Shared discoveries in theatre and dance

Abstract

Three movement practitioners, Niamh Dowling, Miranda Tufnell and Lucia Walker, colleagues for over thirty-five years, come together to find ways to articulate how their individual practices have been informed by the common roots in their training as teachers of Alexander Technique. Each of them charts their unique journey in the application of this body of somatic work to create a range of pathways into theatre, dance, music, health, arts and community, and leadership training. Their individual paths have intersected over the years as students, teachers, co-teachers and collaborators. The article starts by examining our personal motivation to join an Alexander Technique teacher-training programme. It then follows our individual journeys as we seek to define the nature and purpose of our work and where best to position it. We witness each other’s progress and share with each other our personal experience of creating new pathways, opening doors to embodied learning, of setting up new contexts to test, expand and enhance our practice and work. This brings us thirty-five years later to the territory of metaphor, language, training attention and looking to access the imagined and felt world.

Keywords:

• Alexander Technique
• movement
• pedagogy
• improvisation
• collaboration

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Niamh Dowling

Niamh Dowling is Head of School of Performance at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in London. Niamh trained with Monika Pagneux in Paris, Anne Bogart, Nancy Topf and Eva Karczag in New York and as a teacher of the Alexander Technique with Don Burton. She collaborated closely with Teatr Piesn Kozla in Poland for fifteen years. Niamh has been training in Systemic Constellations for 8 years, which has deeply influenced her practice and supported her holistic approach to education and performance training. Niamh is one of the practitioners on the online Routledge Performance Archive. https://www.routledgeperformancearchive.com

Miranda Tufnell

Miranda Tufnell is a dance artist, writer and teacher in movement and imagination and also an Alexander teacher and cranio-sacral therapist. She has been teaching and making performances for 40 years. Her work explores the ways movement shapes our sense of meaning, language and perception. With Chris Crickmay, she created a film Dance Without Steps and co-authored two handbooks on sourcing creative work: Body Space Image (1990) and A Widening Field (2004). She has worked extensively in the field of arts and health as documented in her most recent book, When I Open My Eyes - Dance Health Imagination (2017)

Lucia Walker

Lucia Walker has been teaching Alexander Technique internationally to both individuals and groups since 1987. She is also a movement artist and teacher specialising in contact improvisation and ‘instant’ composition, teaching and collaborating in dance, physical theatre, communication and movement research projects (Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative and Flatfoot Dance Company, South Africa, Rosetta Life, England). She works with a wide range of people including young people, people with chronic illness, professional musicians and singers. Working with performers is a particular interest and Lucia works regularly with classical musicians, singers, actors and dancers. She is also involved in Alexander Technique teacher training and assessment of readiness to teach Alexander Technique.