I CAN

In this semi-improvised danced paper I share two core operational principles – what I think of as pragmatic and attitudinal ways of being – that are foundational to my studio work when leading drama students through an elective physical theatre production module. The first is the 'I can' - the philosophical and phenomenological concept of a pre-reflective kinetic spontaneity and the second is coenesthesis, described by dance scholar Maxine Sheets-Johnstone as ‘a sense of full-bodied aliveness’ and ‘the feeling of creation’ (Sheets-Johnstone, 2014: 110; 113).