Back in print: print and ebook copies available  now
(Previously published by Dance Books - this is a very lightly updated new edition)

Publisher: Triarchy Press
Publication: February 2023
​List Price: £25 use code to save £5
Format: Paperback, 322 pages
Size: 24.6 x 18.9 cm
ISBN: 978-1-913743-73-4
Tags: Dance; Modern dance; Contemporary dance; Creativity; Improvisation; Body therapy; Creative arts
About the authors: Miranda Tufnell | Chris Crickmay
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A Widening Field
journeys in body and imagination

Miranda Tufnell & Chris Crickmay
​

“Perhaps the way that the world sees itself is changing, and the divide between participant and observer, object and intelligence, is diffusing into field activity. This handbook is part of that process.” Antony Gormley

This is an inspirational handbook for working in the creative arts. It places emphasis on the imagination, creativity and being receptive to: our bodies, surroundings, materials, and to what we create.

The authors place particular emphasis on the sensing, feeling, moving body as a basis for any imaginative activity. But while A Widening Field does draw on Tufnell and Crickmay's dance and movement background, it elaborates and extends their work by drawing in creative writing and all kinds of creative work with materials.

It stresses the importance of intuitive, instinctive ways of knowing, perceiving and creating and describes sources and strategies for working in and between various forms of expression, including:
  • moving
  • making things with materials
  • writing.

It is a book designed to provoke and inspire rather than as an instruction manual. The authors intend it to be used in small amounts to stimulate a working process, rather than to be read through from cover to cover.
​
Tufnell and Crickmay's previous book, Body Space Image, addressed improvised movement, experimental  performance and how to create performance settings. A Widening Field looks at the role of imagination in our lives and how it is awakened and nourished through attention to:
  • the present
  • the feeling world of the body
  • whatever appears as we make or create art.

​In this way we enter into the poetics of our experience.

Also available, by the same author:
Body Space Image
​When I Open My Eyes

Readership

A Widening Field is a widely used resource for:
  • students and teachers in the creative arts
  • all those working creatively with others: therapeutically, educationally, or in a community context. 

Reviews

"A truly brilliant work. Experiential and inspired. For anyone interested in creativity and their own creative process. Highly recommended for people who are in education, from kindergarten to college and university. And actually a must for everyone - to widen the human field of view in a profound, playful and evocative way."
​Wim Vanaken on amazon.com

"This book was 30 years in the making, and it shows. [The authors} ... have created a rich resource for creative inspiration and self-discovery through physical, sentient experiences. This book widens the conception of the educational textbook; it is written with as many visual images as poetic passages, with white space on each page creating shapes that do more than frame the words. The recommended experiential vignettes are focused on enlivening the sensing body: “arriving into the body, into the world, becoming present”. 

The authors stimulate receptivity by illuminating the body's experiences through poetry and visual art. Reading these journeys, one gets as close as literally possible (in a book) to actual movement... This text could work magically for students who have difficulty entering metaphorical thought with their self-reflections. The text would be ideal for upper-level modern dance technique students or as the primary text for courses in experiential anatomy, improvisation, or body therapies.
Jnl of Dance Education, Vol.5, No.3