Meditation in Movement: Kin(a)esthetic Flow

Abstract

Since the 1960’s, somatic approaches in dance education have flourished. Williamson (2010) and many others have identified its roots in various movement practices influenced by Eastern philosophy. My research highlights how the concept of meditation is embedded in various dance scenarios, which emerge upon the basis of somatic approaches to dance, and bring forth the notion of altered mental states during such scenarios. I incorporate Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow theory as a guiding concept to solidify and outline these altered mental states as a phenomenon, which has been explored widely in various contexts such as cognitive psychology