INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF SOMATIC COMMUNICATION

I am working in Sydney, Australia with Leighann Kowalsky, our Global Coordinator, and amidst the work here, we are thinking about you and all that is happening for our reemerging organization.

First, may we wish you all an incredibly Happy New Year!

Each of you is important to us even though the busy-ness of our worlds often creates the appearance that we lose track of you. We don't. Your presence is our purpose and the support of our very existence.

Following New Year customs in the USA at least, we are thinking of what we want to accomplish with you this year and what resolutions we need to make to see these dreams happen. Here is what I, Nita, think – I’ll let Leighann speak for herself.  

Nita’s New Year 2025 resolutions

• Contact all of you and get a grasp of who we, ISSCers, actually are – collect a comprehensive master list and continue to update it. Make this list available to you through the ISSC website. 

• Solidify our flexible structure (no contradiction here!) and help people locate themselves within it so that they know what is expected of them and their cohorts. 

• Get coLabs started having their meetings, whether or not they are ready to do research. Dancing is the critical piece and ensemble dance practice needs to precede research. So, the better the ensemble dancing the more ready we are to begin to research together. Relational acumen and care is key. So, I assure everyone they have something to start right away, before specific research training.

• Define what successful ensemble dancing is. Hmmm this part is super fun and I will put my mind to it with words, but also by sending you scores to work with so that you can build movement agreements, language, and familiarity with the subtle and dynamic aspects of touch – the intimacy that comes through practice. In the immediate moment, I think you can begin to study what Contact Improvisation has to offer your ensemble movement, not so much in terms of its action or technical skills, but rather in terms of what it offers us metaphorically about relations between, among, and as movers engaged in movement events. 

• Build a portfolio of movement meditations and trance inductions for you to guide your progress. Make these available online. A movement meditation is a guided practice of attentional suggestions originating with the individual but ultimately meant to be felt across the ensemble. A trance induction is meant to offer individual practice in state changes with the purpose of enriching each member’s base of possibility. 

• I want to be more intimately connected with the members who developed and coordinate the CoLabs – those I am now calling “Lead Researchers.” This means I need to discipline myself to connect on a more regular basis and not just as per necessity. Would you like that too?

Ok! That's a lot and I hope you share in my resolutions. This is the start. I now offer this letter to Leighann (sounds like Lee-Anne, for those of you who stumble over her name).

Read on and enjoy! 

Warmly,

Nita

As Nita shared, we both write to you from Sydney, Australia. For me, it's been a bit transition to go from the hibernation of the North American East, to the thick of summer here in the opposite hemisphere.

Days are long and busy, with over 40 CI dancers working hard on their training. Still, we have ISSC on the brain, and are moving forward in various capacities! For me, I feel entirely committed to supporting our Colabs with resources - so a huge part of my time has been in researching, incubating and pursuing grants and funding to support our organizational operations, and by extension, our Colabs. We've secured our first grant through Arts Mid Hudson, which will support a training in Wallkill, NY this April. Receiving a first grant adds viability to future, so I'm hoping to continue rolling with positive request results into the summer!

When I can be with Nita at workshops and trainings in person, I serve this sort of function we've come to call "sweeping". In collaboration with the hosts/producers, I keep track of the participants who might be struggling with material, I step out if we have an odd number of dancers, I serve as a bit of a swing - finding and then meeting the needs of the group. It is precious to also be able to do some training, when all is aligned for the larger group! I've been feeling so stimulated with this material here, and notice often, the ways in which co-creation and ensemble practice open opportunities in somatic research. The potentials feel intoxicating, exciting, and somehow a bit urgent.

I admit I have fewer "resolutions" to report, than Nita does. You'll find me "sweeping" at the base of all of hers, in fact! Doing my very best to bring those excellent goals into fruition. One "deliverable" detail I am working on is a bit of a guiding packet for new Colabs and Lead Facilitators to have the materials they need to get going. How many meetings? For How Long? What if we only have xx number of dancers? How do we report our findings? and so on. I've also been experimenting with using a form of AI to support the CoLabs in analyzing and collating their data - let's let the AI do that labor, so we can do the fun part - right?

Let's keep going, let's keep talking, let's keep learning, let's keep dancing!

More soon,

Leighann

NEXT UP:

Jan 28 - 31 - ISSC Training at the MARCS Institute, Sydney, Australia

April 21 - 24 - ISSC Training at Wildheart Center, Wallkill, New York

May 11 - 14 - ISSC Training in Berlin, Germany

TBA - West Coast ISSC Training

Registrations will be made available in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned through our website!

www.SomaticCommunication.com