Dance Techniques 2010

142 Working Somatically
psyche and discovered that thinking and feeling one’s way clearly into the skin, the organs,
the bones down to the marrow, and into the inner space of the body has a profound
effect on the balance of tension in the muscular system and the soul’s mood. She
described the ability to be in the ‘reality of the moment’ as ‘presence’. 18 She used lever
and micro-movements, developed control positions to enable assessment of mobility, created
physical exercises involving balls and chestnuts, marked traces in space using parts
of the body, and had students use clay to make ‘body image tests’ that could detect body
parts that the student was ‘blind’ to. The transport of weight by the bones, the bulwark
against gravity, is investigated to determine tone regulation. “The involuntary extension
of the skeletal muscles is not only activated by the feet, but by every and any point of the
body. I have called this proprioceptive reflex ‘thrust’.” 19 This reflex, according to Gerda
Alexander, is the source of effortlessness in dancing.
Regina Baumgart, for example, uses eutonic principles in her ballet classes for contemporary
dancers, and does not believe in pressure, fear, or coercion: “Everything gets very
tight with too much exertion in ballet. Getting rid of this expands the range of movement
expression. I say, for example: ‘Strip away the skin! Observe the inner space!’ If you
give your weight to the earth when aligning yourself, then the skeletal muscles tone their
counter–pressure. These are logical principles. If dancers grasp this, they become different
dancers. They understand that they can influence themselves…The more flexible the
muscle tone, the more differentiated the quality of expression.” 20
The proximity of eutony to dance is mirrored in improvisation and artistic movement.
‘Thinking ahead through sensing’ or ‘sensing ahead through thinking’ leads to deeper
experience. No other method has dealt so profoundly with the transfer of muscle tone—
from dancer to audience, from mother to child, from teacher to pupil. “Gerda Alexander
introduced intuitive phenomena to muscle tone regulation and adaptation that can,
today, be explained by mirror neurons.” 21
Feldenkrais Method Moshé Feldenkrais
Moshé Feldenkrais (1904–1984) was the only scientist among the pioneers. A Russian
Jew, he was a physicist and engineer who carried out systematic experiments. Five of
his six books that have been translated into German are works of popular science and
highlight, in an autobiographical way, research into the physiology of movement that he
carried out on his own body. He attained the black belt rank in Judo and, even though
he was involved in the first nuclear fission experiments in Paris, did not spend his life in
the laboratory. His awareness was sparked through a knee injury. He used self–experiment
to develop his method, which focuses on learning organically. Key elements are an
understanding of movement functionality and reducing strain in order to increase sensibility.
From young children, he observed how people learn for themselves through trial
and error, and thus propel their development forward. He found the key to the survival
techniques—which emerge in the body as fear, fight, and flight phenomena—in evolution.
He used principles from mechanics, thermodynamics, cybernetics, and brain research
to underpin the dynamics of posture, the relationship to gravity, and the ‘reversibility
of movement’ (a phrase he took from his study of physics and which refers to effortless
control of the body) as being the most important factors for body efficiency. He agreed
with Mabel Todd on many things, although he only read her book toward the end of
his life. In his nearly 3,000 brilliantly developed group lessons in Awareness Through
18 Gerda Alexander quoted by Karin Schaefer
in Michael Fortwängler / Karin Schaefer / Wolfgang
Steinmüller: Gesundheit – Lernen –
Kreativität. Alexander-Technik, Eutonie Gerda
Alexander und Feldenkrais als Methoden zur
Gestaltung somatospychischer Lernprozesse.
Bern: Hans Huber Verlag, 2001 / 2009.
19 “Die reflektorische Streckung der Skelettmuskulatur
kann nicht nur von den Füßen,
sondern von jeder beliebigen Stelle des Körpers
ausgelöst werden. Diesen proprioceptiven
Reflex habe ich als ,Transportreflex‘ bezeichnet.”:
Gerda Alexander: Eutonie. Munich: Kösel,
1976, p. 41.
20 “Bei der hohen Anspannung im Ballett wird
alles schnell eng. Sie wegzunehmen, erhöht das
Spektrum des Bewegungsausdrucks. Da sage
ich beispielsweise: Streich mal die Haut ab!
Nimm den Raum im Innern wahr! Überlässt man
bei der Aufrichtung das Gewicht zur Erde hin,
tonisiert ihr Gegendruck die Skelettmuskulatur.