Tuesday, 15 October 2019

Kortext Books

I've been getting messages from some of you regarding accessing your Kortext book.


Please note the Kortext books for ACI3611 (module one) and ACI3633 (module three) are not available as e-books online. We have the hard copies of these on campus in London. If you are able to drop in we can meet you and give you your copy, alternatively simply email us with your mailing address and we can have the book sent to you.


For ACI3622 (module two) your kortext book is available online.

Monday, 14 October 2019

Trust and Flow

I've been thinking about respect, about trust and about flow.
I've  been thinking about how these words are meaningful in my life, through my practice, in all that I do. I'm not sure I can see these three things separately from one another, so I am going to explore a little of what I see as their relationship with each other.

Respect and trust for me, are earned through our encounters with others and through the flow was are a part of in our environment. When we meet others in contact improvisation for example, we greet each encounter as a possibility. We offer and we respond, we give and receive information through a non-verbal dialogue with a shared understanding of their being respect for each others offering-gesture through movement. We trust in the environment we are in, co-creating it in the moment of our movement together. We trust in our own bodies, our relationship with gravity, with the earth and with each other. We do not know what is going to happen in an improvisation; that is the very beauty of it!! The word improvise from the Latin 'improvisre' means quite literally not being able to see ahead of time. We enter the space and in doing so we enter into the flow of possibilities; of change, encounter, interruption. We are in a continous flow of communication. Flow becomes an energy which supports us. It is not a thing as such, it is not related directly to time(space), but aware of the presence of flow within each of us and so within the environment we are able to be responsive to it, responsive to its energies, and responsive to change. With a respect for each person and our environment having something meaningful to offer, we can trust ourselves to enter the flow of the moment, to be open to the possibilities of the now. 

These processes are not exclusive at all to improvisation, or to dance, but this is how I have been thinking about them this week. Respect, trust and flow are a part of who we are as people, communities, societies, the environment, how was approach and are a part of the world around us. It is important to to respect the encounters we have in life, through study maybe this is with other artist-scholars work through literature, or direct engagement through practice. We should respect that this is their lifetime's work, something they are passionate about, have invested time, energy, effort, life into to explore how it is meaningful and are generous enough to share that with you through their writing and/or through their practice. While we don't have to agree with everyone's ideas (in contact improvisation, we don't have to respond to every offering), we should be open to explore why we don't agree (why our response did not meet the offering of another). We do this through researching further, finding out more, questioning, considering our practice further in relationship to others, asking questions (verbally and through our practice) and trusting ourselves to be ok with being challenged by the possibility of something other than us, an idea (a theory) outside of our immediate or current frame of reference (framework). If we allow ourselves to be in the flow of our own lives, of our learning, to be in conversation with each other, with our environment, we are able to at least notice and acknowledge change as possibility and make choices in our responses in relation to that trust in ourselves.





What are your thoughts in relation to your own learning?

Friday, 11 October 2019

Queering the Somatic symposium

We are excited to let you all know that BOOKING is NOW OPEN for our next somatic-inquiring symposium!!

Queering the Somatic: Interrupting the Narrative Symposium
Nov 1st - 2nd 2019 (Friday 1st, 1-5pm, Sat 2nd, 10am-6pm)
at Middlesex University London

We really would love as many of you as possible to join us for this and we have FREE places for Mdx students to attend.

Please comment if you intend to join us!

We are excited to have a key note presentation from Dr Thomas F. DeFrantz, Duke University and a number of International and UK-based artists and scholars ...we will post the full schedule soon.