I am because you are

Abstract

This article expands a keynote address given at the conference Ethics & Repair, Dance & Somatics Practices, at Coventry University (2015). Part One is an effort to understand a basic ethical tenet-respect of otherness-inviting an understanding of how to be with difference through a somatic sense of self as related, separate and in between. Part Two draws on this respect of otherness to offer a second discussion concerning dance training for performance. Somatic practices nurture an ethical relationship to others and the environment, contributing to physical and psychological change. Over the past twenty years somatic practices have come to form the foundation of contemporary dance training, disrupting competitively attained acquisition and achievement of spectacular technical skill. I Am Because You Are gives this dilemma in dance training some air space, to blow through currents of thought.

Exploring multiple identities: An embodied perspective on academic development and higher education research

“…Even 'embodiment', a key underpinning assumption, is a contested term (Sheets-Johnstone, 2015). However elements of somatics and embodiment can be found across assorted and more traditionally academic disciplines including philosophy (Merleau-Ponty, 2002), dance (Claid, 2016), drama (Spatz, 2015), physical education (Wellard, 2010), sociology (Back, 2007), psychology (Totten, 2003), ethnography (Pink, 2006;, and science studies (Latour, 1999). The importance of the body, emotion, and movement within research, ideas directly connected to the theory that the mind is embodied can be seen with the growing interest in the 'affective', often investigated through creative and innovative research methodologies and dissemination (see for example: Lyon, 2016; Bartlett, 2015;Mannay & Edwards, 2013;Tarr, Ganzalez-Polledo, & Cornish, 2017).…”