Authenticity

I wrote a post about the Authentic voice in December, a lot about letting go of filtering to be more natural and speak ones mind. It’s about openness and honesty, creating communication and giving space for others to respond.

Well of course there is Authentic Movement too. It’s part of dance therapy and was developed in the 50’s by Mary Whitehouse and then continued by Janet Adler among others.

There is a lot of information in the book (Authentic Movement - Patrizia Pallardo) I am reading about Authentic Movement that I find really interesting. It’s the same authenticity that comes from the inner monologue of our thoughts, though with one main difference. It is an inner monologue of our bodies or physical feeling. I guess you could put it that it is heart based rather than head based.

Whitehouse talks about how as children we expressed ourselves with our whole bodies, when saying yes or no, when looking up or down and how as adults we have trained ourselves to show less in the name of secrecy and efficiency. Yet her opinion is that the body never lies and whether it is connected or disconnected, it is still expressing our real emotions in relation to any situation. You just need to look hard enough!

It is interesting as a study. I was in Paris over the weekend and went to a party. My French being pretty rusty and with a room of people I had only met for the first time, I took some time, just to observe both peoples body language as they were communicating with one another and also as they were dancing together. I had nothing to compare it against except for what was happening, but there was a lot of clear information about how they felt being expressed in their posture and movement.

I also liked Whitehouse’s thought “The body is dead. We give it life by moving!”

In the classes I give, I have been setting exercises with improvisation that actually (unknown to me) touch on the philosophy of Authentic Movement. Quieting the mind, getting in tune with the body, moving from ones own feeling place, going with the feeling and seeing where it takes one. There is more to develop in the improvisation exercise as to where to take it, but I do find that it is quite intuitive if one is true to the philosophy behind it.

My one comment to the experience of setting the exercise is that I usually see is dancers that start in their bodies but revert back to their head space. I am presuming this is happening, because they start with natural movement which is spontaneous and impulsive, yet at a certain point something changes and they move into doing stylised movement with clear forms. Sure, this is habitual movement that becomes clearer as the size of the movement expands, yet I am thinking that this comes more from a thought space than a feeling space. At least my perception (and I can be wrong) is that the impulses from feeling have less generic form and are more sensual. Or can it be we are just not aware of our habits!

Hopefully, if you continue to practice at something and give it some thought/reflection, you will get better at it. By connecting with ourselves, we definitely get to know ourselves better and experience physically how we feel. Authentic body movement as a continuation of body language helps this cause. In the end it is a connection with ones sensuality and a deeper experience of oneself.