Generating emotions out of movement and posture or merely the sensations of emotion: a performative inquiry

Abstract

This study started with the question, ‘How can I teach my students to create emotions from the sensations of physical movement and posture?’ Over a semester, a group of post-secondary theatre students at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada were taught movement fundamentals using the Franklin Method™ as a means to somatic awareness while improving optimal biomechanical function. As a professional dancer I had intuitively devised a method of utilising somatic experiences as a means to generate felt emotions on stage so it would not be necessary to fake them. The students were guided to sense their physical sensations and to use those sensations to create movement choices that would influence the generation of emotions. Through the course of the inquiry it became apparent that the emotions I believed were generated were merely the sensations of emotions. Further research into emotional theory and neuroscience suggests that I had accessed the physicalisation of an embodied emotional response to a discrete emotion and reconstructed it in a new context.

Keywords:

• sensation
• movement
• discrete emotions
• embodiment