of translating dance practices into work. While the content of the spoken Spoken language also becomes verbal language is a perennial one for language is not determined, of course, a source for improvisation, artistic dance scholarship and cultural criti- the formula for it is. As in Authentic exploration, and performance. As cism” (p. 87). In the Life/Art Process, Movement, the reason for employing I discussed earlier, journal writing the invitation to clothe movement a particular linguistic framework is to can lay the foundation for a story or experience in language exercises the assist participants in “the challenging task of differentiating clear perception from projection . . . [The] purpose is the creation of language that is neither judgmental nor interpretive” (Stromsted & Haze, 2007, p. 59).2 In a duo, partners might be asked to do an improvisational dance in response to a few elements that strike their attention in their partner’s drawing as well as respond, via movement, to the drawing as a whole. Partners then talk to one another about their witnessing experi- ence (see Figure 3). They use a model of three levels of awareness: awareness of the physical self, the emotional self, and the imaginative self. The linguistic framework is: “When watching you do this movement, physically I felt . . . emotionally I felt . . . in my imagi- nation, I saw . . . ,” the model that I evoked at the beginning of this article. Figure 3. This format trains one’s eye and

18 Somatics 2017-18 Figure 4. Library Public York Blanc/New Jonathan Hiie Saumaa, PhD skills of finding words for movement a nonverbal act only; movement and sensations, both as movers and observ- words might be dancing a more inti- ers of movement. This, as Thomas mate dance than one thinks. Keogh, M. (2001). The art of waiting: notes also, is not necessarily an easy Essays on Contact Improvisation. task. Martin Keogh (2001) has said of Notes North Easton, MA: The Dancing Contact Improvisation, “This dance Ground. form puts an emphasis on our develop- 1. Notes from the Tamalpa Institute Meehan, E. (2015). Speak: Authentic ing ability to be lucid in the moment, workshop “Creative Embodiment Ex- Movement, “embodied text” and and the capacity to articulate that ploring the Landscape of the Body, Na- performance as research. Journal lucidity to others” (p. 6). Similarly, in ture, and Imagination,” at Earthdance of Dance & Somatic Practices, 7(2), the Life/Art Process, articulating move- Retreat Center, Plainfield, Massachu- 313-329. ment experiences is important because setts, 2016. Novack, C. J. (1990). Sharing the it brings sensations and physical in- 2. For an insightful account on the dance: Contact Improvisation and sights into cognitive awareness and al- relationship between physical move- American culture. Madison, WI: The lows for a further layer in exploring the ment and language in Authentic Move- University of Wisconsin Press. dynamics between the body, the mind, ment practice, see Emma Meehan, Stromsted, T., & Haze, N. (2007). The and imagination. 2015, “Speak: Authentic Movement, road in: Elements of the study and The Life/Art Process thus creates ‘embodied text’ and performance as practice of Authentic Movement. a synergistic dynamic between verbal research,” Journal of Dance & Somatic In P. Pallaro (Ed.), Authentic Move- and nonverbal aspects of the self. It Practices, 7(2), 313-329. ment: Moving the body, moving the honors the idea that language is an im- I thank Tal Shibi, Maria Luisa Diaz self, being moved (pp. 56-68). Lon- portant means through which to bring de Leon Zuloaga, Elizabeth Osgood- don, UK: Jessica Kinsley. nonverbal signals of the physical self Campbell, Priscilla Tate, and the Ta- Tamalpa Institute (n.d.). Our history. into cognitive awareness. By exploring malpa Institute for their support. Retrieved from http://www.tamalpa. the use of language in practices such org/about-us/our-history/ as the Tamalpa Life/Art Process, mov- References Thomas, H. (2003). The body, dance ers and researchers of movement can and cultural theory. New York, NY: gain insight into how language can Banes, S. (2011). Terpsichore in sneak- Palgrave Macmillan. illuminate movement and movement ers: Post-modern dance. Middle- can illuminate language. In the Life/ town, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Art practice, not all movement insights Halprin, A. (1995). Moving toward life: and sensations stay as felt experiences Five decades of transformational in the inner world, but many of them dance. Middletown, CT: University – Definition – become articulated and available for Press of New England, Wesleyan further reflection. Instead of staying la- University Press. tent or inchoate, movement sensations Halprin, D. (2003). The expressive SOMA: and their verbal expressions have a po- body in life, art, and therapy: Work- tential to act as a source of knowledge ing with movement, metaphor, and The body experienced of the self as well as to guide artistic meaning. London, UK: Jessica King- and creative expression in somatic per- sley Publishers. from within. formance. This “wisdom of the body” Jung, C. G. (1997). Jung on active can thus become more easily and pow- imagination (J. Chodorow, Ed.). erfully communicable to the self and London, UK: Routledge, 1997. to others. Dance in this practice is not Volume XVIII Number 1 19