Body and Performance - Reviews
New Theatre Quarterly:
"Taken as a set of perspectives, this collection has much to offer scholars and practitioners alike, particularly those involved in praxical explorations of embodiment in awareness in performance art or performer training...
...the questions and perspectives included - and subsequently raised - are testament to the strength of the volume.
...Reeve has marshalled a strong set of contributors here, and her editorial notes draw out each section with preceptive and direct application."
Dr Ben Macpherson writing in New Theatre Quarterly. Read the full review here.
Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices:
"Object Relations, Corporeal Feminism and Embodied Cognition underscore much of the book’s theoretical framework and somatic practices such as Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method and Body-Mind Centring are discussed throughout for their value as performance enhancing techniques. However, the focus is less on technical accomplishment and more on how various experiences of embodiment fuel performance praxis. This focus manifests on two levels, through ‘the world of fact’, which Reeve describes as the ‘sensed and sensuous physicality of the body’ and ‘the world of dream’, which is ‘the symbolic or imaginal world’. Reeve draws these terms from Joged Amerta, a system developed by her long-time teacher, Javanese movement artist, Suprapto Suryodarmo and these themes permeate the book and intersect through the creative insights and accounts of somatic experience...
As a practitioner moving through the book, I was drawn to many new insights
made available in detailed accounts of performance praxis previously unfamiliar to me. Indeed, a real strength of this book is its ability to balance a diverse range of approaches by establishing a common point of departure from which each artist’s story unfolds. It can be overwhelming at times to shift from one chapter to another, one world to the next, with their diverse terms of reference but mostly, this richness makes for a valuable journey through the various performers’ creative worlds. The transferable knowledge uncovered between disciplines makes it a highly valuable resource for students, practitioners and scholars alike. With its attractive design and fluid writing style, it is a wonderful follow-up to the first book."
Jenny Roche writing in Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Vol. 5, Iss. 2
Read the full review online (requires access code) or as a pdf (open access)
"Object Relations, Corporeal Feminism and Embodied Cognition underscore much of the book’s theoretical framework and somatic practices such as Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method and Body-Mind Centring are discussed throughout for their value as performance enhancing techniques. However, the focus is less on technical accomplishment and more on how various experiences of embodiment fuel performance praxis. This focus manifests on two levels, through ‘the world of fact’, which Reeve describes as the ‘sensed and sensuous physicality of the body’ and ‘the world of dream’, which is ‘the symbolic or imaginal world’. Reeve draws these terms from Joged Amerta, a system developed by her long-time teacher, Javanese movement artist, Suprapto Suryodarmo and these themes permeate the book and intersect through the creative insights and accounts of somatic experience...
As a practitioner moving through the book, I was drawn to many new insights
made available in detailed accounts of performance praxis previously unfamiliar to me. Indeed, a real strength of this book is its ability to balance a diverse range of approaches by establishing a common point of departure from which each artist’s story unfolds. It can be overwhelming at times to shift from one chapter to another, one world to the next, with their diverse terms of reference but mostly, this richness makes for a valuable journey through the various performers’ creative worlds. The transferable knowledge uncovered between disciplines makes it a highly valuable resource for students, practitioners and scholars alike. With its attractive design and fluid writing style, it is a wonderful follow-up to the first book."
Jenny Roche writing in Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Vol. 5, Iss. 2
Read the full review online (requires access code) or as a pdf (open access)
"Reeve's edited collection brings together a myriad of perspectives on our moving bodies and how we may/can/do interact with our surrounding world....the writing is accessible and would make a welcome addition to the somatic library of practitioners of movement and academics...it definitely has enriched my semantic body vocabulary!"
Bronwyn Preece - Artist, author, performer and deep ecologist.
Read the review on amazon.
Bronwyn Preece - Artist, author, performer and deep ecologist.
Read the review on amazon.