Somatic Composition and Embodied Filmmaking

case study on practice and practitioners through the example of a Creative Lab

Abstract

How do we film from the body, and how do we embody (moving)images? How do we make film, when we invite a somatic approach into filmmaking? What do we film, when we film with and from not only our exteroception but invite as well our interoception into the process? What do we film, when we film bodies in motion or in stillness? How can we transmit the quality of space around and within the body?

Among others, these questions were the starting points for the Creative Lab[1] in Tallinn, entitled Somatic Composition and Embodied Film, which I facilitated in March 2024, in partnership with Somaatikum, center for Body Mind Centering® education in Estonia, SZOME Association for Somatic Education and Movement in Hungary, and TantsuRUUM (Estonia). The workshop and lab aimed to directly apply somatic practice – in this case Body-Mind Centering^®, or BMC^® – to the creative process, to inform and generate both the movement (dance) practice and the filmmaking practice. Within this one week, we dived into our somatic self, into our living bodies, while also studying contemporary and embodied film theories and examples. From these sources participants started their creative work. It's important to note, that the frame of the lab was a low-tech approach of filmmaking in a limited time. The outcomes of the lab may therefore be experimental short films - complete as they are -, or drafts for a future film.

The case study examines the dance- and somatic practice that lays behind these works, the working method and the way of participation and facilitation in dialogue with each other. It includes reflection on the process and on the moving image works that were created along this process. It includes reflections not only by the author of this article, and facilitator of the Lab, but also by the participants.