March Asides
The Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication is Awakening Again!
I started the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (ISSC) in 2016 as a research organization for dancers and people in related disciplines. It was a network of unique dance ensembles who altogether were working toward a single purpose. The original goal was to for dancers to develop research skills while digging into the means by which we communicate in groups beyond and faster than both spoken language and body language. This idea was based in the belief that when we move together, dancers do something different than other groups of people. The quality, speed, and depth of our communication is potentially important for non-dancers to recognize and learn. Why? Because we articulate our presence through actions of physical attention, engaging our imagination within spatial forms, and allowing our sense of selfhood to include other people, spaces, and things. So, the ISSC seeks to develop these tools. But, of course, we have to engage and draw these skills forth in ourselves first. That means, we have to become experts. Do you want to become a somatic communication expert?
We are starting up again, leaving the past behind and looking forward to rebuilding. This is giving you all fair warning, that it might come to pass that the ISSC will send a call across the globe to find eager ensembles that would like to participate. We may hold a training convention for 5 days in Europe mid-July. If that interests you, let me know!
By 2020 we had ensembles in Seattle, Bristol, Berlin, Hamburg, Ariege (France), and new ones about to get started in Copenhagen, Pontadera (Italy), Barcelona and more. Covid changed that and along with it our immediate goals. We will become a training facility as well as a research network. Stay tuned.
We know what we have to offer the world, as dancers. The question is, how can we offer these gifts with the greatest ease, grace, and impact. How do we make the difference we have to share in a world that is starving? We are dreaming the dream, now.
What does it mean to do good work?
This question is one that I ask of myself all the time. What is needed and can I be part of its offering? Do I have what is needed now?
What was needed when Relational Intelligence began in March of 2020 was something that gave strength to people who were stranded in apartments and unable to be with others. I thought to put together a program called “Generating Joy” which became the signature of my purpose. To generate joy I decided to teach materials that came from Contact Improvisation and ensemble dance improvisation both, but in a context in which there was no other person in the places it could happen. Only objects, architecture and space were there to work with. And then I also met musician, Miles Wilder, who joined me in this interest. Relational Intelligence was born.
At first I hardly knew what I was doing. But gradually, it grew into a whole body of scores and ideas that guided those scores. They were all formed to put people into relations with their world – relations from which could emerge joy. This took a lot of thinking, feeling and reaching into my highest self.
There is something worth acknowledging about reaching into what you can’t know – can’t know how, can’t know if, can’t know when or what. The “something” is what I can frame as a kind of rigor – a discipline of attention that seeks to know beyond what is already known. My discipline over these past years has been to put relational intelligence in my way, as something to stumble over every week. And, it has been to go further with each meeting into events of movement, actions of physical attention, that could knit our worlds together into a single stroke of being. Once I started, I learned that when I get relations “right,” I soar into joy. What a blessing.
I learned that joy is never one thing. It is many things, in many ways. And, in a practice that seeks it, it will be found. It lies at the bottom of my being sometimes, and at others it floats right on top. Sad, alone, eager, expectant, bored or uncertain, it lives there in the dance that is true to whatever is present, and is willing to be more than merely one. Being more than one, is truly joyful. It is the world and it comes in all forms. Thank you all for this opportunity for growth. Growing in joy is the good work we all did, together.
Excerpt from Nita’s Newsletter
