Long Covid and Embodied Practice

 

I have been further exploring the positivist and non positivist view points on life, research and my practice. Lea’s recent blog reminded me of the first time that I really questioned western medicine. I suppose I was bought up with the view that when it comes to medicine there is a more positivist view point in the sense of this is the research and therefore it must be trustworthy. However when I was recovering from the main Covid infection all was going well and although I was tired, I was confident after about 17 days that I was on the road to recovery and that all was well. But how wrong I was. That evening I had probably the worst night of my life, couldn’t breathe properly and was literally struggling so much that I ended up with paramedics and then going to A&E. After numerous tests showing very little I was told that the reality was they didn’t know if this was the same infection or if I had caught it again (although I was later told this could not have been the case). They also did not know the cause of my symptoms and simply told me that covid is a new virus and they simply didn’t know. I respected this. Unfortunately with this experience I was also experiencing judgement as a young person with covid. The treatment from the hospital lacked any real emotional support and I felt supreme guilt for being unwell and contributing to the burden of the NHS. I waited in an isolated room for 5 hrs and had to ask to be able to go to the toilet and they had to bring a commode in leaving no hand sanitizer or anything. It was a humiliating experience, and I was glad to leave the hospital, because I felt that however unwell I was I did not want to be a burden to others. But I also saw that the staff themselves were traumatized and that another covid patient was the last thing they needed. But undoubtably this also impacted my recovery, and I did not want to be around people for weeks in fear of still being infectious.

I think this was one of the most frightening aspects of the whole experience – there were no answers. They couldn’t tell me whether I would make a full recovery or not or if I would ever get better. 3 months later I was still struggling. Although in time gradual improvements allowed me to return to life, my recovered self is not the same person and I think I have not been truly honest in acknowledging that. I still struggle with memory problems, susceptibility to infections, vision problems which can’t be explained, headaches and very strange circulation issues in my hands. All symptoms which came post covid.

Long Covid remains a challenge for medics and although research is being conducted, they still don’t have answers and yet somehow these sufferers still need to keep living their lives and navigating daily symptoms and so many unknowns.

I believe it was at this point that my notions of positivism altered, and I began to realise that world is complicated and that perhaps not all answers are definitive anyway.  Recovery taught me that my mind and body were not separate entities, and that continued progress required me to address both aspects of mind and body. Burkitt describes Cartesian dualism as body being ‘located in time and space’ and ‘separate from a mind that was a substance in itself, but immaterial, non-temporal and non-spatial substance’ (1999, p.17) But I feel that as an artist you can only reach a true point of artistic integrity if you have reached a point of embodiment. I have not yet reached that point as an artist and I feel that it is the amalgamation between the knowledge of my mind, the training and health of my body which is lacking. Currently they work separately. My journey is to find out how I can make this link and become a truly embodied being. There seems to be something in all this about acknowledging that I am not the same dancer that I was and that is OK.  To realise that I can’t simply divide what my mind and body have been through from my practice. I do believe that I have been doing this. Expecting them to function as they did before getting through such a challenging experience. 

As I explore further into my inquiry proposal, I am now finding the area of trauma to be so vast and therefore look to focus on the trauma of Long Covid specifically. I am looking to perhaps interview other dancers affected by Long Covid as well as draw on my own experience. If anyone knows of anyone who might be able to help in this research process do let me know.

Bibliography

Burkitt, I (1999) Bodies of Thought. London: Sage Publications

A collage I created during recovery from Long Covid

Dawn and embodiment

A little clip of the rehearsal process for Dawn solo from Coppelia (video starts at 45 seconds)

As I embark on this first stage of 2023 I am busy in a number of areas. Currently rehearsing for Coppelia and preparing to dance The Dawn and Prayer solos. Allowing myself to become emersed in this concept of dawn and how that translates to balletic performance. The feeling of new light, new beginning, awakening and illumination. It feels enriching.

Yet as I seek to embody these concepts through movement, I am simultaneously challenged by the ethical considerations of a ballet environment. Pointe work for example involves some degree of unavoidable pain. How do we convey this to young people as they begin to dance, how is it ethically right to be doing ballet in the first place? 

Considering this notion of the ethereal woman which ballet has evolved from. Am I wrong to be part of this system when there are so many aspects I disagree with? These are just some of the questions floating around in my head at the moment. I have always wanted to use ballet to help people but I am part of a system which one cannot deny can be sacrificial and destructive. 

Olga pointed this out in relation to Anna Pavlova on one of my previous posts. 

Is it possible to achieve an ethically sound environment in classical ballet, if no one danced through pain then there would be no cast most nights! It is a very difficult one to navigate. Sometimes I am trying to articulate to my students this notion of good and bad pain and feel like a fraud as the line is so grey. For me I would say that for example any pain on the skin such as a corn, blister etc would come under the pain threshold that has to be dealt with but you can hardly call this good pain, yet I can't ask for time off because of a blister. Yet a blister can be agony if you dance on pointe. The psyche that a dancer must develop to dance through pain could be problematic for other areas of their lives. If they learn that they must endure pain or trauma, they may ignore signs of serious illness or injury. 

Sometimes I wake up and wonder what it all means, what was all this for? This calling that I feel so deeply to dance. Is it to be listened to. Is it the spiritual calling, has it been placed there by someone else in my childhood? How do I know the difference. Lea was talking about these notions of different brains which really resonated with me. Currently I seem to be at a place in my life where I am trying to understand these different brains. Are they really different? As an embodied being, is it possible to truly feel whole or will I always feel a certain amount of fragmentation? I have been returning to earliest memories of dancing in my childhood and I remember the joy of the music and the feeling of wanting to share that joy with those around me. Somehow when I danced, everything felt OK. I felt interconnected to the world in a special way.

I have always sought to use dance to reach people in an authentic way. There are times when I feel I achieve this and times when I don't, but recently more than ever I feel a need to strive for new avenues. I feel a new chapter surfacing in me. Sometimes it scares me... yet another unknown but I also remember that with every unknown comes possibility, new light and new awakenings and there I have come full circle back to my Dwan solo! 

Perhaps this post encapsulates the idea of embodiment and indicates just how interconnected our lives, work and research really are.

Areas of Wonder

 

 As I debate areas of wonder at the moment I have been considering how on the one hand I am fascinated by the area of trauma and how current ballet dancers find the process of returning to dance following trauma. On the other hand, I am also rather enticed by a more historical research project looking at how trauma may have affected the performance of dancers through history. Somehow the historical approach feels less daunting to me. Why might this be? There is a sense of security about the past, we know what happened and there is concrete evidence to draw on. More current research of recent times feels less certain and more precarious. Although there is always an element of history within every research project, I am currently exploring where I would want the main focus to be directed. 

As I wonder I also think about the genre of ballet and it's place as a healing art form in the recovery of trauma. There is much research and evidence for dance movement therapy but how does the disciplined and in some ways famously trauma inducing art form of ballet sit within all this? Is there potential for ballet to help someone to recover from emotional trauma? Or does the art form cause further problems, or does it depend on the trauma? What about those watching ballet? Can the watching of ballet help those who have experienced trauma to move on?

What is the impact of emotional trauma on the artistic integrity of ballet dancers? 

How have dancers through history been influenced by trauma?

 My role as a researcher will be closely linked within this as it is an area close to my heart. I hope to draw on journals from my recovery process from Long Covid but also perhaps from experiences of bullying as a child.

I am currently in the process of working with two different charities. One is just in the process of being set up to support the mental health of dancers and I am proud to be a trustee on this charity. The other is an Anti bullying charity called 'We are Stronger' and I am in the process of planning a dance film for this charity. I would very much like my inquiry to benefit the work I do for both these charities.

Always value any thoughts that my MAPP cohort may have. Thanks so much.

Embodiment, Dualism and Anna Pavlova (Task 1)

I most certainly hold the view that we can truly be certain of very little in life, and that our perception of life is largely what forms our understanding of the world. I find it fascinating to realise that the lens through which I look at the world is entirely different from the person next to me. How can we come to universal definitions and decisions and generally work as a society if we are all viewing the world simply through our own perception? Yet we manage!

' In so far as I have a body through which I act in the world, space and time are not, for me, a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless number of relations synthesised by my consciousness, and into which it draws my body. I am not in space and time, nor do I conceive space and time; I belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them.'  (Merleau-Ponty in Burkitt, 1999, p.74)

These lines have so much power. They really resonate with me and seem to encompass this notion of embodiment. Being at one with ourselves and the world around us.

I have been encouraged to look back to my biggest inspirational figure in the field of ballet - Anna Pavlova and to think about the body of her work and how her work relates to knowledge, positivist and non positivist approaches. 

When I watch videos of Anna Pavlova dance, I have always felt that she embodies all that I like about ballet. Expression, precision, artistry, emotion, individuality and honesty. She herself had a difficult early childhood, born prematurely, not knowing her father, being unwell as a child and losing the father figure in her life very early. She suffered with poor health as a child but was so determined to become a dancer, after failing to gain a place at The Imperial Ballet School the first year, she work very hard and was successful the following year. Throughout her career she became known for her rare individual qualities and was described by Ashton as someone who ‘personified dance’ in this interesting clip here. She literally embodied whatever character, creature or element she was portraying. She also became so famous for her portrayal of the dying swan and one cannot help but see that ill health as a child must have given her an awareness of coming close to death and perhaps this allowed her to express it so honestly. Crofton (in Pritchard 2013, p.171) describes her dancing the Swan saying: ‘ Her lovely arms seem to breathe as she opens and lifts them. Her whole being is the dance.’

Did she embody her roles so much that her life and career really merged together? She pushed herself a great deal performing all over the world and eventually died of pleurisy still in the middle of a tour.

Her work intrigues me, I believe because when portraying a role, she often improvised and changed choreography, it has an organic flow which inspires me at a deep level. I feel as though I understand Pavlova and whenever I am feeling lost, I return to her work, every time feeling myself rebuild a connection to why I dance.

She knew her strengths and even though she could not fulfil every element of virtuosity which many other dancers did, she had something special and she independently carried that to the world, inspiring generations after her.

When I look at her work it seems like she did not try to fix certainty in her choreography. It feels so natural, it is like it is what would emerge from her on that day. There must of course have been some element of setting, but there are many accounts to prove that she would change the Swan every time she did it. Pritchard (2013, p.171) says that ‘the choreography for The Swan changed considerably over the 24 years Pavlova danced it. This was hardly surprising given the spontaneity Pavlova brought to her dances.’

 

 

Pavlova felt that she wanted to pursue a route which allowed her to express the areas she was interested in and moved a way from the exactness of the classic ballets she was performing in Russia to pursue the expressionistic career. It looks as though she believed that her individuality and embodiment of dance needed to be pursued in a individual way. Pavlova created her own reality and she herself was at the centre of that work very much embodying a non positivist stand point. It feels as though she is forever exploring movement and using the ballet technique only as a means to express emotion in the purest form. Yet she and her work is shrouded with a sense of mystery and an unexplainable essence. She used the body she had and used it to inspire everyone who saw her dance, despite being told she had the wrong physique as a young dancer.

It is as though the classical works often require you to fit in a box but the work of Pavlova was her own, it could not be replicated and she inspires me to live a life as a freelancer that is in full alignment with who I am.

Following on from my last blog, perhaps it is the full embodiment that I sense when I watch Pavlova’s work that I am drawn to. This is what I seek to further in my own practice for sure.

Dualism undoubtably has it’s place within research and I think I very much hold dualist views when it comes to medicine and other areas of life still as there are times when evidence is so clear for something. It is such a joy to be exploring these concepts in more depth and to realise that I am really seeking to further this embodiment of my myself and work and that I definitely lean towards the non positivist outlook on life. Therefore I will be going towards a non positivist approach to my research as well.

 References

Ashton, F. (1984) ‘Anna Pavlova’ in Lazzarini, R. and J. (eds) Anna Pavlova impressions,

presented by Margot Fonteyn. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson Limited, p. 9.

 Burkitt, I. (1999) Bodies of Thought. London: Sage Publications

Franks, A. (1956) Pavlova a biography, London: Barke Publishing

 

 

Horton Fraleigh S. and Hanstein P. (1999) Researching Dance: Evolving Modes of

Inquiry, London: Dance Books

 

Lazzarini, R. and Lazzarini J. (ed s) (1984) Anna Pavlova impressions, presented by Margot

Fonteyn. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson Limited.

 

Pritchard, J and Hamilton, C. (2013) Anna Pavlova: twentieth century ballerina. 2 nd edn.

United Kingdom: Booth-Clibborn Editions.

 

Sorell, W. (1967) The dance through the ages. London: Thames and Hudson.

 

Svetloff, V. (1974) Anna Pavlova. 2 nd edn. New York: Dover publications. Inc.

 

Vaughan, D. (1977) Frederick Ashton and his ballets. London: Adam and Charles Black.

 

 

Goldenidol, (2008) Anna Pavlova available at:

https://youtu.be/Cn_K41P0B1w Last accessed 08/02/2023

 

 

HuntleyFilmArchives, (2013) Anna Pavlova performs ballet solos, 1920s - film 7724.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bRwb5DGekg Last accessed 08/02/2023

Epistemology, IADMS conference and realisations around disconnection and somatic awareness

 

As I explore epistemology I can see that I definitely approach my own life and work now with mostly a sense of embodiment. I look back and realise that I tried to control so much of my life, to be certain and to do everything I could to ensure the outcome of something. But now I am opening up to this idea of going with change. I think often for a ballet dancer there are concerns about becoming too old to dance, as it generally is quite a short career. There is a feeling of trying to hold on to technique and the body’s ability to execute the movements. In the last few years my body and mind overcame some extreme challenges and I believe these were interconnected completely.

But I am encouraged now to look outwards into the universe and to some extent trust what is happening. I do hold the belief that things happen with a divine timing, I also believe we are all interconnected and although not particularly religious I have always felt that god is within and around us all. I feel the presence of god like I feel the presence of the universe and all its mysteries. Therefore, do I hold a monist view? In some things perhaps.

 But I also tend to see the mind as separate from the body and brain and this is more of a dualist view. But this feeling holds me back I feel. It often feels like I am fighting against my mind and that my mind is not in sync with my body. There is a feeling of separation and I have always felt this is the factor that has held me back the most in my life and career. This has been brought to the forefront in the last week as I began to explore the epistemological concepts and while catching up on the recordings of the IADMS Conference. I was particularly interested in Russel Maliphant’s talk on Research influencing practice and Helen Kindred’s session on ‘Embodied fundamentals: a somatic framework for research influencing practice.’  Maliphant talked about how fascia deeply connects the body and how ideas of tensegrity influence his practice. He also spoke about ‘emotional anatomy’ and this is a book I am now exploring for this module. Concepts of emotions influencing the body.

He quoted Gary Ward as saying that ‘flow occurs as the number of restrictions to the body’s movement patterns are reduced’. I have struggled with the flow of certain movements, my perception of how they should feel, vs how they look and how I think they look. How do we dissect all of this to know if we do in fact know any of this? This related to epistemology and  Hegel’s ideas which I am currently exploring in his book ‘Elements of the philosophy of Right’. I will explore some of these in my next blog.

 

Helen’s session was my fist real experience of somatic practice. I must say I believe it highlighted to some extent just how out of sync I am with my own body. Often, I cannot feel natural movement patterns, I am instead almost led by ‘performed movement’. This related to the idea of the ‘performed self’ which I discussed with Honor in Module 1. I participated in half the session but felt that I was not in a place of embodiment so I watched the 2^nd half of the recording and just absorbed the experience. Some things that Helen said which seemed to shine were ‘a feeling of breath between the bones’ and a ‘sensing of the skeletal architecture’. These two descriptions gave me such a feeling of embodiment and gave way to the realisation that I do feel a disconnect to my arms still and that I do not fully know what ‘full integration’ feels like.

I wonder if it is possible for me to reach that place within the genre of classical ballet? I find when I improvise in the area of neoclassical dance I do come close to this feeling. But in the classical roles I struggle. Ballet in it’s most classic form often feels precarious.

So I am now interested to experience more somatic practice and so I ask all my friends on here working in the Somatic field, if you can advise me on any good online sessions or London based sessions in somatic practice, pay as you go as my work schedule is extremely full, I would be so grateful?

 I feel it will be so beneficial for me to explore this area further. Especially now as I am opening up areas of wonder in relation to how trauma affects the body and if ballet can be a healing practice and potentially help those recovering from trauma. I will do another post on these areas of wonder.

 

I feel that for the first time I am able to recognise what has been the biggest limiting factor to my practice- not feeling a full sense of embodiment of mind, body and soul. Feeling disconnected. This feeling, although always present since I can remember, has been worsened by trauma’s over the years and the most challenging trauma of recovering from Long Covid still leaves an imprint which I hope to explore through somatic practice.

 

My 2023 vision board