From Kafka’s Burrow to Underground Sensings
By Johannes Birringer *) The second half of this blog (2) is adapted from the script for Underground Spatialities (2019,
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S01 Episode 05: Johannes Birringer on cross overs between body, performance, technology and underground spaces
In Episode 5 of Series 1, Johannes Birringer, choreographer and Professor of Performance Technologies at Brunel University talks to Eline
Read moreS02 Episode 07: Juhani Pallasmaa on experiencing architecture through art and sensing, the mind-body continuum and architecture as a gift
In Episode 7 of Series 2 Finnish architect and former Professor of Architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology, Juhani
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“Tuning” with a personal somatic toolkit
By Marcia Donadel Building and enhancing somatic awareness is one of my main concerns as a performer-researcher and teacher. In
Read moreS02 Episode 6: Peter Merriman on mobility studies and the social, cultural and political dimensions of everyday movement
In Episode 6 of Series 2, leading mobility studies expert Professor Peter Merriman, from Aberystwyth University, talks to Doerte Weig
Read moreS02 Episode 05: Auxiliadora Gálvez on how profound spatial awareness learned from choreography and the Feldenkrais Method inspires the practice and teaching of radical sustainable architecture
In Episode 5 of Series 2, Auxiliadora Gálvez talks to Doerte Weig about how flamenco and Feldenkrais first stimulated her
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Sound(e)scapes: Singing as self-care tool during fieldwork at home
By Caitlin Pilbeam I was told from the outset, throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies in anthropology, that anthropology in
Read moreS02 Episode 4: Arawana Hayashi on social presencing, improvisation and paying attention to each other in organizational settings, and connecting body and mind for a more awareness-based society
In Episode 4 of Series 2 Arawana Hayashi, who heads up the Social Presencing Theater program for the MIT-born Presencing
Read moreS01 Episode 04: Tim Ingold on The crisis of ethnography, the problem with embodiment, human becomings and exploding cellos
Tim Ingold, Professor of Social Anthropology at University of Aberdeen, talks to Ben Spatz about the difference between anthropology and
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Extended Practice — A Non-Binary Guide to Embodying One’s Embryonic Gonads
By Nicole Bindler This audio recording explores the development of the gonads, which are embryonic, unsexed ovaries, testis, or nonbinary
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Extended Practice — Blood work, part 1: Finding your pulse
By Mette Terp Høybye and Marie Hallager Andersen This Audio File is the first of three that focus on blood.
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Extended Practice — Blood work, part 2: Flow
By Mette Terp Høybye and Marie Hallager Andersen This Audio File is the second of three that focus on blood.
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Extended Practice — Blood work, part 3: Solids
By Mette Terp Høybye and Marie Hallager Andersen This audio file is the third of three that focus on blood.
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Extended Practice — Butoh Walk
By Paola Esposito A butoh walk is a walking meditation that is grounded both in physical technique and in imagination.
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Extended Practice — Comfort, Discomfort and the transformation of perception
By Andrew Suseno Our brain learns through comparison. Without a solid grounding in comfort and self-care it is difficult to
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Extended Practice — Dancing with the camera
By Claire Loussouarn In this audio file you will be guided to explore different ways of moving with a video camera
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Extended Practice — Dealing with challenging research situations
By Lene Faust and Simone Pfeifer In this Exploration you engage with challenging research situations and how to incorporate them
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Extended Practice — Finding relief from overwhelm
By Elizabeth Maynard This Exploration is intended to help reorient you when you’re feeling overwhelmed by work. When we are in
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Extended Practice — Moving with the breath for presence and connection
By Marcia Donadel This Exploration is inspired by the Lessac body and voice practice and guided by the breath as
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Extended Practice — Spatial awareness and gaze: a solo exploration
By Deborah Black This audio file offers a preparation for the body and tools to guide you into observing and
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Extended Practice — Spatial awareness and gaze: working with others as participant and observer
By Deborah Black The aim of this Recording is to explore your relationship to power when working in a group.
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Extended Practice — The deep nerves of rest and restoration
By Roxlyn Moret In this meditation you’ll bring awareness to the tissue targeted by the parasympathetic nerves. These nerves regulate
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The dynamics of flow. An introduction to moving with the fluid system
By Lisa Dowler This audio recording provides a meditative way of connecting to the body’s fluid system, full of spaciousness
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Extended Practice — Working with challenges, working from inspiration
By Elizabeth Maynard This Exploration is intended to help you notice what your current motivations are, and if necessary to
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Extended Practice — Working with empathetic fatigue
By Elizabeth Maynard Often in doing fieldwork with traumatized subjects, it is common to experience empathetic fatigue. This Exploration is
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Extended Practice — Yielding as an ecologically sensitive and somatic practice
By Tamara Ashley These yielding practices are designed to anchor your perception of nature in your senses. They enable you
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Core Practice 1 — Body Basics: Arriving
All somatic practices share some basic elements, such as breathing, sensory awareness, and body scan, regardless of the type, teacher,
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Core Practice 2 — Literature: A spatial approach
During literature review we easily get inundated with questions about what to read, where to start, and how to find
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Core Practice 3 — Identity: Noticing your lenses
This recording supports you to explore your identity as researcher, and articulate some of the lenses through which you approach
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Core Practice 4 — Confidence: Taking on the Researcher’s Mantel
This Exploration is designed to increase your self-confidence before starting your data collection, before ‘entering the field’. Sometimes it takes
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Core Practice 5 — Observation: Seeing and Being Seen
Observation is one of the core methods of ethnographic data gathering, yet the reciprocity and vulnerability of ‘seeing’ AND ‘being
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Core Practice 6 — Interviews: Intimacy and Reciprocity in the Field
Interviews, like observation, are a crucial part of doing ethnography. They are a social event on their own. While you
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Core Practice 7 — Places: Being in the Unknown
Entering the unknown can be anything between and beyond exciting and daunting. Wherever you go, there is however one familiar
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Core Practice 8 — Analysis: Moving with Polarities
Data sets are usually quite messy. How can you write one thesis that represents voices, stakeholders, landscapes, traditions or themes/variables
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Core Practice 9 — Writing: Embodying your Thoughts
Writing is literally part and parcel of Ethnography (graphy = writing about ethno = people and cultures). Most texts address
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Core Practice 10 — Presenting: a full-bodied performance
Presenting our project results to research participants and academic colleagues is an essential part of the research cycle. No matter
Read moreS02 Episode 03: Brian Massumi and Erin Manning on the economic challenge to collectively reorganize how we value money
In Episode 3 of Series 2 Doerte Weig continues her discussion with Erin Manning and Brian Massumi from the SenseLab
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Yielding as an ecologically sensitive and somatic practice
By Tamara Ashley, MFA, PhD, University of Bedfordshire As a somatic practitioner and researcher, I am interested in what we
Read moreS02 Episode 2: Erin Manning and Brian Massumi on critical somatic individualisation and why we need more movement in university education and architecture
In Episode 2 of Series 2 Erin Manning and Brian Massumi talk to Doerte Weig about schizo-somatic workshops at the Senselab,
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Working with Head and Blood
An exploration of how movement tasks can uncover bodily experiences of ethnographic research By Marie Hallager Andersen (choreographer and somatic
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Autonomous Bodies
By Deborah Black Learning from the body takes time and practice. Even after 35 years of physical training in dance
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[an undichotomizing poetic]
somatics : an undichotomizing poetic : a provocative invitation By Bronwyn Preece i am a poet. a performer. eARThist. a writer. i never [rarely] suffer
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Knowing the Body in the Virtual Field Site
By Harshadha Balasubramanian This post explores the very “real” nature of virtual spaces, including their implications for how researchers understand the
Read moreS02 Episode 1: Gil Hedley on integral human anatomy, fascia and the link between body fat and consumer culture
In Episode 1 of Series 2 Gil Hedley talks to Doerte Weig about how discovering our inner bodies allows us
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Palestinian Dance and the Obfuscation of Somatic Source Material
By Nicole Bindler I am eager to see how the embodiment practices laid out in this toolkit might be used
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The Perils of Un-Physical Education: a personal narrative
By Elizabeth Maynard This text is based on a longer presentation at the Race and Yoga conference, University of California
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Embodied awareness as pedagogy and practice for academic resilience
By Elizabeth Maynard This blog text is excerpted from a paper presented at the “Yoga bodies and the transformation of
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Integrating different ways of knowing: deepening interviews through shared movement
By Mila Bammens I’m a fourth year BA cultural anthropology student at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. During my studies, I
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Inspirations from the CultureMoves project
By Rosa Cisneros and Marie-Louise Crawley This blog post reflects on essential ingredients for a ‘somatics toolkit’ based on the experience
Read moreS01 Episode 03: Jonathan Skinner on Concerns regarding the body in fieldwork, analysis and writing
Dr Jonathan Skinner from Roehampton University talks to Eline Kieft about how dance has become integral to his research and
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Thoughts from Lisbon, Berlin and Madrid
By Doerte Weig How can we best share what we’re developing with the Somatics Toolkit? Since I joined the project
Read moreS01 Episode 02: Jerome Lewis on Learning about a culture through physical participation
Doctor Jerome Lewis from University College London talks with Eline Kieft about using his body as part of his research
Read moreS01 Episode 01: Véronique Bénéï on Body education in India and slavery history in Colombia
Professor Véronique Bénéï from the French National Institute for Scientific Research talks with Eline Kieft about using her body as
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Em-Body-Ing an Other-ed Body
By Fatima E. Adamu — dance. voice. occupational therapy. yoga Photo by Susan Fenton (2004) In order to consider my contribution
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Bringing research activities into the body
By Eline Kieft Over the last twelve months I talked to many people about this project. When I explain the
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The politics of somatics
By Ben Spatz Photo: Nazlıhan Eda Erçin in the Judaica Project (Garry Cook, 2017) Helping to develop this “Somatics Toolkit” has
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The body as research instrument
By Eline Kieft As long as I can remember I have been intrigued by the possibilities of using the body
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