JOANNA MENDL SHAW

EMBODIED DECISION-MAKING & PHYSICAL LISTENING: THINK TANK 2025

JANUARY – MAY 2025

 

Premise I: What are the skill sets that humans (such as dancers) have?

I define these humans as people who have a heightened physical awareness gained, to a great extent, out of necessity. Survival as a dancer requires learning movement quickly and finding (different) strategies for doing so.

Premise II: Are these skills transferable to other fields, and if so where and

how?

I took my dancer skills and transferred them first to the world human-equine communication. I also developed some strategies for learning horsemanship that might take horsemanship into some useful new directions. I used my dancer skills towards developing a Physical Listening for Physicians course that my collaborator, a former dancer now a Stanford Pediatric Resident, and I currently teach.

 

Course Organization: For the first session I will give a warmup and describe my plans and hopes for collaborative research. I anticipate that you ALL will have lots of your own theories, thoughts and experiences to share. So, after the first session I hope that each of you will direct a session or portion of a session.

 

 

MULTI SENSORY LISTENING

 

Visual

Aural

Tactile

Kinesthetic

Weight Sensing

Spatial

 

Sponging

Tracking

Training

Modulation

Selection, Strategies

1st Thought, Best thought

Non-Judgmental Observation

Action, Strategies

Creative Process

Adaptability

Self-Trust

 

 

SPATIAL AWARENESS

 

Open Spaces, Closed, Triangles

Proximity, Distance

Linear, Circular

Reading Space, Feeling Space, Spatial Intent

Kinesphere

 

Architecture

Pathways

Dimensions, Planes

Scales

Cultural Differences

West African Dance

 

WEIGHT, GROUNDEDNESS, WEIGHT SENSING

 

Touch: Depth, Modulation

Emotional Content

Feeling Weight, Seeing Weight

States and Drives

Hair Skin Muscle Bone

Blind Learning: Static Position, Phrase

Lead Line Leading

Bucket Game

 

 

TIME & FLOW

 

Duration

Pulse

Meter

Speed

 

Creature Duets

Entrainment

Sensing Duration

Sensing Pulse

Sensing Speed

 

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Improvisation, Allowing, Free-Bound Modulation, Flow-Weight

 

CONCEPTS & SKILLS

Contact Improvisation

Seeing – Doing

Imperfection

Rigor

Attention

Zoom In-Zoom Out

Teamwork

Synthesizing

Recall

Creative Thinking

Compassion