The purpose of this study is to explore learner-centered strategies that enable safe and sustainable movement in dance education, grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Safe Dance Practice and Somatic Ballet®. A conceptual analysis was conducted based on a review of relevant literature. The findings identify three key strategies. First, the sensory awareness strategy is a learning condition structured at the beginning of class so that learners can monitor their physical state before engaging in movement. Second, the sensory regulation strategy proposes that learners to adjust movement based on their own bodily sensation, while referring to the instructor’s guidance. Third, the rest and recovery strategy reframes rest not as an interruption of training, but as a learning mode that prepare learners for subsequent movement. From this perspective, safety is understood not merely as injury prevention but as a learning condition that should be implemented within the educational structure of dance education. This study contributes a practical, learner-centered framework that supports students in recognizing and regulating their bodily states within the learning process.

This study, drawing on Rancière's concept of the 'pensive image' examines the deconstruction of the medial boundaries of dance and the sensory limitations of life as depicted in Minamimura's Scored in Silence. The ‘pensive image’ does not focus on one side of the dichotomy, but rather on creating a new arrangement by connecting the incompatible elements in a new way. Referring to the concept of ‘pensive image’, this study examins the meaning of Minamimura's one-person performance, Scored in Silence, by dividing it into ‘spoken visual sound’ and ‘haptic vibration’. I suggest that the process of expressing the narrative through the deaf performer in the work mixes the identities of fine art media and opens up the possibility of new interpretation through the individual senses of the audience.

This paper examines the entire process of creating and performing the author's dance piece The Void Space Between with a them of ‘spatial distance’, which was performed during the period of social distancing caused by COVID-19 in early 2020. This study analyzes the process of mutual communication based on human perception of distance, which is an invisible area, by applying practical research methodology to dance works that deal with social issues.

Study findings contribute to understanding the problem of human spatial distance that will persist even in the post-COVID-19 era. As we move towards a global transition following COVID-19, it is important for us to reflect on the essential relationship between humans through the lens of space distancing. In addition, it is significant to note that the discussion of spatial distancing has been performed and studied as a form of dance. This study will provide follow-up choreographers with a small indication of how to wisely prepare for the post-corona era by thinking about life and art in an integral way.

This study is on the eco-art from two dimensions, intentional and unintentional. As the cases of unintentional eco-art, the summer and winter ceremonies of Kwakiutl on west of Canada, written by Eric Wolf, and the winter ceremony Smila(Spiritual Dance) and related dances of Chehalis Indian Band are being considered. Unintentional conceptualization and realization as eco-art are investigated. The other one is on the intentional trials in contemporary societies for the integration of ecology and art. Cases of ‘performing nature’ are interpreted. Maehyang ceremony in Muan-gun tidal flat and related dance are considered. Rituals of Kwakiutl and Chehalis tell dances, as essences of rituals and as the subjects of expressions and communications, exist. The dances exist as the arts realizing relations between natural beings and human beings, realizing the transformation of natural beings, of human beings, of relations between human beings. Ecological relation between nature and man are realized from the immediate feeling and perception of bodily experience. The meanings of the relation are also produced from the feeling and perception. The term and concept of eco-art do not exist in these rituals. But realizing process of ecological relation and interaction is also the one of eco-art unintentionally. Body and dance are main subject and mediate of the process. Recently eco-art, the term has been used by some scholars and artists. But, in many cases the term is not used actually realizing eco-art. Some trials of modern art as ‘performing nature’, Maehyang ritual and dance as reinvented one composed of partial ideas from trasitional one are those realizing the issues and ideologies intentionally. As common phenomena in the two dimensions eco-art expresses ecological ‘relations’, not merely depicting nature. Commonly too, materiality of body and things on nature and human life, feelings and perception of them form the ecological relation.

This paper analyzes the performance of “Connected” by focusing on the proprioceptive senses. Presented at Ewha Woman’s University Performance Hall 1, “Connected” was performed based on ballet movements and characteristics of post-modern dance and somatics. This research adopted a practice-based research methodology and followed five steps: research design → concept formation → composition and practice → performance and analysis → examination of the research findings. The researcher videotaped practice sessions and kept a journal of proceedings during the study. In order to analyze the dance work thoroughly, the researcher explored the role that an audience’s visual sense plays in a ballet performance as well as the performer’s senses in post-modern dance. The researcher looked inward with the concept of proprioceptive senses in somatics in order to analyze the researcher’s own ballet performance. The findings based on “Connected” can be summarized as follows. First, after stimulating senses in the first part of the practice, the researcher had a more delicate understanding of the soma. As the researcher gained more knowledge about one’s soma, including contraction and relaxation levels and range of motion, the researcher felt more comfortable, focusing more on expressing oneself. Second, the routine and habitual movements felt different because the researcher was dancing according to one’s feelings. The researcher was able to focus more on the performance’s qualitative aspects, indulging in dancing and performing more sensuously, rather than focusing on the quantitative factors, the mere connecting of different moves. Finally, the researcher was able to dance with more freedom when trying to stimulate the proprioceptive senses while remaining conscious of the audience. Rather than practicing and performing routinely and putting too much emphasis on the audience’s perceptions, the researcher moved with more freedom. This research demonstrates that stimulating the proprioceptive senses of the researcher was essential to the dancing. Through proprioceptive sense stimulation, dancers may produce more comfortable and seamless moves, which may also result in a higher quality performance. In this regards, this research suggests that performers can enhance the quality of their performances when they thoroughly understand their own soma through proprioceptive sense stimulation.

Human beings think, study, and develop creativity and character somatically. However, at present, many people are pressured and stressed; as a result, they have lost this sense. The purpose of this study is to explore the principles and develop a program of movement education based on somatics through the analysis of literature on somatics as a practice plan for the recovery of the vitality of soma. First, the principles of movement education based on somatics are as follows: The goals of education are atony, awareness, awakeness, and abundance. The contents of education are soma and movement responding to temporal, spatial, and relational factors. The methods of education are composed of verbal methods leading to first-person experience, including description, comparison, explanation, and questions, and non-verbal methods leading to second-person experience, including touch. Second, the program of movement education based on somatics was as follows: The “Soma 4A program” was developed to reflect the principles described above. Specially, three programs were actualized with a focus on characteristics like totality, verticality and confrontation, balance and horizontality, and movement. Finally, we recommend implementing and evaluating this program, developing various programs, expanding movement education based on somatics, and connecting this to dance education. We hope that this study will represent a small steppingstone in movement research–based somatics, and that it will help dancers and ordinary person to understand the soma through the provision of valuable data.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of a sensory integration dance program on motor performance in children with developmental disabilities. Participants were 9 people with developmental disabilities (mean age; 11±2.0 years) by using convenient sampling. The study was designed as a single cohort pre and post-test comparative study. The dance program was performed 12 sessions (12 weeks, with a frequency of 1 times/week for 150 minutes per session). Motor performance was measured by Bruininks-Oseretasky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2). Non-parametric tests, using the Wilcoxon singled-rank test for pairwise comparisons, were performed to evaluate pre- and post-intervention changes. As a result, manual coordination(p=.007), body coordination(p=.007), and total motor performance(p=.008) were significantly increased. Therefore, the sensory integrated dance art education program ‘Dancing artist’ was found to be a dance art education method that can improve the motor performance of children with developmental disabilities. These efforts are expected not only to develop a body that is a subject of sensory experience for children with developmental disabilities, but also to identify creative expression activities, artistic sensibility, achievement, free communication opportunities, and the possibility of growth as a disabled dance artist.

Since the rise of ‘dance studies’ as an academic discipline in Anglo-American dance scholarship in the late 1980s and 1990s, interdisciplinary methodologies borrowed from cultural studies have been dominating the field, generating valuable research that places central focus on the role and value of dance and/or dancing/moving bodies in ways that transcend and traverse the disciplinary boundaries between sociology, politics, and aesthetics. In more recent years, however, such theoretical interdisciplinarity itself has, to some extent, become a burden for dance scholarship, at times distracting researchers from focusing on the core concepts, viz. dance and the body, and at the cost of a balanced adoption of interdisciplinary and medium-specific methods. Accordingly, this paper focuses explicitly on these concepts, selecting three key studies on the themes of dance and the body–in particular, the works of Janet Lansdale, Susan Leigh Foster and Body-Mind Centering®(BMC)–to reveal how each exhibits different yet somehow interlinked interpretations of dance and dancing/moving bodies. To this end, the paper examines three key concepts: (1) Lansdale’s understanding of ‘dance’ as a performance piece; (2) Foster’s concept of ‘dancing’ and ‘dancing bodies’ as a performing act involving active agency; and (3) BMC’s idea of ‘mindfully moving bodies’, which highlights the interconnectedness of and interactions between body and mind. Through comparative evaluation, the paper demonstrates the distinct ways in which each discourse perceives dance and the body in relation to processes of thought and mind, revealing how dance and/or the body play an active role in shaping discursive thought, socially contingent knowledge, and human wisdom. In doing so, the paper reveals the diverse forms of knowledge that dance and the body bring out, in the process highlighting the enduring effort (intentional or unintentional) to construct renewed discourses and disciplines that challenge the long-standing western dichotomy between body and mind.

This study aims to understand Somatic Experiencing® which is a trauma healing technique through the senses of the body, and how humans are neurophysiologically connected to the autonomic nervous system in the process of recognizing the senses and react to survival. I examine whether it has an emotional release and how the trauma can be healed through the senses of the body. To this end, I investigate the survival and defensive behavior of wild animals, which is the core concept of Peter Levin's trauma healing, and discuss in terms of neurophysiology. As a result, I identify the physical implications of somatic experience based on neurophysiology. First, trauma is something that can be experienced willingly and is a natural and normal part of life. Second, for trauma healing, the intervention of the brain's neocortex is important. Through neocortical intervention, it is possible to focus on the body sensations and integrate the three-layered brain structure. Third, activation of the vagus nerve, which is closely related to our emotional response and social relationship, plays an important role in bringing about stabilization.