Movement Research Project by Joshua Crouch

_Total estimated time of project varies from 3 months to duration of lifetime.

_Support needed: funding (immediate and durational), space, persons interested

WHAT:

I propose to engage in movement work that is loosely rooted in the intersections of philosophies and subtle dynamics in strict modern traditions of American dance (specifically the approach in kinesthetic philosophy and pedagogy of Martha Graham) and the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism centered around the exercises of breath and movement commonly known as Tibetan Yoga.

This work shall aim to produce a playful yet rigorous investigation of the process of emotional queuing, held kinesthetic trauma, and authentic performative artistry through the lenses of traditional Buddhist yogic traditions and their commonalities to the movement studies (and my understanding/belief of the psycho/spiritual investigations) of Martha Graham as a means to create new and provocative interdisciplinary works aimed at authentic and powerful discourse regarding the burdensome landscape of social mores and functions today--pedagogically, performatively, and as means of psycho/spiritual analysis.

Serving as an attempt to reinvigorate the sincere and internal common experiences as impetus to communication through “dance arts,” multiple avenues of access beneficial to folks from many backgrounds will be built by demystifying and creating adaptable/fluid understandings of the core tenants of both Graham’s technique and Buddhist yogic disciplines.

This will be mirrored off my own explorations to rediscover how these two understandings of body dynamic are similar uniform tools for healing and comfort in the physical, emotional, and energetic bodies (from my personal journey as a former classically and Graham-trained dance artist in recovering from injury and changes in abilities due to health and age as well as vigorous and in-depth studies of Buddhist practices). It will  also serve as avenues of exploring the more subtle and often deeply rooted held experiences in the body through controlled breathing, dynamic imagery/visualization, and meditative absorption (and this understanding as a means to access communication through the language of dance/common movement that is both richly present and sincere as well as immediately impactful).

The previous teaching workshop beginning these explorations was: Dance Educators Association of Washington 2018 Conference: Awakening Radical Joy Through Movement where I presented the workshop “The Healing Energy and Yoga of Graham.” Footage from classes taught during my directorship of The School of Spectrum Dance Theater or the past two Graham Symposiums in the PNW also show some of the common language and experiential references used for queuing the movement dynamics of both forms and the intersectionality of their presentation.

My proposal for using this work in relation to a student population would simply be to have developed a concrete and physiologically supportive, challenging, and rewarding class/experiential process that allows a new avenue of access to the aforementioned sources of movement knowledge to broaden the individual’s range of understanding and quality of performative execution or ease in one’s natural daily movement patterns. There is also the added goal of creating  new performative work as a commentary on the overall emotional state of our shared experiences in the present world and its various cultural and political  landscapes which could serve as a larger offering or shared experience.