Practice Research through Creative Bodies: Perspectives on Embodied Inquiry

This anthology brings a focus to practice research in which moving bodies and creative processes are imperatives. It brings together a diverse range of researchers and performers who present innovative research through single authored and co-authored projects that trouble the notion that there are limited ways of researching and performing. As the anthology unfolds, readers are invited to consider the many different ways in which (em)bodied research and performance generates new knowledge; that is new ways of seeing the world. The approaches include phenomenology, new materialism, posthumanism, arts-based research, autoethnography, case study and ecofeminist methodologies. The wide range of methodologies performed in the book illustrate the multiple (infinite) possibilities of practice research, each of which are uniquely situated within personal, professional, spacio-temporal and socio-political contexts that enable inquiry to emerge and submerge as responsive processes. The contributors represent a wide representation from mother-artists, to psychoanalytic practitioners, to community dance artists, to performers, to somatic therapists to arts psychotherapists. Their research and performance includes non-stylised movement, improvisational dance and dance as participation in the world. This book democratises the idea that creative moving bodies are a practice research resource that can enable each of us to become part of the wider world. It is a useful resource for students, researchers and professionals in art therapies, somatic practice and arts performance.