As co-authors of this article, we have worked in different constellations over several months and in a joint research lab in 2024, on the question of the relationship between collective curating and dance-related practices. Although our professional activities can be placed in the larger context of the performative arts, our short CVs already illustrate different positionalities. Hanna, trained in dance at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, holds a diploma in somatic movement education from the Body-Mind Centering School and works as a choreographer and contemporary dancer in France. Valerie, trained in contemporary dance, works as a choreographer and performance artist, initiates community projects for underprivileged people with mental and physical disabilities and addictions in the Parisian banlieues, and works as a coach for performative presence in French film. Nicole studied theater and is a professor of dance studies; she also teaches curating in the performative arts and works as a dramaturg. Different family backgrounds and socializations (mainly Sweden, Ethiopia, Austria, France) and body techniques (ballet, modern dance, body-mind centering, contemporary dance techniques) have each contributed to a particular "formatting of the body". (Hanna Hedman)

Fascinatingly, when we first met and despite all our differences, we could immediately recall a beloved common practice, namely the collective warming up of bodies in dance education and rehearsal processes. The memories of this recall initiated the gentle arrival of a group into a shared space, often beginning with lying on the floor and accompanied by a spatial mindfulness. Here, in the warming up of bodies recognized as vulnerable, a collective bonding takes place that forms the basis for any further action, but whose potentiality has hardly been reflected due to its supposed self-evidence. Despite the beautifully discursive and theoretically conclusively argued relationality in the curatorial context, in our opinion there is still a gap between the proclamation of the ideal curatorial condition for all participants and the curatorial processes in practice.[1] The guiding question of our research for this issue of OnCurating.org was therefore how curatorial collectives can be "warmed up" in relation to the body and "tuned in" to each other through dance. This question, which at first glance seems to reduce complexity, is based on two fundamental and independent experiences in the curatorial field, be it on one ‘front’ as an artist or on the other ‘front’ as a curator or as an intermediary between the two.

As a first experience, the three of us are all too familiar with the standardized and conventionalized protocol of a curatorial conversation, which usually takes place face-to-face in the offices of institutions, cafés, or currently (according to neoliberal production logics and work mechanisms) often on Zoom. In this asymmetrical constellation, sitting face to face or communicating in a virtual world, it is often decided which artistic forms of articulation are worth showing and promoting and which, for various reasons, cannot be ‘programmed’.

The second, more beloved and less discursive experience described in the introduction is quite different, namely the warm-up in dance or rehearsal processes or the ritual gestures before performances, in which our bodies meet and are tuned in with collective gestures, guided in different ways, carefully and without judgment. While the curatorial "table situation," to put it formulaically, is usually accompanied by a cool distance and the vertical alignment of bodies in space, the horizontal ‘warm-up situation’ potentially creates a (touching) closeness between bodies that are respected as vulnerable. One situation is subject to the prism of choreography as a prescribed law,[2] but in the literally shared warm-up, bodies temporarily become a performative collective. Admittedly, these are two exaggeratedly formulated pars pro toto situations against a horizon of experience based on our positionalities. Nevertheless, we would like to argue that these are two common experiences in the field of curating performative arts.

In the following, we would like to explore the potential of warm-up exercises for trans-individual and collective curating. According to our thesis, warm-up exercises can be used to "unlearn" fixed social patterns and a "habitus" in the relationship between "curator/artist," as well as a rigid attitude towards canon and aesthetics. They also support an implicit kind of learning that is closer to the etymology of Old High German learning in the sense of feeling and sniffing. Remarkably, learning in the proper sense of the word refers to the near senses (touch and smell) rather than the far senses (sight and hearing). The connection between curating in the performing arts and embodied practices is a major blind spot in our mainly ocular-centric theory: with a few exceptions, there is hardly any research literature (and case studies) on the subject. Presumably, the seated position defines the curatorial profession and curatorial action in the ‘Western’ context. The paradigm shifts in the curatorial field (decolonization, critique of power, care practices) calls for a reflection on the relevance and implementation of other practices in the curatorial field: "Somatics encourage embodied thinking and help to tune and train attention, bringing mind and body together."[3]

However, the term somatic practices, a collective term that we also used many times at the beginning of our research, is considered problematic and controversial in current discourse. Etymologically, "soma" is borrowed from the Greek sômatikos, the adjective to soma, literally translatable as body.[4] As Isabell Ginot convincingly argues in From Shusterman's Somaesthetics to Radical Epistemology of Somatics, the history of European or "Western" dance from the early modern period to modernity is characterized by dance-related practices that can be situated on the periphery of dance as an art form.[5] These are, for example, physical exercises in medicine or gymnastics, which, we would like to add here, can be identified as resonances of an ancient discourse on the body. First, in the artistic colonies of Central European modernism, such as Monte Verità, founded by pioneers of so-called "free" dance or expressionist dance such as Rudolf von Laban or Mary Wigman, harmony-creating exercises became fundamental to utopian designs for a new community. And secondly, the medical discourse protects gymnastic exercises as a daily routine for modeling bodies ready for war according to heteronormative parameters––whether of male bodies going to the battlefield or of women whose bodies would literally and metaphorically produce a new athletic generation.[6]

During and after the Second World War, with its countless dead and wounded bodies, this discourse lost its potency in its interweaving of body and community. In the first two decades of the second half of the twentieth century, they were mainly used to prevent injuries or to rehabilitate the body in dance training, until Thomas Hanna finally introduced the term somatic practices as a collective term into the discourse in the 1970s. At that time, it was implicitly profiled as a counter-model to traditional dance techniques oriented towards virtuosity.[7] As Isabell Ginot convincingly demonstrates, a specific genealogy of somatic practices—especially those of the pioneers Moshe Feldenkrais (Feldenkrais Technique), Frederick Matthias Alexander (Alexander Technique) or Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (Body-Mind Centering), who are considered to be the founding generation—goes hand in hand with a kind of pseudoscientific approach in which questionable medical evidence is presented and charged with subjectivist narratives of belief and experience regarding their efficacy.[8] In addition, Isabell Ginot criticizes the establishment of somatics and somaesthetics as an autonomous and theory-based academic discipline, launched by Richard Shusterman and others in the 2000s, which are currently and widely accepted as particular body knowledge.[9]

Two questionable aspects can be uncovered here: firstly, somatic practices are ascribed an "efficiency" that tends to be based on dichotomies such as right/wrong or good/bad for individuated bodies. And secondly, in the current discourse, somatic practices become one of specific techniques for the fabrication of an idealized body model whose inclusions and exclusions based on norms and ideologies are little reflected upon:

“The methods Shusterman's book favors—supported not only by reference to Alexander and Feldenkrais but also through Yoga, tau-chi-chuan, or zazen—have these elements in common: they favor slowness, a feeble articulatory amplitude, a minimum of muscular effort, and, above all, an attention directed toward the self. They are all solitary techniques [...] My [Isabel Ginot’s] hypothesis is the following: behind the insistence on the singularity of each corporeality, most somatic methods have as a backdrop a homogenous, universal, ahistorical, and occidental body.”[10]

Despite its numerous global circulations of bodily techniques (adapted to this scheme), the 'western' 20th century has largely remained stuck in the anthropocentric self-reference of a mode of being in the world.[11] This dominant and autoreferential "corpo-reality" hinders collective thought and action, as is elaborated in the current performance discourse with reference to the concept of transindividuality elaborated by the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon[12] back in the 1990s: "The concern with the self is cloaked on a singular level in an etho-poetics of existence which obfuscates the political and social reasons to think and act collectively."[13] In the context of neoliberal shaping and socialization, the reference to the "pre-individual" and "trans-individual" common—key terms in Simondon’s concept—, according to the guiding thesis of this discursive current, is supposed to unleash ethical, emancipatory and political potential.

The concept of trans-individual community is based on a sharp distinction from identitarian, nationalist or fascist models. The new paradigm here is the creation of a processual community that is constantly exposed to collective processes of individuation, in which the individual, the collective, and the milieu are interdependent and ultimately conceivable only as a relation. Although Ana Vujanović and Bojana Cvejić continue to formulate a legitimate critique of somatic techniques and bodywork focused solely on the optimized individual in commercialized mainstream culture, the body-related and dance-related potential for trans-individual processes of community building remains hidden. Furthermore, and this is a second point of criticism, the key question "How much potential do we have to go beyond our individual selves?" is based on an implicitly "Western" socialized us.[14]

Although a discourse, historically founded and critical perspectives on somatic practices as an increasingly solitary technique are urgently required, we believe that over-criticism runs the risk of misjudging the potentialities of dance-related practices in the context of collective curating. We would therefore like to make a distinction between somatic and dance-related practices. While somatic practices have literally taken on a life of their own as a label since the 2000s and are increasingly circulating outside of an artistic context, we start from the following parameters—based on our shared situatedness, despite our differences in terms of cultural origin or profession, and in a contemporary dance context. Firstly, we think that form and depth do not form a duality, but that the exploration of the depth of structured movements can produce an explosion of energies, vibrations and sensations. Secondly, the relational relationship between aesthetics and ethics in the sense of bodies taking care is of specific relevance in a dance-related context; thirdly, we assume a shared existence in the world in which we are constantly moving in relation to others and that the way these movements move towards and away from each other, with more or less touch, with more or less speed, can be adapted contextually with sensitivity and co-responsibility.

Thinking along an imaginary warm-up training for curatorial collectives, we would like to conclude by presenting two prototypical exercises that, on the one hand, go far beyond the solitary and self-referential paradigm of somatic practices and, on the other hand, consider the complexity and diversity of a temporary community. Two trans-individual and two collectively oriented exercises are proposed, conceived by Valerie and Hanna based on three criteria and contextually adapted specifically for collective curating: (one) non-judgmental, (two) between labeled and unlabeled, and (three) horizontal. Each of these exercises is to be understood as an accumulation of a dance practice by Hanna or Valerie, which is here for the first time passed on to curating collectives in a kind of provisional score.

I Warm-Up for Transindividual Curating

Exercise 1
Hanna Hedman: Three Fluids

This exercise is based on the somatic practice of Body-Mind Centering[15]  and was developed by Hanna Hedman especially for a group tuning-in. Each person in the room—guided by Hanna/a facilitator—explores three different qualities of movement connected to bodily fluids in their own body: cerebrospinal fluid (light, gentle), synovial fluid in joints (fast, flowing in different directions) and blood fluid heart/artery (rhythmic, directional).[16] People move in each mode for several minutes. Each person then chooses a movement quality according to their state of mind and embodies this state with a more than human conception of the world and movement: for example, coral (cerebral), octopus (jointless), or elephant (heart-rhythmic). The result is a non-judgmental and open resonance space, an ecologically conscious environment between all bodies or entities in the room.

Exercise 2
Valerie Oberleithner: Authentic Movement (a version)

Authentic Movement is an established somatic practice that can be practiced in pairs or groups.[17] In the context of our research, it has been specified by Valerie Oberleithner for the tuning-in of groups and here in particular of collectives in the context of curating, firstly to generate empathy and secondly to create a non-judgmental working atmosphere. Tuning in has the potential to dissolve existing hierarchies or conflicts between participants, and to motivate the assumption of responsibility and care within the group. The instructions Valerie wrote as a warm-up exercise for transindividual curating are as follows:

Come together in pairs. Partner one moves with closed eyes for seven minutes. The person moves from within. The person tries not to force the movement, but to listen to what comes... Partner two watches Partner one move. Partner two sits at a good distance from Partner one so that the person can observe the movements well. While observing, Partner two puts his or her body in a comfortable and alert position. If Partner one is in danger (for example, falling or bumping into an object), Partner two approaches Partner one quickly and carefully. Partner two places his body between the object and the body of Partner one. This is how Partner two protects Partner one. When the alarm bell rings (after seven minutes), the couple comes together. Partner two begins by describing the sensation. Try to stay descriptive. Avoid interpretation. Then partner one tells what was experienced during the movement. You can describe feelings, sensations, images, imaginations. While one partner speaks, the other simply listens. Change roles.

Warm-up for Collective Curating

Exercise 1
Valerie Oberleithner: The Mirror

This exercise, in which a curating collective is physiologically tuned in through the activation of mirror neurons in singular bodies, evokes empathy, mutual listening, a non-judgmental encounter beyond hierarchical structures.[18] It is inspired by Keith Hennessy's inclusive community projects, in which a connection between people is motivated without verbal battles.[19] The exercise begins with the following introduction: "When one person performs a movement and an opposite person/multiple people perform the same movement in mirror image, mirror neurons become active in the performer's cerebral system, activating empathy. (With this exercise we can potentially create a non-judgmental atmosphere in the collective. Each person is free to participate actively or to observe the situation".

After this introduction, one participant stands visibly opposite the group and demonstrates movements to the rhythm of freely chosen music, preferably danceable songs from club culture. The group mirrors this person's movements. Then another person steps out of the group and the first person becomes part of the mirroring collective. Each person should be given the opportunity to share their movement phrase with the group. The movements should be slow and as simple as possible in the beginning. Once the collective is in tune, more complicated phrases can be tried in a playful way.

Exercise 2
Hanna Hedman: The String Contact

The String Contact begins with the group dividing into pairs.[20] Two people take a string of wool (about 1.5 meters long) in one hand and move around the room together. After a few minutes, the task is to keep the string taut between the two people and to feel who gives impulses and in what way (active/passive, tempo, modulation of energy). Finally, a third person (and two string) is added to each pair. The person in the middle now feels impulses from two directions and begins to balance them. The collective of three moves around the room together with several other collectives of three. After a few minutes, another person moves to the middle position. “Observe how you react” (Hanna Hedman): The singular person experiences how they act physically and in movement in group constellations and which social patterns can be experienced here: more impulse-giving or absorbing, too responsible or letting others do it? Depending on the decision and the needs of the group, the levels can remain the same or be gently raised, for example through the task of forming different patterns (choreographic prism) or using different movement techniques.

"You are connected" (Hanna Hedman): This exercise is primarily used to connect and deepen kinesthetic empathy between groups of two or three, with special attention to the larger group in the room. It explores a shared experience and expands awareness of small and large events. This physical experience can be used as a soft skill in the act of curating. Through the gentle guidance of a facilitator and/or group reflection after the practice, co-responsibility and socially driven imagination are released as potential in collective curating.

These four warm-up exercises, developed for trans-individual and collective curating, motivate states such as grounding, empathy, bonding, and resonance to varying degrees. In this sense, they are to be understood as soft skills and potential tools. By practicing Three Liquids, Authentic Movement, String Contact and Mirror Exercise, (our) bodies in their singular vulnerability become responsible bodies, bodies that test care and concern as a shared experience in a safe space before or during exposure to increasingly precarious and harsh realities.

Nicole Haitzinger is a dance and theater scholar, professor at Paris-Lodron University Salzburg, and co-leader of the university course Curating in the Performing Arts. She curates and dramaturgs international projects.

Hanna Hedman is a dancer and choreographer, trained at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and in Somatic Movement. She has lived in France since 1996 and works internationally in numerous collaborations.

Valerie Oberleithner, an Austrian choreographer and performer in Paris, explores dance and choreography to promote empowerment and a reflection on body politics. She teaches across Europe and works in French cinema as a coach for performative presence.