Shared habitats : the MoverWitness paradigm

This practice-led research thesis analyses and visualises central components of Authentic Movement, with particular reference to the work of Dr Janet Adler. By contextualising and comparing this improvisation method with modern, post-modern and contemporary movement practices the author describes the emergence of Authentic Movement and distinguishes it from other practices. A new and original viewpoint is adopted and the practice's aesthetic, visual and empathetic characteristics are explored in relationship to and through visual art. The author, a learned Authentic Movement practitioner, critiques, deconstructs and reframes the practice from a visual arts- and performance-based, phenomenological perspective renaming it 'the MoverWitness exchange'. Embedded aspects and skills of the MoverWitness exchange, usually only accessible to firsthand practitioners of the method, are made explicit through research processes of analysis, application and visualisation. Hereby the practice's unique capacity to contain and express binary embodied experiences and concepts is exposed. Resulting insights are crystallised in a distinctive understanding of the MoverWitness exchange that emphasises its suitability as a new learning and/or research methodology for inter- and cross-disciplinary application. Search terms: Arts based research, arts psychotherapy, arts and science, authenticity, authentic movement, binaries, blindness, body, collective body, dance, dance and movement psychotherapy, embodiment, empathy, gastrula, improvisation, interdisciplinary research, mover, MoverWitness exchange, object relation theory, observation, paradigm, performance, phenomenology, sculpture, unconscious choreography, visual art, witness. Janet Adler, James Benning, Trisha Brown, Edgar Degas, Alexander Jawlensky, Tino Sehgal.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceDartington College of ArtsGBUnited Kingdo