Moving Meditations: Embodying Bartenieff Fundamentals through sensorial awareness of breath, bones and gravity
Helen Kindred
Dance, Movement & Spiritualities December 1, 2021 DOI: 10.1386/dmas_00026_1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Interventions | Bartenieff Fundamentals guided meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that Bartenieff Fundamentals, particularly the Principle of Breath Support, can serve as a framework for imagery-based guided meditation, and that this embodied practice reveals a dialogic relationship between form and fluidity, somatic moving and spiritual connectivity, framing body-space-environment as a transactional space of self-care. |
Abstract
This article shares a somatic approach to the practice of meditation reflecting on experiences of facilitating meditation classes for others as well as my own personal practice. I share my application of Bartenieff Fundamentals as a framework for meditation, outlining the language of the body it offers for imagery-based guided meditation ‐ a process of embodied fundamentals. Through exploring the relationship between my practice of Bartenieff Fundamentals and a somatic approach to being in the world, I question how Bartenieff’s Principle of Breath Support may guide a practice of meditation and how in this process of embodiment we might shade, tone and strengthen meditation as a process of somatic engagement, revealing a dialogic relationship between form and fluidity, somatic moving and spiritual connectivity. The use of the voice, heightened sensorial awareness through imagery of breath, bones and gravity are considered through this practice of guided meditations: an embodying of body‐space‐environment as a transactional space of self-care. Presented through different modalities of formal text, notes from practice, movement scores and images, I invite readers to engage with this work through reading, moving and meditating.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |