Expanding understandings of wellbeing through researching women’s experiences of intergenerational somatic dance classes

ABSTRACT

Engaging a feminist ethnographic methodology, this article offers a discussion of women’s embodied experiences of wellbeing in intergenerational somatic dance classes. Somatic dance classes aim to develop embodied awareness, support ease and freedom in movement, and offer opportunities for creativity, agency and reflection. Drawing on in-depth interviews, observation and autoethnographic vignettes, three themes emerged from the empirical material that expand understandings of wellbeing as a fluid and dynamic experience, reveal the value for women in moving for movement’s sake, and identify the significance of intergenerational contexts for moving together. As a consequence, this research offers insight into ways in which women participating in somatic dance classes have re-interpreted wellbeing practices, ‘re-claiming’ wellbeing from circulating neoliberal, self-improvement and productivity agendas, and instead, dancing into wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Dance
• intergenerational
• movement
• somatic
• wellbeing
• women

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all of the participants in Dancing into Wellbeing and Movement for Wellbeing classes in New Zealand; to Sondra Fraleigh and the Eastwest Institute for Yoga, Dance and Movement Studies; and to The School of Arts, The University of Waikato.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen Barbour

Karen Barbour is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts at The University of Waikato in New Zealand. Her research focuses on embodied ways of knowing, particularly feminist practices in theatre, site and digital dance and movement pedagogy. Recent research focuses on dance, somatics, yoga and wellbeing. Her book publications include (Re)Positioning site dance: Local acts, global perspectives (Barbour, Hunter & Kloetzel, 2019), Dancing across the page: Narrative and embodied ways of knowing (Barbour, 2011). Karen is editor of the journal Dance Research Aotearoa (www.dra.ac.nz) and she has published in a range of other journals.

Marianne Clark

Marianne Clark is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Inspired by a background in dance and movement, her research interests focus on girls’ and women’s embodied experiences of physical activity and health. She is particularly interested in how the moving body is understood and experienced within the complex intersections of biological, social, and cultural knowledges. Recently her interests have expanded to include emerging health technologies and the ways these shape, constrain, and enable women’s understandings of their bodies and health. She is the co-editor of The Evolving Feminine Body (Markula & Clark, 2017).

Allison Jeffrey

Allison Jeffrey is a PhD Candidate at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her areas of research interest span across various disciplines among the topics of wellbeing, embodiment, culture and gender. She is a yoga teacher with previous research experience developing and delivering an online 8-week mindfulness based wellbeing program utilising meditation techniques and positive psychology interventions (Ivtzan et al., 2016). She is currently conducting an ethnography researching the lived experiences of long-term Yoga practitioners and their understandings of lifestyle in dialogue with contemporary feminist literature. (Twitter:@allijeff)