I am because you are

Abstract

Abstract This article expands a keynote address given at the conference Ethics & Repair, Dance & Somatics Practices, at Coventry University (2015). Part One is an effort to understand a basic ethical tenet – respect of otherness – inviting an understanding of how to be with difference through a somatic sense of oneself as related, separate and in between. Part Two draws on this respect of otherness to offer a second discussion concerning dance training for performance. Somatic practices nurture an ethical relationship to others and the environment, contributing to physical and psychological change. Over the past twenty years somatic practices have come to form the foundation of contemporary dance training, disrupting competitively attained acquisition and achievement of spectacular technical skill. I Am Because You Are gives this dilemma in dance training some air space, to blow through currents of thought.