Can the Feldenkrais Method make it easy for adults to create while children play?

  • Kristin Fredricksson (Participant)

Activity: Participating in or organising an eventParticipation in conference

Description

Paper given at '(re)storing performance - The Feldenkrais Method and Creative Practice', Bath Spa University

In September /October 2014, the Wee Ensemble worked together as a group of mother-artists and our pre-school age children, exploring ways of creating and improvising in their presence. We were developing a process which is radically inclusive - of the children, of what is present (objects, spaces, moods, desires…), and of the context. We used the Feldenkrais Method (FM) and Open Space Technology (OST) to facilitate this work and encourage radical listening, fluidity, reversibility, interruptibility and open-endedness. The work had a theoretical underpinning in Latour’s notions of expanding ‘the collective’ and in Bennett’s related work on ‘Vibrant Matter’. In this presentation I will focus on the practicality and problems encountered using FM in an inherently chaotic context. I will also look at the relationship between FM and OST in our approach. Feldenkraisian notions of reversibility and divided focus were vital here; we had to be able to stop and pick up actions at a moment’s notice and constantly have our awareness on the game and on the children, who were part of the play, but also just playing. Everyone said what we were trying to do is impossible, but we hope it will become possible, easy and elegant (to paraphrase Feldenkrais). One day; at the time of writing the project has been suspended and a couple of us are trying to reboot it. Maybe it is too challenging to make anything (like a show) in this context and we have to content ourselves with the approximations of the process.
Period30 Jun 2027
Event typeOther
Sponsor

Keywords

  • Feldenkrais
  • Creativity
  • improvisation
  • Play
  • Children