Alongside Director Nita Little, and in my capacity as Global Coordinator, I supported a training in the methodology of the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication on Somatic Research at the MARCS Institute for Brain Behaviour and Development in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I’ve been supporting Nita on a lot of these trainings as of late, because we are working on a sort of “quality control “in our trainings - ensuring that we cover all elements of our material in what inevitably feels like never enough time!
As you can imagine, there’s a lot to do and sometimes just a little bit of time! After the Sydney training, we started upgrading the training document that we provide all participants to include the receipt of a section beforehand, so that participants in the training can review and digest a good deal of information before they even set foot in the studio with us.
My mind is always blown as we begin practicing the methodology together as a training group. I’m usually reminded of how powerful this material is and how meaningful it can be to so many! It’s exciting to be preparing a group to engage as a Collab, Should they desire to form, and in this particular case, the training preceded a collaborative choreographic event that is to occur in April in the Hudson Valley, New York.
With Nita Little as the lead choreographer, and Nikita Patel, Neva Cockrell, Nuria Bowart, and I as additional choreographer of our own groups of dancers, we will explore the intersections of collective intelligence and somatic, communication specifically in ensemble, dancing with the foundations of Contact improvisation as our central skills.
The performance is going to be set to a lecture by James Bridle called “Planetary Intelligence”, and is informed by the work of Tufts University professor Michael Levin on the idea that “All Intelligence is Collective Intelligence”.
I’m enjoying my time “researching” by engaging with artificial intelligence, and on the almost other side of it feels like a very strange spectrum, nature – weeding, my gardens, de-vining, my oak trees, and noticing. More, soon!