From the sandy beaches of Crab Creek to the Tarkett of WAAPA: a case study of intrinsic praxis in teaching methods of movement

Abstract

What are the questions around embodying, and teaching, a praxis that has been in operation since the beginning of time? How can this knowledge be taught geographically far away from the source of the knowledge – off ‘country’ – as is the case for Simon Stewart teaching principles of movement, knowledge that spans a millennia, which now make marks on the soft paddings of a Tarkett dance floor? Simon Stewart is a descendant of the Gooniyandi, Kija and Jaru peoples of the East Kimberley region of Western Australia while Renée Newman originates, many generations ago, from England and Ireland, and they both call Whadjuk Noongar boodjar (the Indigenous land on which the city known as Perth stands) home. They are practicing artists and teachers at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University. This article interrogates the notion of an intrinsic praxis – the intersection of an individual’s internal knowledge/practice systems meeting the spatial, ethical and the political – in a case study marrying movement generation with reflective writing strategies on a class of 2nd year Bachelor of Performing Arts, Performance Making, students. Drawing on Elizabeth Grosz (2001) the paper grapples with the slippage of space, weight and time.