UMBRA

The creative research addressed in this dance film investigates different ways embodiment may be impacted and accessed via a theoretical framework that uses Jungian psychology’s process of individuation through archetypes. The theoretical framework also includes pre-Christian religious concepts of holism of mind, body, and spirit, and humans as an extension of the divine through nature. My specific research questions are: In what ways can improvisation and performance be utilized as an authentic space/site in which one can find a deeper connection to the personal and collective unconscious?; How might Jung’s individuation process and Pagan practices, as nature-based religions that emphasize the feminine divine, be translated into embodied practices and make possible the transgressive potential of performance?; How might tarot, astrology, and ritual –as self-reflective and embodied practices– and Jung’s “collective unconscious” allow participants to explore and access their authentic selves?

To explore these questions, I directed a group of six dancers over a period of seven months to create solos for each of them that were later composed into a single dance film. The research design and rehearsal process integrated astrology, tarot, shadow play and ritual to explore and generate movement. Dancers also agreed to document their experiences in an IRB-approved journal that they wrote in each rehearsal. The purpose of this creative research was to explore how embodied performance is impacted in Western culture through Cartesian dualism and Christian narratives of the body. Dancers reinterpreted these influences through the body, utilizing other sources of inspiration such as tarot, astrology, and ritual. The research investigated questions around how embodiment is impacted in performance by the incorporation of the unconscious into consciousness through individuation with a focus on breaking away from Western religion’s cultural renderings of the mind, body, and spirit as seen in Cartesian dualism. While the research used tarot, astrology, and ritual for improvisational and choreographic devices, they were not necessarily thematically present in the final product.

The creative research was a rehearsal process that spanned September 2020 to March 2021 and then was documented on film and edited as a conceptual dance film. A series of six solos were created, each utilizing movement, shadow, and light. The focus of each solo was to show the dancer’s unique embodied journey through movement. The film was entitled "UMBRA" as the creative process focused on trying to name and explain the self, especially the shadow and feminine self, within the context of Cartesian dualism and Christian narratives of the body. The feminine and shadow selves are referential to the unconscious self in the research. Umbra, Latin for shadow, was chosen as the title of the dance film as shadows were important to the process and presentation of the work.

Director/Choreographer Context to UMBRA's Creative Research Investigation

Embodiment, in an open interpretation, can be defined as a state of being. As a performer, I have a sense of when I am acting and when I am embodied in performance. The difference between acting and embodied performance is that acting is a projection of emotionality in performance while embodied performance allows the becoming of something more. As an educator, I have come to the conclusion that embodiment cannot be taught, but tools to move toward embodiment can; I believe that we are all capable of embodiment in dance and non-dance movement. I believe embodiment cannot just be situated in a mind-body connection, but that it is mind, body, and spirit working together. A mind and body connection is the cognitive focus of an individual, but when spirit is accessed, it allows a connection to something outside the self. My theory on embodiment is that while the mind accounts for the inward cognitive processes' of self-actualization and the body self-actualizes the outward cognitive processes, it is the spirit that self-actualizes embodied movement in performance.

Growing up, I found myself more interested in understanding my connection to nature than to being made by a sky god. This was provoked by the lack of succinctness in Christian doctrine. The orthodox teachings of my early Christian upbringing displayed Catholicism as more “pagan” than Christian due to Catholicism's incorporation of pagan religious practices and holidays. In my preteens, my family switched to a Protestant church where I had many questions on why there were such differences in Christianity’s teachings between the two churches I had attended. As a result, I became interested in history and religion and followed that interest through most of my non-dance elective courses for my undergraduate degree. In courses for my graduate work, I continued with anthropology studies to explore how memory, culture, and history are interconnected in national and cultural narratives. In philosophy and religion courses, I compared Western Europe’s use of magic and ritual in ancient and modern times, and this has greatly informed my understanding of the Western world and narratives surrounding the human body.

In Western Europe’s pre-Christian period, magic and ritual were a part of everyday life, but the Protestant Reformation brought a re-formation of the sciences as we see them today. The Catholic Church demonized indigenous practices of Western Europe, as well as the indigenous practices of any culture Europe colonized, by roping such practices in to narratives of magic and witchcraft - narratives often associated with the earthly and feminine. Post-Reformational attitudes towards the natural world led to magic and witchcraft having a certain kitschiness and sensual nature that permeates into contemporary discourses. In my lived experience, there is equally a kitschiness and sensual persona surrounding dancers from the perception of non-dancers. A story from Carl Jung’s The Red Book captures Christian dogmaticism surrounding dance. Jung speaks to a figure that he calls the Red One in the section Liber Secundus, and at the end of their conversation, the Red One tells Jung, “it’s better to dance through life.” Jung explains he can dance but provides the reason for dancing to be attached to sexuality or madness. The Red One counters and explains that dancing is for joy which he was the embodiment of which had Jung rationalize that “joy is the devil, or that the devil is joy.” This story personifies the deep rooted cultural implications of Western Christian narratives on the body and how it manifests in everyday thinking. The idea of a joyfully dancing body as negative informed my research inquiry with the use of improvisation as a focus for generating movement. This is due to improvisation finding more organic movement choices for the body that come from the unconscious self.

The concept of the unconscious or supernatural world has always interested me. I have had a sensation to look behind and beyond the everyday due to my deep curiosity in understanding more than just the five senses. It has always been necessary for me to develop my sixth sense, or intuition, which can be associated with a sense of knowing about the unknown. This internal drive to dive into the abyss of the unseen world of sensation had me, from a tender age, reading material from the mystic and esoteric sections at my local library and bookstores. These materials gave me a way to assign meaning to symbols to make sense of the world around us. A major pathway for the research that this paper will address was developed from the idea of having embodied knowledge. I believe that embodiment comes from higher facilities than just a mind and body link. It is spirit that transcends the everyday and taps into something greater than the self. However, spirit in Western society is generally thought of as separate since it carries the trappings of religion.