Let “ Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making A True Move” work with people in the field of life.
- A reflection of the first online book-club of ‘Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making A True Move’- traditional Chinese edition
“How can people recognize the wisdom of the body in the form of words to enhance self-awareness, perception of the field and seeing of the system? This is the question that has been lingering in my mind when I was translating and preparing for the publication of Arawana Hayashi’s book: Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making A True Move’. In particular, We live in a world where efficiency is always over emphasized and quick solutions are needed, and where society as a whole is mostly skeptical and rejecting of the body’s wisdom.
For this reason, during the translation process, we and the author, Arawana Hayashi, kept asking ourselves what kind of relationship we wanted to create with the reader. Was it about pursuing a professional career path, or did we want the text to be written in an approachable way so that readers would want to dive in the book and begin to practice the exercises in it? The author, Arawana, was very respectful of our local ideas, and she made it clear what she was trying to do with the book and its publication. So, we have unanimously presented the book in traditional Chinese with the hope that it will support readers in (re)discovering their relationship with their bodies, and that the collective wisdom of the body will become a way to find new insights into the complex systems we face today, to build deep connections, and to see the possibilities of our collective future as humans and all species on the planet in the face of complex systemic issues.
Hence, we invited the author, Arawana, to share her creative process and guide the participants to try the body awareness exercises when the book was published and launched in traditional Chinese on 20 September 2022. We hope that when readers read the book, they will not only understand the text, but also experience the feelings and discoveries brought by each exercise in the book. So we decided to design an online book club, that is ‘not just reading’ but a ‘collective reading’ through the body’s embodiment of shared perception. In addition to myself as the translator and SPT Practitioner, I also invited an improvisational dancer and Philosopher, Ms. Mei-Kwong Li , to co-design/guide a series of book readings for three months, and we had a wonderful 17 hours together in total in eight meetings.
We had a diverse group of participants signed up for our first online book reading club, ranging from theater performers, improvisational dancers, university professors, Tai-Chi masters, coaches, and retired civil servants, etc. At the beginning of each reading, Mei-Kwong and I would lead different mindfulness methods (including 20 minutes Dance) as an opening for each book reading session, and then we would embody the exercises according to each reading chapter to create a space for resonance, and finally, we would have a generative dialogue about the words described in the book. At this point, the words in the book have been transformed from lead print on the page into a more vivid and multi-dimensional sensory experience. Before the end of each reading session, we will see the whole journey of the reading session with an animated scribing live scribed by Jayce Pei Yu Lee and accommodated by the live improvised music score, played by a participant who’s also a professional musician, Liz Li. As for the last and our 8th session, we moved from online to in-person meet-up, practicing exercises such as Field Dance and Village, to sense the context, to co-create the experience together, to engage in a collective movement, and to witness the process of resonance, to experience that the creative process itself originates from the social field mentioned in the book, and that the gesture becomes an invitation to feel that we are all part of a larger social system. The performance becomes a mirror through which the community sees and senses itself.
One of the participants brought some of the exercises from the book to the school site so that a college student who is unfamiliar with the body can open up his inner limits and begin to practice listening to the voice of the body, and connect with his senses through simple gestures andmovements. A coach also brings the body-sensing practice into the coaching session, opening up a different dialogue with the coachee. I also bring 4-D Mapping into the organization, allowing clients to develop new strategies in a different way than before. The practice developed in Social Presencing Theater, as the book describes, it’s a way to nurture the body’s sense of presence by feeling our own bodies, rooting ourselves, and connecting to the earth. There is no need for special talent or prior training, we are just a body that trusts the body’s willingness to know, and that we do not think or plan, but remain open to new possibilities. We use simple movements that allow the body to make choices in space. This sense of abiding naturally expands our awareness to include both the social body in which we participate and the larger environmental perception (the Earth body).
In this way, we practiced and perceived truthfully! Not only through the words in Arawana’s book, but also through online and in-person gatherings, we will be able to discover new connections, unexpected and enlightening discoveries about the present and the future. We invite you to experience this moment together, full of hope and infinite possibilities …….
Our second group of online book club will start in February 2023, to be continued.
Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making A True Move, online book club animated scribing with live music score:
Act 1：https://youtu.be/Imb6qRGMdbI
Act 2：https://youtu.be/OEWLNPMkttM
Act 3：https://youtu.be/rz5HX_4SZvQ
Act 4：https://youtu.be/1ZlVtjyRYgw
Act 5：https://youtu.be/x2TSVBbjqSU
Act 6：https://youtu.be/N29jl6sFhdQ
Act 7：https://youtu.be/5Uo3NxnKstY
Act 8（offline meet-up）：https://youtu.be/70wQI3KzTVk
English Article translated by Jayce Pei Yu Lee
Original article in traditional Chinese
Book Club host by : HEREWEGO Creative 拾田創意 &︱黎美光。創意/心理。工作站
