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TL Summer School teacher Olga Masleinnikova authors chapter in newly published Body and Awareness book.

Edited by Sandra Reeve, Body and Awareness (Triarchy Press) is the third volume in the Ways of Being a Body series, designed as a guide for teachers, students, practitioners and researchers. It includes several contemporary approaches to the study and experience of embodied awareness, which is a transdisciplinary field of contemporary research and practice.

According to the new publication, embodied awareness is central to understanding everything from the creative arts to the psychology of health, from meditation to the psycho-ecology of climate change.

While the research-led chapters reveal a wide variety of interests, they share the common notion of ‘body as flux’ and support the being-becoming-being of each of us as a skilful creative entity.

Interdisciplinary creative, movement director, choreologist, creativity coach and lecturer Olga Masleinnikova is one of 20 contributing experts sharing their perspectives on Body and Awareness.

Using a practical session with actors as a case study, her chapter ‘The Instrumental Body’ explores the possibilities offered by choreology to initiate and expand sensorial awareness.

Olga explains –

“In my chapter, I present a process where an intentional shift into the attitude of Instrumental Body allows movement tools to become an awareness map for the transformation of patterns, for the experience of new inner landscapes and for creative expansion.

“I also introduce the concept of choreological order, which I find very useful for performance and devising work. I particularly resonate with the work and the explanation of Trinity Laban Senior Lecturer in Choreology, Rosemary Brandt. She says ‘the choreological order is what holds our movement together, we don’t have to think about it, we haven’t been taught how to do it, we do it because it feels natural and comfortable’.

“I demonstrate a step-by-step process on how to break the choreological order to shift from naturalistic, to stylised movement, to dance. I find it such a useful tool and I can’t wait to share it with How Movement Work participants in July.”

Olga has previously delivered on Trinity Laban’s Specialist Diploma in Choreological Studies and is the lead tutor for the conservatoire’s How Movement Works summer school, a week-long choreology course for adult practitioners from different backgrounds and disciplines who are interested in exploring movement.

This year, Trinity Laban is running How Movement Works as a five-day digital intensive from 5 to 9 July 2021.

To find out more and apply, visit our Take Part pages.

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Image credit: James Keates