The project is built around an intensive period of movement practice by Katye Coe and Simon Ellis in the northern spring of 2024. For 10 days (two days per week) and from 10am to 3pm they practice a version of Authentic Movement. In twice daily sessions, they act as both mover and witness, and each set of two improvisations is followed by a conversation that attempts to dig into the phenomenal experience of the improvising. These conversations happen in the immediate aftermath of the two improvisations and are deeply informed by the felt sense of those practices.
The sessions are documented in two ways:
- There are three still cameras taking RAW files timelapsed at different intervals (3, 4 and 7 seconds); there is a fourth camera taking a simple video of the improvisations. These video and photograph files are very high resolution. It’s not yet clear how they’ll be used but it will likely be some kind of filmic account of the experiences.
- The post session conversations are audio recorded and then transcribed through Otter.ai.
Simon works through the transcripts to identify aspects of the conversation that most clearly speak to concerns for nonduality, conciousness, and body sensing. Merritt Millman will use the transcripts to suggest a few self-report questionnaires (all of which are freely available online) that might further illuminate the experiential aspects of the body-based improvisations.
These questionnaires are:
- Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
- Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2
- Toronto Mindfulness Scale
- State Mindfulness Scale
- Flow State Scale
There’s more to come but this is where we are currently at. For instance, Katye and Simon have recognised the quality and complexity of the conversations and want to spend more time making sense of them.