Landscapes of loss: Moving and mourning – An autobiographical account

Abstract

Abstract This reflective autobiographical essay written from an experiential perspective investigates how closely kinaesthetic, emotional and spiritual experiences can be interwoven through movement, encompassing embodied practice, intense feeling and personal ritual. As a movement artist and therapist the author explores how her personal experience of loss was embodied and expressed in a series of moments of movement that took place both in the studio and in the wider environment, in the context of her ongoing practice of non-stylized and environmental movement. It includes detailed analysis of these moments in terms of the movement and actions undertaken and the symbolic and personal significance of them as part of a broader process of grieving. It provides insight into how an embodied expression of mourning might offer a alternative to our English culturally acceptable expressions of grief, a kinaesthetic equivalence of the poetic expression of authors such as T. S. Elliot and Rainer Maria Rilke.