WRITING:

SOCIO-SOMATIC DANCE

In my book-in-progress, Moving Beneath and Beyond the Visual: Socio-Somatic Dance in the Twenty-First Century, I examine how contemporary experimental dance artists wield somatics to choreograph rejoinders to difficult sociopolitical conditions that were inflamed in the wake of 9/11 and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I conceptualize socio-somatic dance as a subgenre of contemporary experimental dance in which the combined forces of somatic work and choreographic experimentation generate new approaches and aesthetics as well as perform possibilities for how to navigate a difficult world.

Altogether, the book aims to show how socio-somatic dance urges spectators to move beyond looking at dancers and look to them for critical ways to move through sociopolitical difficulty, and to provide readers the means to do so.

This idea of socio-somatic dance has formed over time through my contact with many dance artists, especially those I focus on in the book: Miguel Gutierrez, Heather Kravas, Stephanie Skura, and an ensemble called The Architects. I’ve published four articles from my research of these artists’ work (more info below), and I recently dug into some roots of socio-somatic dance during a fellowship at the New York Public Library of Performing Arts. You can access the essay by clicking this button:

article | Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices

"Let the freak-fly fly": Somatic Approaches to Undoing Traditional Power Dynamics in Dance-Making

article | Theatre Topics

Personal Is Political, Practice as Critical: The freedom of information Performer as Site for Change and Discourse

article | TDR

I want to understand (what is happening to me)! Miguel Gutierrez Performs How to Be Okay in a Non-Utopia

article | Choreographic Practices

Their Hands in the Dirt: How Kazuo Ohno and Stephanie Skura Cultivate Dance Practices and Alterity from Nature