Crystallisations, Constellations, and Sharings: Exploring Somatic Process with Sandra Reeve

In this chapter, I will explore the topic of performing process in somatic-based performances, focussing in particular on my study with and of UK-based movement artist Sandra Reeve. I will identify how she draws on her training with Javanese movement artist Suprapto Suryodarmo (Prapto) to foreground process as the performance. I will give an overview of several performances which I experienced through participant observation, to offer an insight into the processes that are performed. My analysis ranges from a discussion of the open days which form a key part of her workshops, to a more formalised indoor performance called Solo Encounters (2014) at the Buddhist Arts Centre in London. This chapter’s main aim is to give an overview on how somatic practices contribute to the debates surrounding the sharing of process which are raised in this book. When bringing somatic approaches into a performance context, movement artists such as Reeve have concentrated on an ongoing attention to the unfolding of bodily becoming as it responds to self and context. Developing a structure for gathering emergent materials and finding modes of sharing the process with others as it continues to change, forms part of the performance practice.