Study of Somatic Communication

Project Description

Hosted by Lee-Anne Litton, the Study of Somatic Communication residency marks the Australian premiere of Dr Nita Little’s 50-year research into Contact Improvisation. The lecture demonstration of Little's work concluded the workshops offered to a diverse group of Contact Improvisation dancers from across Australia and Internationally. It was a unique opportunity for the community to learn from one of the founding pioneers, a form of knowledge that is passed from body to body.

Biography

Dr Nita Little investigates embodied attention within movement practices with a concentration on the technicities of both creative and relational practices. Through ensemble dance improvisation practice and performance, she works toward a future that recognizes our environmental entanglements and values many forms of embodied communication. A dance researcher, theorist/artist, and one of the founding developers of Contact Improvisation (CI). Little began working under Steve Paxton on materials that became CI (1972) and was a participant in the earliest performances and teaching that helped the form become significant within dance and dance communities. Within CI’s first year she developed a curiosity about the relationship of the (physical) mind and relational events. Now, she investigates ecological actions of embodied attention, particularly with respect to somatic communication between humans and beyond.

Nita received her PhD in Performance Studies with a focus on the articulation of presence and creative actions of attention (2014). Her life work is inclusive of mindbody training, performing, choreographing, researching and writing about the ethics, politics and entanglement of somatic relations. With a world-wide audience for her teaching, dance making, and lecturing, she is an activist for relational intelligence and an advocate for dancers as embodied researchers. She looks forward to returning to direct the internationally active Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (ISSC, 2016), a network of laboratories populated by dancer researchers and associate research experts from diverse fields. She lives near Seattle, in the USA. During the years of worldwide retreat she initiated online classes of 'Relational Intelligence' and 'Composing Emergence' as well as private coaching. Currently she tours throughout the year and may be found on 6 continents.

She invites you to get her monthly newsletter available by signing up at: www.nitalitte.com