a triarchy press publication
Nine Ways of Seeing a Body
by Sandra Reeve
Publication Date: 28 June 2011
No. of Pages: 72
Book Type: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-908009-32-6
List Price: £12.50
Offer Price: £10.00
Epub version: available here
Kindle versions: amazon.co.uk | amazon.com
This book presents nine lenses through which the body is conventionally viewed:
- The body as object (the Cartesian approach, linked to modern, Western individualism and as viewed by Western, allopathic medicine)
- The body as subject (with reference to physical theatre and the work of Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba)
- The phenomenological body (the body holds its own meaning - the 'lived' body as discussed by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty)
- The somatic body (familiar to Feldenkrais, BMC and somatics practitioners and clients)
- The contextual body (paying attention to self-reflection and self-awareness in the context of the body's surroundings)
- The interdependent body (introducing matching, guiding and kinetic mirroring in movement work)
- The environmental body (the Santiago theory of cognition; incorporated habits; the effect of moving in nature)
- The cultural body (an awareness of culturally specific, daily-life movement and Csordas's view of embodiment)
- The ecological body (the author's approach - drawing on Suprapto Suryodarmo's Amerta Movement/Joged Amerta, on Buddhist mindfulness and on notions of 'interbeing'. An awareness of being 'among' rather than 'at the centre of'.
In movement terms, Sandra Reeve's approach to the ecological body and ecological movement matches the approach of some of our other authors towards organisations, government and society (systems thinking, design thinking and ecological thinking). Designed to be a guide and stimulus for teachers, students and practitioners of dance, performance, movement, somatics and the arts therapies - this short book will also serve as an inter-disciplinary resource for other areas of study, where a brief recent historical view of approaches to the body can be useful.
About the Author
Dr. Sandra Reeve is a UK-based movement teacher, artist, director and movement psychotherapist, offering therapy and supervision in private practice. Since 1990, she has taught an annual programme of autobiographical and environmental movement workshops called Move into Life® and she creates occasional, small-scale ecological performances. She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter, where she lectures in Performance and Ecology.
What people are saying about the book
I love your book and will use it as a text in one of my courses next fall.
...I am now using it starting next week.
Don Hanlon Johnson, Professor of Somatics, California Institute of Integral Studies
In this compact and accessible book Sandra Reeve invites the reader to engage with ‘the body’ through nine different lenses. The ensuing thought provoking journey will be of particular value to psychotherapists, arts therapists, and those interested in new ways of being.
Anna Chesner: London Centre for Psychodrama
This book is a delightful, readable set of beginning points or lenses through which to constantly consider and reconsider embodied practice… I am already looking forward to the second book.
Phillip Zarrilli: Artistic Director, The Llanarth Group
... a fascinating and insightful book that has provoked not only my own thinking in the way in which I view the body in performance but also provides a really useful and valuable text for my students. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and re-reading it. I love the notion of the 'Lens' which implies a real focus, a close look, observation rather than looking. It is something I am very keen to encourage in my students. The creative act of observation is lacking in many people.
Attribution to follow
Your little NEW book is absolutely wonderful and useful! It is really very helpful - next week I'm going to use it in my lectures and ask all the students get it (I have 36) students, here and in the USA
Amanda Williamson, Course Leader: MA Dance and Somatic Well-being: connections to the living body, New York and UK
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