Public defence: Sally Elizabeth Dean

Title of Phd : The Somatic Costume Dressing Room: Choreographing Attention through Touch & the Poetic

This research is situated between costume design and costume-based choreography, where material agency and sensorial relationships are under-researched artistically and theoretically.
Referencing the ´anthropology of the senses´, our ocularcentrism western era still prioritises visual, external experiences over the internal, tacit and tactile. This research advocates and interrogates the material and sensorial agency between costumes and bodies and the primacy of the sense of touch in the design-choreographic encounter.

My key research question is: How do we choreograph attention through the touch of Somatic Costumes?
Somatics and my training in Somatic Movement Practices are the bridge to experiencing, designing and choreographing between costume and body. Choreographing attention begins with attending to the internal, tacit, tactile experiences of the wearer - a somatic approach. Three key somatic practices from my training are applied and integrated: Skinner Releasing Technique with American Joan Skinner, Amerta Movement with Javanese Suprapto Suryodarmo and Environmental Movement with British Helen Poynor.
The methodology of ‘Wearing Research’ activates material and sensorial agency through exploring the effects of materials on bodies through different dressing rituals. What is the artistic and performative potential of dressing/undressing? How can the costume become the choreographer?

This research builds upon my ongoing collaborative Somatic Movement, Costume and Performance Project (SMCPP) since 2011, where Somatic Costumes were designed to elicit psychophysical awareness in the wearer starting through the sense of touch or ´haptic´. The SMCPP Project began opening the important need in costume and choreography discourse to further understand the role of the live body and touch in artistic practice and research.

How can the role of the live body and touch in choreography and design practices further develop as method, practice and artistic results through the Somatic Costume? What if Somatic Costumes could be co-designed in the moment, from the wearer´s psycho-physical needs – such as rest, grief, or reconnection to the heart? Performatively, how can the Somatic Costume extend into the environment as sensorial scenography and activate the poetic imagination?

The final artistic outcomes aim to contribute to both costume and choreography discourse and contexts. They include three key formats. First, guided one-to-one sessions (The Somatic Costume Dressing Room). Second video documentation of the immersive sensorial costume-based performance (Give Them Wings & We Shall See Their Faces). And third, an online and printed PDF written reflection with somatic and immersive experiences embedded inside via QR codes linked to Research Catalogue. Additional outcomes include three peer-reviewed publications.