Informed by the Goddess: Explicating a processual methodology

Abstract

Abstract This is a self-reflexive approach to practice as research in dance and performance that draws on what Jungian Scholar and feminist Susan Rowland calls a ‘Jungian goddess feminism’ which is a kind of ‘experiment in the imagination’. This methodological and feminist approach is based on previous research into ‘authentic movement’. The article sets out a methodological approach and style of writing for practice as research that embraces and reconfigures ‘the Goddess myth’ by embracing subjectivity for its value that is comparable to and yet different from rationality. There are personal reflections, exercises for the reader and a theoretical frame braided throughout the article. Through this Bacon reflects on her doctoral studies to question why the emerging ‘spiritual’ aspects apparent in herself through her engagement with her fieldsite were not explored more deeply. A post-Jungian feminist frame of reference enables both a reconfiguring of essentialist readings of ‘Goddess’ and a theoretical space where spirituality is named, embraced and from which new understandings for practice as research in dance and performance can emerge.