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       Photograph © Alan Kimara Dixon

Being Seen, Being Moved: Authentic Movement and Performance, Part I

      by Andrea Olsen

       Can we trust ourselves?

Authentic Movement is derived from a process developed by Mary Starks Whitehouse, which she often referred to as “movement in depth.” Mary was schooled in the dance techniques of Mary Wigman and Martha Graham that invoked and gave form to energies and images from the unconscious. In the 1950s Mary shifted her orientation from artistic to personal and developmental aspects of dance, and began her lifework experiencing and describing the process of “moving and being moved.” Mary’s work influenced many students and associates, including dancers, therapists, and educators, and it is currently employed in diverse ways by practitioners across the country and in Europe. In 1981, two years after Mary’s death, Janet Adler formed the Mary Starks Whitehouse Institute to further study and articulate her experience of the discipline of Authentic Movement.*

      The form for Authentic Movement, as taught to me by Janet Adler, is simple: there is a mover and a witness. The mover closes her or his eyes and waits for movement impulses—the process of being moved. The body is the guide, and the mover takes a ride on the movement impulses as they emerge. The witness observes, sustaining conscious awareness of her or his own experience and of the mover. After a period of time, the witness calls the movement session to a close, and there is a verbal dialogue about what has occurred. The mover speaks, and then the witness reflects back her or his own experience of the session without judging it.

      Ultimately the goal is to internalize a discerning but nonjudgmental witness while moving so that we can observe ourselves without interrupting the natural flow of our movement. In this approach to Authentic Movement, the form provides a container in which to practice entering unconscious material, returning to consciousness, and reflecting on or shaping the experience through speaking or creative work.

      Authentic Movement facilitates healing as the body guides us into stored memories and experiences and toward consciousness. Our history is stored in our body: evolutionary movement patterns, human developmental reflexes, and personal experience. As we close our eyes and allow ourselves to be moved, endless diversity emerges.

      Much of what we correct in technique class, for example, can be a resource in creative work or a call for attention to physical healing. A lifted shoulder or a consistently twisted spine may be indications of personal history. Our imperfection is our gift. As we learn to listen to the language of the body, we have a choice about when and how to work with a particular movement. Part of injury and illness is the conflict between what we tell our body to do and what it needs to do for healing, recovery, expression, or safety. Part of healing is allowing the unexpressed to be expressed.

      As we begin Authentic Movement, we may face basic fears: hatred of our body, fear of being empty inside, fear of stillness, fear of being alone, fear of not being loved. “I’m too fat. I’m too thin. If I’m not moving, I don’t exist. If I’m not seen, I’m nobody. If I don’t do something good, nobody will love me.” Although these statements may seem harsh, they occur again and again in movement sessions. As we close our eyes and listen to our bodies, there is also the potential of accepting ourselves just as we are.

      As we replace fear with open waiting, we can learn how rich our inner world really is. Often students ask why their first experience with Authentic Movement is so serious, their first dances so sad. Generally, we push into the unconscious what we consider to be negative—our sadness, our meanness, our fear. But below that layer of unexpressed movement is the wealth of human experience. That is the resource from which we draw in Authentic Movement and which we hope to bring to the stage.

      As we use Authentic Movement as a resource for choreography and performance, we are developing a dialogue with our unconscious. Basically, there are different sources of movement that have been described as the personal unconscious (personal story); the collective unconscious (transpersonal and cross-cultural); or the superconscious (connected to energies beyond the self).

      Without limiting the spectrum of movement possibility, we might note particular modes of movement that emerge from these sources, including impulses based purely in sensation (such as stretching or attending to an injury); impulses based in reorienting our consciousness (such as spinning, walking backward, or rolling); impulses based in journeying (such as unfolding a movement story); or those based in emotionally charged or spiritually transformative states available in the body (such as hearing or speaking inner voices, ritual gestures, or visitations by specific characters). These sources and modes are ways of describing different aspects of our movement life, and are all part of the range of Authentic Movement.

      Within the experience of “being moved” where the unconscious is speaking directly through the body, some motions or positions will be unformed or hard to remember, some developing, and others ready for consciousness. Movement that is “ready” returns again and again, is easy to remember, and is available, in my experience, for creative forming.

      Movement that is unformed or developing needs time to unfold. As we consider dancing for a lifetime, we recognize that we have time to develop our creative and physical resources, so that we are not strip-mining our unconscious (using every

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