HEALTH AND WELLBEING
FROM the formal arrangements of a classical pas de deux, to the fluid weight of body-on-body in a contact improvisation session, to the playful partner work of swing dance, touch is an integral part of many dance forms. It’s also a teaching tool, an efficient and accessible way to convey feedback to a student.
Beyond the dance studio, touch is also integral to our humanity, as Feldenkrais practitioner and consent educator Molly Tipping explains. “Touch is a really important regulating factor for calming your nervous system,” she says. “We are mammals and we have evolved to utilise touch to soothe the nervous system.”
On the flipside we know that touch can be harmful too. While the work of the #MeToo movement, which campaigns against sexual abuse and sexual harassment by calling it out publicly, is not complete, it has changed the way we think about touch, particularly in relationships involving a power dynamic. In the context of professional and educational dance spaces, that includes relationships such as teacher-student and director-dancer. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a five-year enquiry that delivered its final report in December 2017, has also shaped the way we think about touch in the dance studio.
Until recently, conversations about touch in the dance studio tended to focus on reducing risk by minimising the use of touch. But touch is part of dance practice. At both a practical and artistic level it is inextricably linked to the artform and its future. It isn’t possible, or desirable, to remove it from either educational or
