Soma-City Research Residency
Theatrum Mundi will host a research residency based in our Paris office (at Plateau Urbain‘s Maison Marceau workspace), to support the interdisciplinary collaborative work of Lisa Sandlos and Rennie Tang, researchers in the fields of dance and urban design respectively.
This residency marks the launch of Soma-City, a project by Sandlos and Tang that emerges from the premise that ‘soma’ (derived from ancient Greek word meaning ‘body’) and city are architectural entities that operate symbiotically to co-create meaningful human experience. Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), a system for observing, analysing and notating human movement developed by dance/movement pioneer Rudolf Von Laban (1879-1958) will serve as the groundwork for cultivating their nuanced understanding of the dynamic movement of the body in space. It will serve as a lens through which rhythms, textures and auditory cues collected from the city will be interpreted and mobilized, with the goal of generating somatically derived notational structures and mapping techniques. This material will fuel novel modes of practice and pedagogy to be applied to a Soma-City workshop planned for spring 2020.
The residency takes place from 8-15 December, including an informal day of movement and discussion led by Sandlos and Tang 11 December, bringing together collaborators from Theatrum Mundi’s team and network to test and reflect on ways somatic thinking could be used to address critical questions in urbanism.