Dances with Sheep: On RePairing the Human-Nature Condition in Felt Thinking and Moving towards Wellbeing

by Anna Dako

Overview

Dances with Sheep presents the methodology of Felt Thinking in Movement as an eco-somatic practice inspired by re-thinking nature of being human, as well as contextualises it within wider frameworks of cultural, philosophical and therapeutic viewpoints on wellbeing.

Felt Thinking is a self-inquiry practice grounded in somatic movement experience that originates in site-specific and embodied dialoguing between what is felt and what shapes as a responsive thought, as creative movement itself, and which paths ways for ecologically inclusive care for being well with self and other. 

The book elaborates on creative processes in and with the natural environment in relation to the movers’ overall wellbeing and covers creative journeys of opening up to the living agency of Nature itself through the emergent three phases of experiential relatedness in embodied experience of the self. The book presents its original contribution to eco-phenomenology with its ontological principle of embodied relationality in towards and away from movement as a primal gateway to wellbeing and its creative inter-constitution.

An intriguing and inspiring resource for students, practitioners, educators, self-learners, therapists and researchers. Foreword by Sondra Fraleigh.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789386950
Publisher:	Intellect Books
Publication date:	03/16/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Anna is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist and a board member of the Association for Somatic Movement Dance Therapies UK, with nearly 20 years of experience working with dance, movement and creative arts. Anna’s experience stretches from dance research, dramaturgy and site-specific productions. Anna is the founder and director of Dunami - Movement, Arts, Wellbeing, a platform for ecologically mindful growth, psycho-somatic health and artistic development. As a writer, she focuses on practice-based research, ecopsychology and environmental philosophy perspectives.

Anna Dako, Ph.D., RSME/T, UKSMDT, holds a Ph.D. in counselling in education (art practice-based research), MA in dance and somatic wellbeing and MA in theatre studies. Anna is a registered somatic movement educator and therapist with over seventeen years of experience working with dance, movement and creative arts. Anna’s earlier experience stretches from dance research, dramaturgy and on-screen productions. She is also a board member of the Association for Somatic Movement Dance Therapy, United Kingdom&Éire. She collaborates internationally and has lived and worked in Poland, the Netherlands and now in Scotland, United Kingdom. As a writer she specializes in practice-based research, eco psychology and environmental philosophy perspectives. Her forthcoming book Dances with Sheep: On RePairing Human-Nature Condition in Felt Thinking and Moving towards Wellbeing is due to be published in 2022 with Intellect Books. Anna is the founder of Dunami – Movement, Arts, Wellbeing, a platform for ecologically mindful growth, psycho-somatic health and outdoor arts projects: www.dunami-somatics.com. In her research, she has been developing movement-based approaches towards more embodied ways for ‘being well’ with the natural environment guided by processes of creative felt thinking, and is currently offering both online and on-site courses on this somatic methodology of ecologically inclusive self-therapy work.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Dancing with Sheep and Paradox

      Sondra Fraleigh

Acknowledgements

Summary

List of Figures

Terminology

Preface

 

SECTION ONE – OPENINGS AND CONTEXTS 

Introduction: Contemplating Ecological Belonging in Somatic Felt Thinking

1. From Living Practices to Practicing Life: A Bitter Pill to Swallow
2. Moving towards Wellbeing: On Change and Continuity in ‘Being With’ Experience
3. Historical and Cultural Contexts of Relationality
4. Therapeutic and Philosophical Contexts of Wellbeing
5. Ecological Contexts of Somatic Movement Experience
6. On Somatic Ontologies of Human Nature and its Day-to-Day Dimension
7. Felt Thinking and Languaging the Experience
8. The Three Dimensions of Felt Thinking and their Embryological Correspondence with Time/Space Experience

 

SECTION TWO – THE PRACTICE OF FELT THINKING IN MOVEMENT

I. Moving with Receptivity and Sensuous Co-Presence in Physical Time, or On Where and When of Being

    9. In and Out
  10. Now and Then
  11. The Shared and the Unique
  12. The Temporal and the Infinite
  13. Reflective Synopsis: Moving Towards Sensual Co-Presence
  14. Connecting with the Land - Stories in Sensuous Receptivity

II. Moving with Responsiveness and Experiential Exchange in Psychological Time, or On Who and What of Being

  15. Voicing and Silencing
  16. Moving and Not Moving
  17. Fast and Slow
  18. Purpose and Willingness
  19. Being and Letting Be
  20. Reflexive Synopsis: Moving Towards Experiential Openness
  21. Co-Creating with the Land – Stories in Experiential Responsiveness

III. Moving with Responsibility and Insightful Intuiting in Primordial Time, or On Why and How of Being

1. Multi-dimensionality and Permeability in Movement
2. Feeling with the Land – Stories in Insightful Responsibility

 

SECTION THREE – DISCUSSION AND DEVELOPMENTS

1. Felt Thinking and Moving Towards Inclusive Wellbeing Practice
2. Felt Thinking and the Embodied Experience of Time/Space and its Cultural Implications
3. Felt Thinking as Green Awakening and its Wider Philosophical Implications
4. Felt Thinking and the Concept of Temporality
5. Felt Thinking and Nature as Wholeness
6. Felt Thinking and the Cycle of Life
7. Felt Thinking as Living Philosophy in Practice

 

Rounding Up, Open Thoughts

Glossary

References

About the Author