Illuminating somatics

Abstract

That somatics is now part of the dance lexicon should neither be startling nor unexpected. Subjective first-person experiences and bodily knowledges, integral to somatics and dance education, became accepted ways of knowing in the 1980s. As the presence of somatics in today’s tertiary education dance curricula continues to be manifested through the discourse’s practices and beliefs, three overarching perspectives are revealed: movement re-education, teaching and learning paradigms and sociocultural constructs. In mining these distinct yet interrelated perspectives, the authors illuminate key attributes as stepping stones to consider what is essential to a somatics course offering. The authors suggest that with such understanding, it is then that a fuller engagement with the somatic discourse in dance academia can be actualized.