Searching for Bliss: Insights and challenges in yoga and contemporary dance choreography

Abstract

In this article I discuss a research project exploring how yoga-based movement motifs might be developed within choreography for performance, while retaining a focus on wellbeing for all involved. In attending to our wellbeing, I consider creative processes, preparation, rehearsals, sequencing of the movements in the choreography and the choice of specific yoga movements. Within the process of creating two dance works, a number of insights and challenges arose relating to our diverse and shared understandings of wellbeing, and also our integrity in performance. Drawing on research findings in the form of dancers' reflections, images from the performances, my choreographer's journal notes and our embodied methodology, I combine different representational methods to share some of these insights and challenges.