Being Seen, Being Moved, Liz Edouard

Our first readings dealt with writings by historians and dance critics, then we progressed to readings by dancers and choreographers. The reading for this week explores the notion of experiencing and articulating a movement, and the challenge that exists in this translation. The way that I understand experience is that it is defined by perception, and as a result an experience is unique to each individual due to a variety of factors that influence the way the individual receives the movement.
While I like the idea of authentic movement, I have difficult discerning from the reading what would be considered authentic movement in a performance piece. My Jterm class was “Thinking Body, Moving Mind” and after reading this article, I feel that the way the class was organized came from this idea of authentic movement. This movement experience was difficult when I was starting as I felt that I was unable to move solely following my body impulses, but with time, I began to understand my body and depending on my moods, I would move in different ways. We would get to class and lie down on the dance floor and begin the process of waking up our body. For an hour, each dancer worked as an individual, however after the hour mark, dancers were allowed to mingle and “authentic movements” took on new meaning with added bodies. This exercises demonstrates the community aspect of “authentic movement” and how dance or movements were “vehicles” for our energy. Through the class, we learned to trust ourselves and our movements in the context of other dancers, as Olsen writes: “We long to be seen for who we are in our totality, not for the limited view of who we present ourselves to be, or who others imagine or want us to be.”
Relating the idea of “authentic movement” to African dance, I think of the dances that were performed by slaves when they first arrived in the United States such as the ring shout. Each individual wanted to express his or her energy through movement or dance and while they were restricted by their slave owners, authentic movement shined through in their dances. Later works done by African-American choreographers and dancers show the importance of authentic movement in their performances. After the performance of INSPIRIT, a question was asked regarding the choreography of the pieces, and it was explained that while most movements are set, there is a lot that is up to the dancer, which allows for authentic movement or for the experience or personality of the dancer to be expressed.