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

Co-Regulation

Tracking

Energetic Modulation

Specificity of Intention

Strategies

1st Thought, Best thought

Non-Judgmental Observation

Creative Processes (Varied)

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, GROUNDED-NESS, WEIGHT SENSING

 

Touch: Depth, Modulation

Emotional Content

Feeling Weight, Seeing Weight

States and Drives

Hair Skin Muscle Bone

Entrainment

Blind Learning: Static Position, Phrase

Lead Line Leading

Bucket Game

 

 

TIME & FLOW

 

Duration

Pulse

Meter

Speed

 

Creature Duets

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Sensing Duration

Sensing Pulse

Sensing Speed

 

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

 

CONCEPTS & SKILLS

Improvisation

Contact Improvisation

Seeing – Doing

Imperfection

Rigor

Attention

Zoom In-Zoom Out

Teamwork

Synthesizing

Recall

Creative Thinking

Compassion

Sympathy vs Empathy