This is a short description of the taxonomy that is referred to throughout this Praxis. The outlines below touch upon a bigger research exploration, further discussed in the critical essay and research entries on this website. This is an insight into my initial understanding of the taxonomy when beginning my practical research. The outlines below help to define my approach and reflection when giving consciousness to improvisation. This taxonomy will further shape my inquiry into the discourse, leading me to investigate into practitioners exploring and developing similar inquiries.

 

 

Doing

Starting with the body – this is how we are read, the mediator between who we are and the world. It is a physical language that reflects history, shaping and sharing movement habits and curiosities.One thing that I can tell you that I’m not doing is wanting to add another layer of patterns to an already patterned body. This praxis is not looking at a new ‘technique’ I’m investigating what already exists, magnifying awareness of this to simply question how do I move? Laban Movement Analysis will be used in order to refer to a clear movement language that will provide awareness of patterns, habits…

 

Thinking

The basic function of the nervous system is to guide action, calling upon neural systems used for perception and emotional processing to co-ordinate and guide how our brain controls action.Our cognitive system has evolutionised through knowledge to contribute meaning andsense to our action. This is captured as an interaction between the body’s cognitive action and the physical environment. The regions of the motor cortex that control parts of the body could simply reflect habit of an envisioned action through information taken in by language or environment. The brain works quicker than the body so it is likely this can be done unconsciously. I want to give focus to the brains embodied cognition in order to recognise which information is informing my movement…

 

Feeling

Feeling mustn’t be confused with emotion. Demasio describes feeling as the term used for the reserved, private mental experiences and emotion as a term to design the collection of responses that are publically observable, such as muscle tension, body posture, stillness, sweat, flushing….We can control whether the target of our thoughts/feelings occur in our conscious however Demasio states that ‘masking emotion is as difficult as stopping a sneeze – we may have some ability to block external manifestations without ever being able to block the automated changes that occur in our brain systems. Emotion in our everydaydevelopment and subsequent in our experience is the natural human condition. When conscious is available, feelings have their maximum impact and as an individual I am able to reflect and plan how I choose to externally manifest that.. Having means to control this through presence gives an understanding and sense of me and an image ofme as a dancer.

 

Sensing

How the body is articulated, through muscle masses, dynamics and the environment predict the effect of action. This consists of the affordances of the current situations inan engaged way, opposed to how they are considered apart from the action in the environment. This is said to be categorised as ‘the systems current goals’ (Glenberg.55) “These motor plans are fed back to predict the outcome of the movements, thus actingas a forward model. Because the brain can change more quickly than the literal body, predictions derived can be made quickly, and thus the model can be used to guide movements in the process of being performed.” (Gelnberg.55)We are updated by sensory information derived from proprioception etc. This sensorial engagement drives the notion of mind/body connection, thus encouraging awareness and presence of the self.