The Greek word soma means the living body referring to the core of structure and function. An introduction to a range of body mind concepts and somatic practices will activate intuition and sensitivity of the body. Using perception as a tool for empirical observation, directed touch and imagery create an awareness of physical habits and expand the radius of movement responses towards articulate, differentiated and integrated performative actions, having their source in cultivating an openness within the body.

Introduction and practice of a selection of somatic techniques (applied anatomy, ideokinesis, meridian stretching, fascial unwinding, myoreflex work and body-mind-centering as well as various improvisation techniques) and basic somatic understanding (gravity, horizontality, momentum, space, dynamics), performing and developing scores (underscore, improvisation, real time composition) lay the ground for individual and collective experiments.

The aim of the module is to practice a discourse with the physical self, probing a sense of embodiment of aesthetic, social and political contexts through “narrations of the body" as performative realisations and conceptual-compositional reflections.

In the spirit of post-disciplinary agents, the weave between feeling-doing-reflecting turns the thematic focus towards the liminal spaces emerging through crossing fields of practices. Tuning into the senses and practising visceral, embodied action will create concrete conditions for experimental aesthetic enquiry, with a special focus on cultivating compositional decision-making through somatic process.

It will be possible to partially link up with the artistic research project "Choreo-ethical Assemblages".

Regular and active participation in performative explorations of scores, somatic practice sessions, discussions and submission of written course-related reflexion (artistic process log book) at the end of the semester.

Logbook submission until 21.6.2023 at 13:00.

The course is part of the APL (Applied Performance Laboratory).

Dates:

9.3./10.3. from 10:00-12:30 and 13.30-16:00 

15.3. from 19h book presentation Barbis Ruder at ZFF

16.3. from 10:00-12:30 (focus: process, documentation & performance)

22.3./ 23.3. from 10:00-12:30 and 13.30-16:00

30.3./31.3.from 10:00-12:30 and 13.30-16:00

26.5. from 10:00-12:30 and 13.30-16:00

15.6./16.6. from 10:00-12:30 and 13.30-16:00

Location:

Studio Angewandte Performance Laboratory, old P.S.K., Georg-Coch-Platz 1, A-1010 Vienna