What happens when we embrace not knowing?

Content warning

None

The short story

Sitting with a pencil in hand, poised, lead touching paper… waiting for words… a story…

Open space… suspended nothingness… a void.

The vastness of the empty landscape overwhelms. I wait, listen closely, hear, feel my breath, my heart beating.

The cold of the tiled floor penetrates the sole of my right foot, the left one hangs, left leg crossed over the right.

I come to realise that there is no story, it’s just me and you, the reader, sharing this moment.

I wonder where you are, do you also feel the sole of your right foot?

Are you sensing the wave of your breath? The expanding weave of your ribs unfurling and condensing like the accordion of a forró song.

Merging past with present, remembering the pattern of steps from forró dancing days, the joy in the air as bodies spiral, entwine and unwind.

Practicing alone feels different.

Duets require tuning to another, listening through touch and movement. The space between fills with substance, merges and transforms, like blood filled hands touching skin and enlivening receptors.

We don’t know where we will begin or end, but that is the joy of dancing the unknown, the unwritten, writing itself into being through the dance.

This story was originally written in English.

The paper

Dowler, L. (2016). Can improvised somatic dance reduce acute pain for young people in hospital. Nursing Children and Young People, 28(9), 20-25. https://doi.org/10.7748/ncyp.2016.e740

Connection between story and paper

The paper articluates the effects of improvised somatic dance (ISD) for children and young people experiencing acute pain following orthopaedic or cardiac surgery, or an acquired brain injury. ISD draws on postmodern dance traditions of improvisation and instant composition and the somatic practice of Body Mind Centering®.

The study involved 25 children and young people and adopted a mixed methods approach. This included a descriptive qualitative approach to help the participants and witnesses verbalise their experiences, and pain scores, using validated pain assessment tools. Following a session of ISD, 92% of participants experienced a reduction in pain, with 80% experiencing a more than 50% reduction. There was an improved sense of well-being for all. In summary, although not a replacement for pharmacological treatments, a multidimensional, child-centred and inclusive approach with ISD can be a useful complementary, non-pharmacological method of pain management in children and young people.

The story mirrors the process of the dance researcher entering a session with a child or young person in the study paper. Like the writer, for the dancer, what will emerge is unknown. Yet, by offering and holding a creative space, a shift in perception, in bodily state and experience, takes place. This shift is co-created and might be into moving or dancing, talking or drawing, or it may be towards rest. The dancer accompanies the child on their journey, delicately attending moment to moment.

The author

Lisa is an independent dance artist and researcher inspired by Contact Improvisation, Instant Composition and Body-Mind Centering®. Since 2006 she has been a resident artist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, UK.