Somatic Dialogue – K’lo Harris
The T&P Spectrum for this workshop is: Blue, Orange, Silver, White
There is a school of therapeutic thought that believes in body memory, that the body stores memories, this is especially true perhaps of trauma. If we do not process it then it does not go away but finds some were to hide until a situation arises that will unlock it again, allowing us another chance to heal perhaps.
Many body workers tell stories of how they are massaging some part of the body, something unexpected like the knee, and suddenly there client will burst into tears. The touch stimulating some memory to surface.
There is a big crossover between drama and therapy; in fact drama was my first therapy as a teenager, before I had even considered my need for therapy. Drama gave me the ability to deal with the world, the people and their strange ways that I had not quite learnt yet.( Being offered a different experience of life than most and having learnt a different set of rules than most it seems too.) It gave me a front. There was a big space however between what I presented as my front and the back (what I felt I was not allowed to show).
Studying shiatsu helped bring my front and back closer together. To not just be a whole bunch of nervous and chemical reactions, but have a body too, to find my ground and my feet upon it.
The desire to perform never went away, but it became less necessary.
Touch was my first healing place and I have discovered over time that this is not just my experience. Learning how to move, and express myself in movement is my second, but they are very closely entwined for me. One feeding the other.
So I am still interested in those stories (memories) that we store, in our cells, in our bones, in our organs, all these hiding places many with the same story but a different view of it.
I am interested in bringing our words and body into authenticity and this is not always pretty and tidy. Not always what our conditioning would want us to expose, not what our parents would have rewarded us for. Often painful, when we are not used to meeting these parts of ourselves. Our little wild selves, the parts that are still free, the parts that have never given up having something to say.
How can we access those stories for our healing, for our creativity? For performance or for therapy. Embodied performance, embodied therapy, embodied creativity whether personal or public, that is what my project is about.
Somatic Dialogue – Proposal for exploration at Touch&Play 2011
Two bodies meet.
What happens?
A dialogue.
A somatic dialogue?
What personalities can be unleashed by bringing words to our movement as we dance together? What are we really saying to each other?
Do we express in movement within the container of contact dance what we cannot express elsewhere, or do we play out versions of ourselves. What are we really saying?
“Look at me, look at me!”
“I want to fuck you”
“You smell and are very sweaty so I am not going to get to close”
“I can’t really relax into this dance because I need to fart.”
(Add as you want)
What would happen if this was unleashed and how could it feed performance, release the animal, and shine light on the shadow?
What other words and stories do we contain within our bodies and how does movement help to find and express them?
Using basic BMC principles of touch, movement, visualization and play, we would explore our bodies as a resource for incredible creativity to spark dialogue and performance.
Read K’lo Harris‘ biography