# data[].attributes.body
Over the past three month I have been attending Brighton Film and Screen School for their Intro to Filmmaking course

I have always had a passion for film and this course definitely peaked my curiosity.

Met some great people with varying skills and made something really cool.

Looking forward to embarking on more camera operating/directing opportunities with my new skills

# data[].attributes.headline
Brum Pro Class Access and Inclusion Programme 2023

# data[].attributes.subject
Brum Pro Class Access and Inclusion Programme 2023

# data[].attributes.body
Have a read below of what I got up to

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Image of a group of people happily dancing together in a white room. The people have their arms up and are all facing the same direction. Some people are standing and some people are seated in  wheelchairs

# data[].attributes.headline
BPC: Dancers delight ! West Midlands dance artists meet, share and shimmy together in the name of inclusive dance practices

# data[].attributes.subject
BPC: Dancers delight ! West Midlands dance artists meet, share and shimmy together in the name of inclusive dance practices

# data[].attributes.body
Over three weeks I had the amazing opportunity to connect with groups of Dance Artists and practitioners to discuss ways in which to improve and implement accessibility and inclusivity of dance/movement sessions within Brum Pro Class and beyond

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Image of four people dancing in different directions in a dark dance studio

# data[].attributes.body
Sharing methodologies allows professional dancers/artists to work efficiently, safely and sustainably

Participated in exercises on how to deliver a class verbally and non-verbally with physical demonstration (with and without touch)

preferences on feedback (given and received)

challenging assumptions and clashes in access, remembering honesty and humility as participants and facilitator

Discussing Access documents, how to structure, what to disclose and how best to benefit from them

Pre studio planning (start times, journey times, subsidising travel expenses)

We also lead mini sessions ranging from warm ups, floor phrases, travelling exercises and cool down incorporating the discussed methods on inclusive and accessible teaching.

I chose to lead a 5 minute improvisation cool down (see in image above

Photo Credit: Paulina Ozynska / Nucis Designs

Tag: @pani.nucisdesigns @Brum Pro Class

Photograph taken at Brum Pro Class Inclusion and Access Programme supported by Dance Hub Birmingham Investment Programme.

# data[].attributes.headline
Link for written Access document can be found here soon

# data[].attributes.subject
Link for written Access document can be found here soon

# data[].attributes.body
Read, watch and engage with my discoveries during my residency

# data[].attributes.body
I have been successful in being selected for CROWD 2023 international dance exchange ! This summer I will be in residence at Tanzfaktur (Cologne) and FABRIC (Birmingham) exploring community engaged dance with my international partner Hubert Mielke

# data[].attributes.body
We were asked some questions about our practices, expectations and motivations. Check out the link to find out more !

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today marks the start of the CROWD 2023 residency programme which will support 10 dance artists to explore and develop their practice and understanding of community-engaged dance.

The artists are working in pairs and will take part in two residencies in each other's home countries across Finland, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK from July - October.

The first residency is taking place in TanzFaktur in Cologne, Germany from 10th - 21st July with dance artists Hubert Mielke and Chelsea Gordon. The two artists will also come together for their second residency at FABRIC in Birmingham, UK from 18th - 29th September.

We caught up with Hubert and Chelsea to find out more about their involvement with CROWD and what they hope to explore during their residencies:
Hubert Mielke
Hubert is a choreographer and dancer from both Poland and Germany. His approach to choreography involves using movement as a means to explore concepts related to time, collective emergence and discordance.

Images: Diamanto Hadjizacharia, Patrycja Płanik and Tomas Laranjo

What are you hoping to explore during the CROWD 2023 residencies?
I hope to broaden my perspectives and experience of dance in a different (unknown yet) context.

Why did you want to be a CROWD 2023 artist?
I believe that CROWD 2023 is a great opportunity to gain new insights, collaborate with international artists and share own knowledge.

What are you most looking forward to as a CROWD 2023 artist?
I am looking forward to meeting my CROWD partner and getting to know their artistic voice.

Why are you interested in creating art with the community?
I believe that working within the context of a community always enriches our perspectives as artists and human beings.

What was your introduction to community dance?
In 2014, I participated in a program that brought performance art and dance to small villages in Poland.

Who or what inspires your community practice?
My dear friend Mikołaj Mikołajczyk.

What have you discovered through working with communities?
There are many small discoveries, but I believe the most important one is recognising the power of a community.

What difficulties or limitations have emerged for you when working with a community?
Mostly the lack of time.

How do you describe community-engaged dance practice?
I see community-engaged practice as a way to create an environment where people feel relaxed, happy, and engaged, which in turn stimulates their artistry naturally, without any force or pressure to be creative.
Chelsea Gordon
Chelsea is a UK-based neurodivergent movement artist who is interested in people, the process of decision-making and the expression of identity through movement.

Images: Elly Wel and Exodus Crooks

What are you hoping to explore during the CROWD 2023 residencies?
I am hoping to build connections with other artists and creatives. It is so valuable to have a network of people to soundboard current ideas and inspire new ones.

Why did you want to be a CROWD 2023 artist?
It is always valuable for practitioners and artists to learn and create simultaneously. Having the opportunity and support to learn from each other allows for consistent training and professional growth. CROWD acknowledges the importance of exchange as a tool for development which is why I wanted to be a part of CROWD 2023.

What are you most looking forward to as a CROWD 2023 artist?
I'm looking forward to traveling and visiting TanzFaktur. I have always enjoyed an international exchange as there is so much to consume and learn from. Also, I am excited for the exchange of ideas and approaches, which will provide new and innovative ways to engage with different communities.

Why are you interested in creating art with the community?
I am interested in people, and how each story, journey, and approach is completely different. With the community, whatever is created is based on the people and what they bring to a space and time. Within my practice I focus on accentuating and celebrating these distinctive qualities, creating an experience almost inimitable. The atmosphere will always be unique as it is dictated by ever-changing factors and ever-evolving people.

What was your introduction to community dance?
I was fortunate to be a part of a project called Instinctive Neighbourhood as part of Yorkshire Dance's Ageless Festival. Instinctive Neighbourhood, led by Choreographer Guilhermo Miotto and Composer Henk Bakker, invites different community groups to engage with each other through movement exploration. It was really wholesome to be a part of, each person had a different relationship to dance but everyone felt safe enough to surrender to the process and really rediscover themselves. This experience unlocked a new love for intergenerational community dance and I'm excited to take this internationally.

Who or what inspires your community practice?
Ultimately I am inspired by my parents, I want them to feel the same joy and self-expressions that I feel when I'm connected to movement. I want to make movement accessible to my community and sub-communities, bridging the gap between what they know of dance and what it can be.

What have you discovered through working with communities?
I have discovered how nervous we are as adults to trial and make mistakes. My aim is to restore the ease of play and exploration as a method of reconnection with the self and, most importantly, allow more grace to still learn without the pressure of perfection.

What difficulties or limitations have emerged for you when working with a community?
I have struggled to get people to initially trust the process and allow themselves to relax into the unknown. I respond to the people in the room and allow space for changes but I have learnt that sometimes people fear not having regular and restrictive instruction, which makes it easier for them to stay reserved.

How do you describe community-engaged dance practice?
Community-engaged dance means people-centered. The focus is on how we as practitioners can curate spaces that encourage all people to access, experience, and benefit from dance and movement.
Follow #CROWDdance 2023
Across the coming months, we'll be inviting our ten artists and the host partners to capture elements of their residencies and share insight into their work and the areas they're exploring within the realm of community-engaged dance. Follow our blog here and #CROWDdance on social media for further updates.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet the artists: Hubert Mielke and Chelsea Gordon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today marks the start of the CROWD 2023 residency programme which will support 10 dance artists to explore and develop their practice and understanding of community-engaged dance. The artists are working in pairs and will take part in two residencies in each other's home countries across Finland, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and the...

# data[].attributes.body
https://peoplearedancing.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/objects-dance-part-one-mechanical-principles/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_ganson_moving_sculpture?language=en#

# data[].attributes.headline
WILLIAM FORSYTHE: CHOREOGRAPHIC OBJECTS | GAGOSIAN QUARTERLY

# data[].attributes.subject
WILLIAM FORSYTHE: CHOREOGRAPHIC OBJECTS | GAGOSIAN QUARTERLY

# data[].attributes.body
https://slash-paris.com/en/videos/william-forsythe-choreographic-objects-gagosian-quarterly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WILLIAM FORSYTHE: CHOREOGRAPHIC OBJECTS | GAGOSIAN QUARTERLY

Celebrated choreographer William Forsythe has been expanding the boundaries of dance for over four decades and beginning in 1989, he began work on his "Choreographic Objects," a series of sculptural installations. (EN)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects | Gagosian Quarterly - Videos (french only)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Celebrated choreographer William Forsythe has been expanding the boundaries of dance for over four decades and beginning in 1989, he began work on his "Choreographic Objects," a series of s...

# data[].attributes.body
https://ausdance.org.au/articles/details/gaps-in-the-body-attention-and-improvisation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Introduction

Despite lengthy, repeated attempts, I could not get mind and body to work together. One or the other would dominate, and make a complete mess of things, or each would wait for the other to make the first move and nothing would happen. And then ... like a good negotiator... I decided to stop intervening and suggesting, and, instead, to simply pay attention and listen.

That was more or less how I discovered improvisation as a practice of attention (focussed noticing) rather than of moving. Instead of hoping the body will absorb me in its flow, or that I will be able to 'think up' innovative things for it to do, I now improvise by noticing and dancing with the body. What I activate is my attention. I place it, like a bait, somewhere on or in the body, and there and then, some quality of the body, or its movement or weight, something that has been hidden and active there all along, comes forward. Then I go along with it, cooperate in its spreading or diminishing, or I move on to some new site of attention. (So although I am barely intervening, there are choices involved). The improvisation is sustained by constantly renewing these acts of attention to the body's states and processes.

This attentive process is episodic of necessity-continuous attention gets tired and falls asleep, just as our eyes glaze over if we stare too long. The episodic attention also reflects the fragmentary nature of our embodied life. The experiential body that seems continuous, unified and contained, has 'missing' parts and is intermixed with the environment (Leder 1990). What we experience as a continuous flow of consciousness is interrupted with breaks and surges of attention so that our 'now' is typically composed of a series of three to four second 'moments' (Stern 2004, p. 41). Our self, too, is a composite: Neisser distinguishes five types of self (ecological, interpersonal, extended, private and conceptual) based on different forms of experience and information, that we experience as aspects of a single coherent Self. (Neisser 1988). So our sense of being a single self, with a full and complete body, negotiating an environment external to us, relies on a sort of inattention.

By directing our attention towards the living body we can notice its movements, its processes, its qualities as participant-observers. We can witness not just the visible placement of our limbs in space, or the mechanics of movement, but the feeling of our living, moving fleshy body. We can feel, what our willed actions often obscure, the body's ongoing, forthcoming process, moving in multiple simultaneous times, at multiple simultaneous weights and densities (from the sub-cellular to the muscular). We can glimpse (feel, in and through the body) what I take to be 'being', or what I call 'being-becoming', as it moves and in-forms our bodily life.

Attention, improvisation, being

In what follows, I further outline a view of improvisation as making 'gaps' in whatever is running smoothly (habits, a particular movement, a nice plan) in order to move with what is already moving. I support this with accounts of my own struggle with a form of, so-called, 'Authentic Movement'; phenomenological accounts of the body and proprioception; and perspectives on the practice of some key dancer/choreographers. I also try to further explain what I mean by saying that improvisation can provide an encounter with 'being-becoming'.

But, first, I would like to show attention, improvisation, being, performance and bodily noticing at play in everyday life.

Selfies in Kyoto

The cherry blossom is at its peak. The girls feel it too. They arrange themselves in front of the trees, spread out but linked together. Their arms diverge at inventive angles, and each ends in two diverging fingers. The girls are marking the place with their being: a momentary coincidence of group, weather, rocks and trees.

They check the selfie and try two more. One could say they are trying for more accuracy. They are trying to compose the feeling of 'me' or 'us' at this place and time. As in a dance, they are composing with bodies and gestures. As in dance they are creating not merely visual pictures, but energetic patterns providing evidence of a unique 'now'. A selfie that is just a layered arrangement of bodies and gestures can only be so good. They check the selfie to see if it shows 'blossoming' bodies filled with feeling-a sense of life 'captured' in the process of its going on.

They know how to notice, feel and modulate their body in relation to the environment and to its parts, and they are choosing to magnify and modulate their body's state of being.

We all self-notice our bodies-notice our bodies, not visually, but with the senses by which our bodies know themselves: we know how to swing our hips and flounce our arms in dancing; we absent-mindedly enjoy the weight and lean of the drink dangling in our fingers while we talk; the surfer loves reading and adjusting to the wave.

Each of these self-noticing bodies is noticed from inside, as a constantly reforming mesh of sensations of body and world. Dancer Steve Paxton (2015) describes his experience of the 'small dance' of the body (its already and always occurring movements) as 'a body-field event, centreless'. No-one needs a mirror to see how their body is arranged or to assess the quality of its movement. Each is performative to a degree and each improvises various degrees of noticing, following, re-directing, amplifying or adjusting.

Noticing the body by means of its own modes of awareness is a common experience and capacity. 1 As is improvisation and performance. Nevertheless, the relationship of body and awareness is complex and the examples above are only partly conscious for the participants. Below I attempt to analyse personally, and generally, how body and awareness are related, and outline the unique role of proprioception as a way of knowing the body in one of the ways it knows itself.

The incomplete body

I have always experienced my body as lumpy, opaque and riddled with empty areas. At least, this was the case whenever I actually gave it some thought (for instance, remembering to use my legs properly when swimming) or when my body foregrounded itself, say, as a scattered constellation of discomforts that prevented me from sleeping. I used to feel frustrated and ashamed about this messiness. But I have come to regard it more positively, as an opportunity to explore and discover in dance and somatic practice, a resource for performance, and a means of noticing being through the body.

To further illustrate phenomenological absences, or blind spots, occurring in the body, I might examine what is happening, now, as I write: I can feel my buttocks on the chair, the underside of one crossed leg, the upper side of the lower one, the pressure on my foot, the stiff arch of my lower back, the tension of part of my left jaw, my central chest area is missing, most of my face is absent, except for the cheekbones, I have no awareness of the sides of my legs, and so forth. If I pay close attention to the particular feel of my side ribs, just about everything I mentioned disappears.

There is a fundamental difference between the body, ( Korper), as the substance filling up the dancer, and Leib, the dancer's lived body. Our flesh and its physical boundaries do not line up with our somatic experience. Our lived body stretches across space and time. From a seated position I can sensorially enter my chest, or jump across space to touch things way beyond reach- a treetop for instance. I hear a car, outside; or see the curtain inside; or a cloud, way above. The car sound is not experienced as something in our ear. We don't sense the curtain as being in our eyes, or the cloud in our brain. We feel these things (even, I think, when we drift a little kinaesthetically, in sympathy with the cloud) as Merleau-Ponty suggests, out there, where those things occur.

Drew Leder, in The Absent Body (1990), goes much further, describing irrevocable absences in the felt body-the gall bladder unless it is diseased, the blind spot in the eye-the teeming presence within the body of other bodies such as invasive or synergistic microbes and bacteria-and the visits and exchanges of air. He also describes, more romantically, how the materials of our body were forged in stars like those we reach with our gaze. He argues, in fact, that the spread out gappy nature of the body opens us onto and into the universe. He says that the body's 'usual state is to be lost in the world-caught up in a web of organic and intentional involvements through which we form one body with other things'. 'As recessive being, these worldly relations are organic and pre-conscious. As ecstatic being, we are in conscious and purposive intercourse with the environment ' (160).

So our body has absences, jumps from space to space, inside and out, and is not entirely our own. As Husserl says, the body is 'a remarkably incompletely constituted thing' ( Ideas II, 1989, p. 159: cited Carman 1999, p. 207). And yet this body supports our experience of having a completely constituted body, environment, temporality and self. I think that interrupting or making 'gaps' in some of these continuities can give the dancer access to generative processes and experiences of being. It is an approach that starts with receiving somatic experience rather than making things with the body.

Authentic movement-placing attention on the body

Below is an account of my own experience of struggling to 'find' and in some way follow the body. It comes from the initial stage of an improvisation based on a version of 'authentic movement'-standing still, then moving, with eyes closed. Looking at it now, it appears that I had forbidden myself the use of images as well as deliberate actions to initiate movement:

It's dark. I can feel a sort of black cave around my head and shoulders-roughly shaped like Darth Vader's helmet. This darker, more solid area, like a cave, with a brow or overhang, surrounds an inner cave somewhat less dark, like the air or water in a sea cave. It is very confined: it goes vague only a little way back. It is a sort of 'thinking area.' Annoying. I can feel a soft pressure, or slightly squint-like, tension around my eyes and temples and over the top of my skull, associated with thinking and looking. A connection between seeing and thinking that seems hard to escape.

I can feel some other areas of the body, a tension in muscles of the leg, a tense neck, lower ribs like a pair of hands pressing the sides of my torso, but this awareness is not initiated by those areas of the body, it's initiated from around my eyes.

If I just wait, will areas of the body bring themselves to attention?... I wait. ...Mmmm maaaybe, a bit, perhaps. I try sending my awareness proprioceptively around the body. I sort of squeeze or have the local muscles activate so that I can feel the flesh of various body parts.

Next, I do that yoga thing of 'sending the breath' through the body. I feel the outer layers of my body take form like a soft shell. But it's full of air rather than organs, and it has an arbitrary, uniform density or tone. So I start coloring myself in, activating a solid tone in various spots then fine tuning it-but I'm not exactly sure which organs go where.

Light from a window shines through my closed eyelids: this dissolves my boundaries and makes me feel I've spilled into space ... and so on.

Noticing the ways in which the body 'appeared' in my consciousness sharpened my sense of my body and the activity of my attention together. A proprioceptive dialogue was established. It then became like a dance with the body, with dancer, then body, leading or following.

When, after this 'body interview', I began moving and improvising in space, my body was present to me as something always already moving or expanding or contracting or enduring.

I chose which qualities or movements to notice, or keep noticing; which to follow, which to provoke or extend. I made attentional and choreographic (positional, spatial, energetic) decisions, but they were based on attunement to what was already occurring. I also made decisions to detach from what I was noticing in order to notice afresh-especially if I found my attention wandering or, on the contrary, vaguing into a continuity of not-really-noticing.

For example: I tied my attention to a sinking movement that led the whole body to the floor; I repeated movements and noticed how they fluctuated and morphed with shifts of inaccuracy and fatigue; I followed the consequences of letting an aligned spine and arm stretch further and further outwards, to the limit; I chose random points in space for random points of the body to touch-to find out what demands and effects it created in the rest of the body; I deconstructed movements: What if crawling legs and arms slid backwards each time they took at step forward; What if I did this for a few minutes on end?

These were not aesthetic choices. They were stimuli or experiments to focus attention, creating a gap in the background continuities of body and mind (a gap, so to speak, in not-noticing) in which the body's occurrences may appear. Paxton (2015) describes a similar process in which he sets up a series of attentional strategies: actions, changes of balance, use of anatomical knowledge plus imagination to gain awareness to parts of the body that provide very little sensation (the bones for instance)-all of which are designed to awaken awareness of 'sensations or events of the body' that 'can be consciously observed and manipulated...'

These are receptive experiments for the body, rather than a sequence of actions that the 'known' body is being asked to accomplish.

Underlying these experiments are two key actions: the placing of attention on aspects of the body and its states, and the use of proprioception as a means of dialogue with the body. I discuss both these activities below.

The body as a 'site of enquiry'-the role of attention

Practices of attention, conscious perception and bodily enquiry played a transformative role in dance, and ideas of what dance is, from around the mid-twentieth century. Deborah Hay, for instance, pioneered (and continues to refine) a process of subverting the known, choreographed, socialised, habitual body by treating the dancer as 'a site for inquiry i.e. a bodily presence trained in the performance of parallel experiences of perception' (2015a). Hay submits herself to playing out unanswerable but consequential questions such as: 'What if how I see while I am dancing is a means by which movement arises without looking for it?' (2015b). Other major figures include Steve Paxton and Min Tanaka who says: 'the body does not exist unless one is astonished with its ingenuous state' (1986, p. 153). More recently, Australian dancer/choreographer Rosalind Crisp demonstrates a rigorous, exploratory and constantly refreshed application of attention to the shifting relationships and conditions of her body.

I had tried to apply attention to whatever arose in my body in the improvisational research described above and discovered it to be a volitional act rather than a passive experience. In daily practice and performance, I found that unless I continually and actively ran an investigative attention around my body my performance became forced or habitual. This was different from thinking about the body-which tended to turn Leib into Korper. Attention is less intrusive and without force. Placing the attention-a volitional act-is more like choosing where to invite the life of the body to come into being in any of our many modes of awareness-touch, smell, taste, proprioception, sense of temperature, vision, hearing, thought and imagination, to name a few. (I am using the term 'modes of awareness' to embrace the bodily senses and the mind. Berthoz (2000, p. 263) makes an interesting case for revising the meaning of 'senses' according to their perceptual function: 'So to the sense of taste and smell, touch, vision, and hearing, add, as the vernacular already does, the sense of movement, space, balance, effort, self, decision, responsibility, initiative, and so on. This idea of the senses shows the way, determined by the subject, toward a goal.'

The unique status of proprioception

Even in this very extended view of the senses, proprioception is unique in its internal focus and in offering us reflexivity-offering us a degree of awareness of its activity and a degree of agency, and thus, a form of bodily dialogue. This reflexivity is not usually apparent to a person engaged in moving: 'In most instances, movement and maintenance of posture are accomplished automatically by the body, and for this reason the normal adult neither needs nor has a constant body awareness. Indeed, in most activities that are oriented toward an intentional goal the body tends to efface itself with respect to conscious awareness' (Gallagher 1998, pp. 132-133). Moreover, proprioceptive activity tends to be noticed less as we develop bodily skills that, as they are accomplished, recede from awareness. Shusterman (2008, pp. 160-165) discusses the contribution of William James (1890: republished 1983) in identifying several ways to increase introspective awareness of body-movement-an awareness now articulated in a whole range of somatic practices such as Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering and Alexander Method.

The availability to awareness of proprioception contrasts with our body's outwardly focused senses which show themselves not as themselves, but as aspects or qualities of the environment. When we use our hearing, for instance, we notice sounds, not some part of our ears, but if we actively engage our proprioceptive sense we can feel the body conveying and adjusting its movement, extension and weight. Just standing upright offers us, if we attend to it, a flurry of proprioceptive activity-a 'small dance' always already underway in the body. 2

In the case of my 'authentic movement' exploration, it was hard to know whether the proprioceptive scanning I was 'doing' was something sent towards or coming from the body. When we become aware of movements, qualities or densities of the body by proprioception (which requires attention) it is almost like holding hands with them. Our proprioceptive looking, unlike visual looking, or thinking, does not reduce the body to a perceived object. It is more like a bodily conversation: You can feel it feeling. It feels and adjusts the living body and is the feeling of feeling and adjusting the body. I claim that it gives us a glimpse of being, or being-becoming-because that is what it 'feels' like, in the body: a sensory awareness of the body as something that, in its fleshy movement, gives us a timely feeling of substance or a substantial feeling of time.

Images-the body meets the imagination

We can also form a proprioceptive dialogue between the body and imagination. Working with images is not a matter of controlling the body or making shapes. It is, to adopt another metaphor, perhaps more like the meeting of a coat (or a tailor) and a body-the body feeling its way into the sleeve, slipping the shoulders around the inside of the coat, and the coat shifting its weight and form to accommodate the body.

Image work is fundamental to Butoh and, also, to Bodyweather, an ecological approach to the body initially developed by Butoh dancer Min Tanaka. Tanaka's Bodyweather deconstructs and decentres body and self. It sees the body as permeable with the environment and it seems to see the 'self' as fiction of society and history. While the body has its patterns (perhaps a sort of climate) it is experienced as something, constantly changing and shifting. Tanaka argues that the dancer's self is not necessarily at the centre of this. The centre is everywhere and drifts around (Marshall 2006, p. 61; Kim 2006 n.pag.).

As a result, Bodyweather training focuses on perception, not control, of the body-although the body and mind (Tanaka uses that binary sometimes) are highly trained to meet each other. The body-relation is a constant open experiment. This body is never singular. It moves from any point, not just the limbs and torso, and Tanaka speaks of its multiple speeds: 'The speed of thought, of nerves, of blood circulation, of muscular tissues, of the spirit; the chaotic coexistence of various speeds' (Tanaka 1986, p. 154). It also has multiple densities, scales, temperatures, sense of weight and so on.

So this isn't the sort of body that could be defined or outlined once and for all. But it is a body ready to meet the imagination. Somatic images as they are used in butoh and Bodyweather, are imagined states that are rendered as sensate states in the performer's body.

It is in no way a simulation of the posture or appearance of the imagined being. It is an attempt to allow the image to affect the felt qualities of the body. In my experience, the image is embodied by an iterative and proprioceptive process of layering-feeling a change in the tone and structure of the body, testing it against an imagined state and adjusting it.

The image arrives cumulatively by somatic research: imagining and adjusting the body to match. Feeling out, say, in the case of a bird image, its posture, the structure of the feet and their soft wrinkled leathery skin, the curl of the grip on a branch, the breath and pulse, the shifting weight, the placement and layering of the feathers, its gaze and desire.

To establish a relation between imagination and body that is transformative, not pictorial, requires an extensive training of both the body and the imagination. Tanaka developed just such a training-an investigative training with a focus on noticing the body and its relations to time and space. His 'mb' practice (mind/body:muscle/bone) is a highly demanding physical, aerobic training but equally demanding of attention and perception. The result is a body that is flexible and able to initiate and isolate from points all around it. It is also a body sensitive to time and space. Tanaka also created a range of partnered exercises that involve the body being manipulated sensitively from outside-a training in responsiveness, observation and imaginative re-creation for both parties. Bodyweather also uses Bisoku, very slow movement (say 1mm per second), to develop a bodily sense of speed, and perceptual investigations such as imagining the body as various elements.

In Tanaka's practice the body and the dancer have been trained to meet and respond to each other. The process is another attentive-receptive way of meeting with the body. The dancer has had no 'designs' on the body-it is a dialogue that transforms the body into an undetermined form.

Rosalind Crisp-moving and noticing

Rosalind Crisp exemplifies another approach to attentional practice. She exhibits an endless play of attention to what is already there (or arises from her choreographic or attentional interventions) in the body or imagination. Unforeseen actions seem to drop into her body. The focus shifts continually, from way out beyond the arm to something nibbling the foot; an emerging thing unravels; she laughs with pleasure and surprise; directions realign and tempos shift. She is continuously shaking free to surprise herself with a new focus of attention so that her attention does not fade, and the dance, as she puts it, 'hardens into display' (personal communication 2014).

In a workshop I attended, Crisp shared strategies that engage active attention explicitly, directly and simply. For example, she invited the dancers to 'notice beginnings'. This led me to discover that my starting had leapfrogged and pre-empted thousands of tiny events and possibilities, wrenching the body (and mind) into action rather than noticing microprocesses. I had overlooked the beginning point in the body, the duration of the beginning, the miniature steps in time, the relationship of breath and initiation, the tiny muscle fibres at work, the larger sequences of joints, the moment at which intent joined action, and so forth.

Sometimes Crisp works in what might be seen as a reverse direction, altering the body first, to render it available to attention. For example, by 'unholding', making parts of the body 'feeble' 'so that the body can feel where attention is in it now.' Citing Steve Paxton, Crisp says, 'the less we hold, the more we feel' (personal communication 2014).

Crisp emphasises that we don't need to search for inspiration and ideas when the body is already there as a source: 'movements can be found by a practice of paying attention to what is already there, emergent, not yet named or colonised...these buds and shoots appear everywhere' (2009, p. 104). She provokes movement and attention with a range of improvisational and choreographic tools.

One such tool-'move two body surfaces away from (or towards) each other'-could almost be an archetype of creating a gap for noticing. The tool is silent about which body parts to move, where to, for how long, at which speed, or how it should look. It isn't directed towards some point of completion. On the contrary, in my experience, it guides the body and attention away from shapes and trajectories towards discovery and an open-ended process.

As two body surfaces move away from each other the 'gap' is filled with the unfolding life of the body. The attended-to body feels itself moving and being. A gap in continuity becomes an opportunity for noticing being-becoming.

Conclusion-bringing being and movement together

Why associate proprioceptive experience with 'being-becoming' (or 'being-in-the-process-of-becoming') rather than simply call it a pleasurable, or in the case of improvised dance, a creative, experience? Using the term 'being-becoming' is an attempt to describe one aspect of the felt dialogue between bodily movement and attention. Moving is more than relocation, bodily movement has a self-reflexive capacity that constitutes a mode of knowing, perhaps our foundational mode. (Sheets-Johnstone (1998, p. 253) describes felt bodily movement as 'an epistemological gateway' and as 'the ground on which intentionalities initially develop').

Sheehan (1981, pp. 536-542) argues that movement is central to Heidegger's understanding of being which focussed not on some quality over and above things (entities) or man but on the disclosive processes of each. The intelligible structure of these disclosive processes is intrinsically kinetic. 'We understand a plant as a plant, for example, by knowing that its presence is fraught with absentiality: a not yet and a no longer, a coming into and a going from presence'. It is 'the presence of the absentiality [italics in original] that makes it kinetic'. This absentiality, 'that dimension of the entity's disclosure that is not fully present or knowable or controllable' nevertheless functions in the entity's auto-disclosure. Heidegger was not imagining a day when being or Being would 'finally show up' but showing the way to 'becoming explicitly aware of what one already experiences: the relative absentiality [as well as, and in, the presentiality] of oneself and of things'.

To improvise by paying attention to the processes and states of the body-in a proprioceptive dialogue-is to play with the self-disclosure of the body: to feel its unfolding presence hedged by absences-the 'previous' body falling away, the instant of initiation submerged by the movement it initiated, and the emerging body surging towards becoming present.

By making a gap in what we take for granted in the movement and state of our body, and paying attention, we may feel our way into a momentary dance with being.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gaps in the body: attention and improvisation " Ausdance | Dance Advocacy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fraser writes of having arrived at an understanding of improvisation that, rather than being about moving, is about 'attention'.

# data[].attributes.headline
Responding to art and the viewers (un)intentional movement

# data[].attributes.subject
Responding to art and the viewers (un)intentional movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hayward Gallery - Move: Choreographing You

# data[].attributes.headline
Overture Cohort for 2023/24 Announcement !

# data[].attributes.subject
Overture Cohort for 2023/24 Announcement !

# data[].attributes.body
Established in 2016, Overture is the annual New Adventures professional development programme for dance artists and dance teachers from a variety of genres who have been working in community or education settings for less than five years.

# data[].attributes.body
Professionally I am a person who likes dance and movement and engages with it in different ways

I facilitate workshops and classes

I train and attend classes

I perform

I use movement as a method of enquiry and researching ideas

I watch, practice and discuss dance

Personally I am a Neurospicy plant lover who likes music, Rick and Morty, sleep and heavy cutlery. I dislike stickers, coriander and whatsapp group chats. As a libra, it might take me forever to decide on where to eat but I will always show up dressed fashionable and offer top tier advice.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Power of Play: Movement Workshop for Non-Dancers

# data[].attributes.subject
The Power of Play: Movement Workshop for Non-Dancers

# data[].attributes.body
I will be hosting a movement workshop on 29th June 2023 6-7.30pm at Moseley Community Hub

This a playful session that focuses on improvisation, games and discussions to nurture and invigorate that inner creative

Absolutely no dance/movement experience is needed !

Click the link above to secure your place

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This workshop is designed for those who want to explore their bodies through movement and play, regardless of their dance experience. Everyone has the ability to move and express themselves through their bodies, and this workshop will help you tap into that power. Led by movement artist and facilitator Chelsea Gordon, this workshop will guide you through a series of playful exercises and improvisational games that will help you connect with your body and unleash your creativity. You'll learn how to move with more ease and joy, connect to other people and discover new ways of expressing yourself through movement.

This is an in-person event taking place at Moseley Community Hub

Come join us and discover the power of play!
No dance/movement experience needed 18+ About the venue
Moseley Community Hub can be found on Moseley Road opposite the Swimming Baths. There is parking at the rear of the building and step free access if required.
About Chelsea
Chelsea is a Birmingham-based movement artist and facilitator who explores themes of self, joy and play through movement. Their practice currently investigates the instinctive choreographies within the body and the way in which these instructions dictate how we navigate space. Specifically working with non dancers, Chelsea is interested in editing and curating these patterns to unearth new pathways and possibilities for movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the power of play: movement workshop for non-dancers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the power of play: movement workshop for non-dancers tickets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the power of play: movement workshop for non-dancers birmingham

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the power of play: movement workshop for non-dancers birmingham tickets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Power of Play: Movement Workshop for Non-Dancers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This workshop is designed for those who want to explore their bodies through movement and play, regardless of their dance experience. Everyone has the ability to move and express themselves through their bodies, and this workshop will help you tap into that power.

# data[].attributes.body
We talked, we danced, we watched, we taught and we made a blog !
https://crowd.dance/2023/08/02/what-is-the-motivation/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dance artists Hubert Mielke and Chelsea Gordon explore the passage of time and body awareness at TanzFaktur in Cologne, Germany.

Hubert and Chelsea came together for the first of their two week residencies from 10th - 21st July 2023, meeting in real life for the first time at Cologne's TanzFaktur during its contemporary dance festival, SommerAkademie. Working with the team there and their facilitator, Nina Patricia Hänel, they shared each other's practice while exploring ideas around body awareness, time, cycles, autonomy, states of being and feeling.
Here are some insights gathered from Hubert and Chelsea after the first week of the residency:
Hubert - We've been working and sharing different kind of practices. The main theme that connects our explorations and conversations has been the idea of 'body awareness' and we've been exploring this through physical and thematic activities, play and imaginative exploration. We've both been sharing ideas, being guided and being open to being guided in a very horizontal way.

Chelsea - We've been sharing films, notes and trying to demonstrate to each other who we are, what we do and what we're interested in. It's been great to have the studio space at TanzFaktur to explore these ideas together and test things out by playing a lot.

While we've been preparing for a workshop that we're running with dancers, we've been exploring what 'technique' means to us by trying to unpack and detach ourselves from the relationship we have with the term and to make it feel more relatable to the work we're exploring.

One question that keeps coming up is 'what is the motivation?'

What is the motivation behind everything that we do? We've attached that to technique, what is the motivation of technique? It keeps bringing us back to our common theme about body awareness.

There have been a lot of discoveries on the way to TanzFaktur. Experiencing the city and understanding the vibe of the community and the general consensus right here, right now. It's about understanding the triggers outside and exploring that in the studio.

Hubert - Thinking further about the types of techniques, approaches and ideas that we've been looking at together that feel new or different, one of them is durational activities and performance. I've recently been very interested in time and what it means. How does this factor into work and community engaged practice?

Also gaining insight into how Chelsea works with people, the playful approach with different intersectional and multigenerational groups. Exploring and understanding why we should bring dance to people.

Chelsea - we've also been playing a lot with the passage of time, how it feels, what can evolve throughout time, transitioning through states of being and feeling. Repetition, cycles, autonomy. The idea of score. Playing with coincidence.

Images © Chelsea Gordon and Hubert Mielke

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dance artists Hubert Mielke and Chelsea Gordon explore the passage of time and body awareness at TanzFaktur in Cologne, Germany.

# data[].attributes.headline
CROWDDANCE2023:  a blog about my time in Köln, Germany

# data[].attributes.subject
CROWDDANCE2023:  a blog about my time in Köln, Germany

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dance artist Chelsea Gordon asks how do we explore community dance without firstly establishing what community is for us?

There was never a moment that did not inform our inquiries throughout the two weeks. It was the commute to TanzFaktur that inspired and influenced us the most. To get there we had to walk 7 minutes to the tram stop, get on the number 12 or 15 tram to RudolfPlatz, change platforms then get the number 7 tram to Köln Poller Kirchweg where we would walk for 2 minutes before arriving at the building. It was this journey where we really started to explore and question community.

For me, who does not speak German, many journeys were spent questioning the relationships between people on the tram, deciphering between people who knew each other and who met in that moment. I would try to read context through observing body language and gestures of the people in dialogue. Although most gestures remain universal the connections between the people were still ambiguous. There was always a familiarity and a sense of calm which made it harder to guess. Whether they were complaining about delays (which did not happen often) or shared a joke, I noticed how receptive and open people were to talk. One moment that stood out was a family that boarded the tram. The child in the pushchair was repeatedly singing 'Happy Birthday' in English to make their brother laugh, eventually the laughter spread through the tram. In that moment we were all connected by something, we were a community.

Over time I started to recognise how approachable and easy going the people of Köln were. There was a sense of ease that would radiate from the community which we eventually adopted within our collaborative practice. We approached our technique and improvisation workshops with a sense of ease drawing attention to what the body already offers and amplifying that. Our attitude towards our research and exchange was met with spontaneity and receptiveness, accepting the vacancy of the day whilst acknowledging our needs. We embodied the culture of the city which unintentionally allowed us to communicate and connect with the people and each other.

As we move into the second part of the residency, taking place in Birmingham, how can these qualities of Köln be transferred to connect different communities to dance and to each other? In Köln people were not only aware of these moments that connected us but also acted on them, using these commonalities to initiate exchange. Moving forward, I'm interested in exploring how we recreate these happy coincidences to ignite a sense of gemeinschaft* in Birmingham.

*Gemeinschaft:
noun: social relations between individuals, based on close personal and family ties; community.

Image: Chelsea Gordon on residency at TanzFaktur in Cologne, German, taken by fellow dance artist, Hubert Mielke

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dance artist Chelsea Gordon asks how do we explore community dance without firstly establishing what community is for us? There was never a moment that did not inform our inquiries throughout the two weeks. It was the commute to TanzFaktur that inspired and influenced us the most.

# data[].attributes.body
Click here to read more about the second half of the residency at FABRIC Birmingham

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The second half of the residency in Birmingham was always going to be a lot more revealing than the first. Working in my home city meant I would interact with places that I once knew but now were slightly unfamiliar.

Home to me is a place to rest, replenish and unmask, it has always been a springboard for me to bounce between projects and rehearsals in different cities, but seldom the place I explore or work.

Birmingham hosted many 'memory checkpoints' engraved in different parts of the city that I now had the opportunity to sit with and confront. Through the shape of the residency, I could begin to explore my city with fresh, curious eyes and ask, " What happens now?".

As before, it was so enjoyable to be investigating with Hubert again. On his first encounter Hubert began to question rules and infrastructure that I didn't even recognise. Through bumping into people, he noticed that a lot of people favoured walking on the left when passing him on the pavement. On our journey into the studio, he recounted the number of abandoned buildings and empty spaces in the city centre and how they could be repurposed as art spaces. It was interesting to watch how Hubert navigated and received Birmingham as a visitor, remarking on structures that I hadn't thought to question as a local. One thing that really stuck with me was his confusion about how crowded Bullring shopping centre was in comparison to the desolate canals, two contrasting sites that Birmingham is known for with one more supported than the other. It made me wonder "Who is all this for?"

For us to understand this city and the community we first needed to understand ourselves, what was our role and how do we ethically impact the existing?

Adam Carver, our facilitator at FABRIC led us through our two-week analysis, supporting Hubert's questions of "What?" and my questions of "How" with "Why".
Why do we do what we do? How do we best support communities? What is the aim/intention? And most importantly, can we even do it?
Together we began to format a clearer sense of our practices. In between journaling and post it mind maps, we shimmied, twirled and swayed to our premium pop playlist. We danced on and under tables, ate some delicious noodles and strolled along the canals taking pictures of lost items and reunited families.

We reshaped and reimagined.

The residency ended with a trip to Nottingham to meet with Shaquille and Bakani who had just completed their first residency at FABRIC (East Midlands). Despite being at opposite ends of our journeys we still valued the exchange of experiences and uncertainties, which were quite similar.

With all the focus on community-engaged dance, I had forgotten that I am also part of community and therefore can embody the space and curate it at the same time. I too can benefit from and influence the energy of the room not only as a facilitator but also as a human. These roles are constantly interchangable and flow within each other.

Through working in Birmingham, (re)connecting with Hubert and FABRIC and spending the day with Shaquille and Bakani, I am discovering how many communities I actually exist within for fluctuating lengths of time.

My last two weeks with Hubert have been deeply humbling and enjoyable, appreciating the honesty and vulnerability that is required when sharing, supporting, and affirming ourselves as artist but also with the communities we connect with.

All images © Chelsea Gordon.
Read Chelsea's blog following the residency at TanzFaktur in Cologne, Germany: Watch a short film capturing Chelsea and Hubert's residency at FABRIC in Birmingham:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dance artist Chelsea Gordon asks what is the aim? Who is this for? What happens now? The second half of the residency in Birmingham was always going to be a lot more revealing than the first. Working in my home city meant I would interact with places that I once knew but now were slightly...

# data[].attributes.body
See what we got up to during our residency at FABRIC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Take a look inside one of the #CROWD2023 residencies with dance artists Chelsea Gordon and Hubert Mielke who were based at FABRIC in Birmingham from 18th - 29th September.

This was their second residency together, having first met at TanzFaktur in Cologne, Germany in July 2023. Together they have been exploring how they want to continue to connect together and with others through their work.

Find out more about Hubert and Chelsea's residencies together at the links below:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Take a look inside one of the #CROWD2023 residencies with dance artists Chelsea Gordon and Hubert Mielke who were based at FABRIC in Birmingham from 18th - 29th September. This was their second residency together, having first met at TanzFaktur in Cologne, Germany in July 2023.

# data[].attributes.body
As CROWD 2023 comes to an end I reflect with the amazing Maddy Costa on both residencies during my time with CROWD.

Click here to read Hubert's reflections

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Now that the CROWD residencies are finished, a new set of questions arises. What lingers for the participating artists once they return to their daily lives? How similar or different were the two residencies, and what might other residency-hosting organisations learn from those experiences? What discoveries are already being implemented, what ideas might influence work in the future?

To open up some of these topics, I (Maddy Costa) have spoken with a number of the CROWD 2023 artists, inviting them to look back on their experience and begin to think about where they might go from here. First up, Chelsea Gordon looks back on her time with Hubert Mielke.
Discovery through play
What I'm taking from CROWD still feels like a bit of a blur. The first residency with Hubert was about realising that anything is possible in a way, anything can be reframed to interpret something different. There was lots of play and rumination. TanzFaktur and our facilitator Nina Patricia Hänel gave us a lot of space to wander and encouraged dialogue within the studio and at home in our shared artists residence. Reflecting back I recognised how impactful it was having people support those ideas that I was still trying to make sense of for myself.

The second residency took place at the same time as some other professional development I was doing, and this all informed each other. There was a real emphasis in Birmingham on how to connect to people, and understanding what the intention is before the work even starts. How do we actually engage with people? How do we build relationships? How do we address what we want before we even approach people? I am learning that with community dance, people feel more confident when you have a realised idea or something that you're sure about, even if it's not 100% figured out. For people to feel comfortable enough to try and to fail, they need to at least know the skeleton of what they are approaching. They need to feel safe enough to be playful.
Discovery through walking
I felt I could be more authentic and vulnerable in the second residency, because of the familiarity we had built up in Cologne. On the very first day with Hubert, we went to the studio and were like, what to do?! Then we went for lunch, and an hour turned into two hours, and we didn't know what we should get back into the studio for, so we went for a walk, explored, got chatting, and I thought: OK, I prefer this way of working. Hubert initiated it, and I felt safe enough to contribute because this was also natural for me. It took a moment for us to realise that there wasn't any small print: the residency is for us to get to know each other and to explore community dance, and we can explore that the way we both see fit.

I realised that a lot of the 'getting to know each other' involved asking ourselves: why do we do what we do and who is it for? I really appreciated Hubert's freedom to constantly offer his mind and energy during both residencies, at times I felt very moved that we had connected so well and so quickly. Nina (TanzFaktur facilitator) put it perfectly: Hubert demonstrates the 'what' and I the 'how', and for us that worked incredibly well.
Discovery through encounter
In the second digital discourse session, one of the guest artists - Simone Kenyon - said that her practice involves walking. Walking is something I do habitually, to help declutter my mind or make sense of something: by the end of the walk I'll have all these ideas and everything ironed out. But I didn't realise that that can be a practice! Or that this could be a way of building relationships with people before getting into a studio.

There have been a lot of things that I have learned through CROWD that I didn't know would be received as artistic or a practice. It's like improvisation - the practice of "yes, and" - where anything you put into a space, it's like: ok, let's explore this. Because of that, you can pull out so much more that you wouldn't have thought mattered or might be useful.
Discovery through coming home
I'm from Birmingham but don't usually work here, so it was very humbling to have a residency here and think in that creative way. It forced me to face a lot of things internally, about how I engage with myself before engaging with other people. How do I get myself into the room? What's my motivation? There is something important I had to learn about rediscovering your own city and Adam Carver (FABRIC facilitator) played a huge role in helping me reimagine the existing. It was necessary to acknowledge that I am also part of many communities and that how I treat myself will be reflected in how I work with other people.
Discovery through exchange
As part of our second residency we were able to meet up with Shaquille George and Bakani Pick-Up in Nottingham, and it was really helpful to hear another pair's experience: it sort of validated our own, even though it might have been slightly different. Although we were at different stages of the residency, with this being Shaq and Bakani's first week, it was good to hear that there were similarities with approaches or concerns. I would be interested, months down the line, to see what everyone is doing: to explore how what we did in the residencies might have transferred into our practices, and if there is anything that we have implemented or changed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Looking back, moving forward: a conversation with Chelsea Gordon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Now that the CROWD residencies are finished, a new set of questions arises. What lingers for the participating artists once they return to their daily lives? How similar or different were the two residencies, and what might other residency-hosting organisations learn from those experiences? What discoveries are already being implemented, what ideas might influence work...