A way to embodiment through aesthetic relationship: Transformational body tracings

Abstract

This chapter presents the method of Transformational Body Tracings (TBT), which can be used to promote embodiment in the training and practice of DMT. It involves the use of a visual medium, the Full-Body Outline integrated within movement experientials. Movers keep filling in their TBTs in sessions that extend over a period of time. Consequently, it becomes a visual diary where the movers express their bodily sensations that are evoked during movement experiences. The process of moving between the kinesthetic and visual forms of expression creates a feedback loop where each process feeds into and expands on the other. Over time, the TBT becomes a creative/aesthetic container where multiple layers of bodily experience find form, are integrated and transformed. Drawing on movers’ written reflections about their process and the photographs that catalogue the maturation of individual TBT’s, this chapter aims at highlighting the various mechanisms through which the use of TBT may lead to a growth in the sense of embodiment. We aim to account for the experiential/phenomenological, creative/symbolic and neuropsychological levels of the experience and to provide insights into the pathways to the development of body awareness. © 2021 Taylor & Francis.