Tide motion: Ecoperformance, somatic wisdom and Merger as Research

This article explores the application of somatics in the methodology of Practice as Research (PaR) through ecoperformances in aquatic environments. For the past fifteen years, I have been devising a PaR approach based on Somatics, dance theatre and performative practices, called Somatic-Performative Research (SPR). Through SPR, I have been exploring Laban/Bartenieff Movement System and Authentic Movement in fluid environments, especially the seashore and in the ocean. Influenced by Warren Lamb’s Posture Gesture Merger, I named this unfolding Merger as Research. The current text discusses the somatic premises of this PaR approach, and its role in today’s hectic living circumstances. This discussion is particularly relevant to me as mother of a 20-year-old severe autistic adolescent. Within a hydro-centric context, somatics and ecoperformance generate a neurodiverse modality of PaR, which validates a multiplicity of wisdom beyond what is considered as purely rational. This approach intends to honour different pathways towards much broader forms of knowledge, including more-than-human. Intelligence is no longer a quantitative data produced by an accelerated and abstract (human) mind but rather integrated modes of interacting, learning and growing with/in an ever-changing environment.