Somatics

[6] At that time, the increased popularity of phenomenology and existentialism in philosophy led philosophers such as John Dewey and Rudolf Steiner to advocate experiential learning.

Meanwhile, choreographers such as Isadora Duncan, Rudolf von Laban, and Margaret H'Doubler challenged traditional European conceptions of dance, introducing newly expressive and open-ended movement paradigms.

[16] Throughout the twentieth century, this founding generation's practices were codified and passed on by their students, some of whom, including Anna Halprin, Elaine Summers, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen,[6] and Lulu Sweigard, went on to establish their own influential schools or styles.

[17] In the 1970s, American philosopher and movement therapist Thomas Hanna introduced the term "somatics" to describe these related experiential practices collectively.

[16] In recent decades, the field of somatics has grown to include dance forms like contact improvisation and Skinner Releasing Technique, and has been used in occupational therapy, clinical psychology, and education.

[15][25] Aikido is a Japanese martial art that includes internal awareness and an emotional state of non-aggression; some styles emphasize this with separate "ki development" training.

[28] The method's founder, Joseph Pilates, emphasized the somatic principles of mind-body connection, tracking of proprioceptive observations, and attention to breath.

[32] Some dance educators use somatic principles and training, especially Laban Movement Analysis, Ideokinesis, Alexander, and Feldenkrais, in performative technique classes.

These practices may include making corrections with touch, in addition to verbal instructions; focusing on energy and process, instead of the physical shapes they produce; and deliberately relaxing habitually-overused muscles.

[37] Warwick Long claims that using somatics in dance training, by strengthening dancers' knowledge of the soma, makes their technique more "intrinsic, internal and personalised".

[46] Although not strongly aligned with any particular spiritual tradition, somatics literature generally views Christianity and other monotheistic religions unfavorably and favors an eclectic mix of non-Western approaches to the sacred, including those of Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and various kinds of Shamanism.

[26][47] Spirituality is a component of the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, a leader in contemporary somatics who incorporates elements of Zen Buddhism with modern dance and Laban Movement Analysis.