Tango to Ecosomatics

My systematic engagement with eco-somatic practice and research was stimulated by the heightened condition of isolation and alienation associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. Before the Covid outbreak I used to dance tango two or three times a week in crowded public spaces. This involved engaging in an intimate experience of sensing and expressing my feelings with other humans, often strangers. In my dance research I have experimented with letting go of the basic conditions underpinning the tango duet: the setting of the dancehall, the specific genre of music and the separation of the roles of leading and following between the partners. When the focus is shifted away from the form of the dance and towards the improvisational experience of listening to each other through movement and touch, it becomes possible to challenge the assumption that the living source of the dance is located in two separate spheres of perception: the perceiving self and the perceivable other. The spaces between inside and outside come to the foreground as responsive players in the duet. How is the dancer’s ability and readiness to listen and respond to her partners, to other dancers, to space and music related to ecological consciousness? Going through the distancing and isolation imposed by the Covid pandemic made this question very hard to avoid.

As part of the struggle to survive the first Coronavirus emergency, in March 2020 I started to follow the everyday drive to find green isolated places in my small city where I could be on my own or with my children to feel more alive, connected and creative. I ‘just’ had to listen and respond to the sensory inputs of the grass, of the river, of trees, of birds, of wind, of rain, of the sun and of all the other more-than-human elements of perceptual experience I had forgotten or previously taken for granted. My practical shift from dancing tango and contact improvisation to exploring movement in nature began with the everyday experience of climbing trees during the first Coronavirus lockdown. It began with the directly felt realisation that, when I am sensing a tree, I am not alone. In a moment of deep disconnection from the world, I discovered the power of climbing as a meeting with the tree and as a new possible meeting with myself. In climbing the same tree, every day, for three months, I found myself witnessing the unfolding of a state of calm and deeper presence. Through touch, smell, movement and sight my attention was drawn not only to my breath, my weight, my core, my limbs and the pull of gravity but also to the perceivable qualities of the tree as a living creature. I gradually began to realise that climbing is not just about the physical act of moving from the bottom to the top of a tree. It is an exchange. As I climb, I am demanding something from the tree and the tree is demanding something back. It is demanding my sensitivity to its structure and to the shapes, curves, textures and consistencies of its different parts. It is demanding me to listen with my senses to its height and width, to its softness and firmness, to its individuality and its connection with earth, with other trees and with the environment in which it is entangled. How can I respond to these demands by embracing the complexity of this experience as a dance with the tree? My first move was to let go of the image of climbing and to associate my experiences in nature with the larger and open-ended frame of somatic-improvisational movement. Climbing might be reduced to a mechanical, goal-oriented and human-centric view of a body moving up through the apparently inert materiality of the tree. What about the presence of the tree? How is the tree touching me and influencing my sense of movement as I climb? How is my moving body affecting its presence?