Centering: Metaphors in Motion

Centering: Metaphors in Motion is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies tutorial taught by Daphne Lowell.

Course Description
In dance, centering is both a physical and metaphysical quest. It is a Holy Grail we seek in our daily physical and creative work. It's also a concept important in other cultural practices: in other arts, architecture, religion, sports, or martial arts. We'll investigate this suggestive, seemingly abstract, idea in movement and image to learn ways of grounding and developing such a concept in and through physical, artistic form. We'll study somatic theories (Sweigard's Ideokinesis, Cohen's BodyMind Centering, Bartenieff's Fundamentals), complicate our understanding of centering through improvisation (working, for example, with polarity, balance, simultaneity, repetition), and study examples of this concept evident in the work of other artists/engineers. Throughout, we'll consider differing cultural and personal interpretations of the concept. This is not a dance technique course, but it is a studio course for dancers and other artists, and anyone interested in exploring the physical and symbolic properties of the center.

Learning Goals

 * Expressive
 * Project-based
 * Reading
 * Writing