Skinner Releasing Technique

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) created by Joan Skinner (USA) is practised and taught worldwide. Emslie, M.A. (2021) describes It as " a somatic movement, dance and creative practice with a core underlying principle of releasing blocked energy, held tension, and habitual patterns of body mind. It enables us to move with greater freedom and ease whilst awakening creativity and spontaneity".[1] https://www.triarchypress.net/srt.html

"By focusing on personal, kinaesthetic experience of essential principles of movement, SRT may enhance any movement style whilst fostering artistic sensibility and creative unfoldment" [2]

SRT is unusual in that technical aspects of moving and dancing, such as posture and alignment are experienced as creative explorations that take form as spontaneous movement. Technical and creative aspects of practice are indistinguishable.

Joan Skinner created an Introductory Level of SRT, as well as an Ongoing Level and there is a children's pedagogy in existence. The introductory Level consists of 15 classes and the Ongoing Level is that of 12 classes. The Ongoing classes allow participants to slip deeper in to practice and they are more spacious than the introductory Level classes. There is also an Advanced Level. Skinner described the shift from Ongoing Level to Advanced Level as being "'when things start dissolving ... there is only consciousness left".[3]

Whatever the level of classes, the pedagogies consist of key activities that are, Checklists, Image Actions, Partner Graphics, Partner Dances/Partner Movement Studies, Movement Studies (with an image) and Totalities. For more information on these activities see Emslie, M.A. (ed) (2021) Skinner Releasing Technique A Movement and Dance Practice. Triarchy Press. Glossary pp. 275–278

Releasing and Release Techniques

SRT sits beneath the canopy term of Release Techniques and thus is part of a wider Release community. However, Skinner was very clear about differentiating Releasing from Release based practice. The difference she pointed out (see Emslie, M.A (ed) (2021) p12)[4] is that Releasing is ongoing and so we notice and respond to what is arising moment by moment; where as Release Technique is understood to be an aesthetic of the body moving with ease, fluidity, lightness, power and strength. Releasing is the means by which we achieve those qualities.

SRT Practitioners and Teachers

SRT classes are taught in University and Conservatoire settings. There are workshops taught all over the world and these can be found on The Skinner Releasing Network and on SRT teachers personal websites. Many SRT teachers and practitioners are renowned dancers, dance makers, performers and teachers. Some of these are Stephanie Skura American Experimentalist and Award winning choreographer and creator of Open Source Forms, https://www.stephanieskura.com; Gaby Agis (UK) choreographer, dancer and teacher and who introduced SRT to the UK http://www.gabyagis.com/about, Mary-Clare McKenna (UK) performer, choreographer, teacher, writer http://www.maryclaremckenna.com. Manny Emslie (UK) dancer, dancer maker, teacher, writer https://mannyemslie.co.uk, Lizzy Le Quesne (UK) dancer, teacher, writer https://lizzylequesne.comAlex Crowe (UK) mover, performer, performance maker https://skinnerreleasingnetwork.org/teachers/alex-crowe/ Florence Peake, dancer, dance maker and teacher http://www.florencepeake.com, Lionel Popkin (USA) choreographer, performer and teacher http://www.lionelpopkin.org DD Dorvillier (USA/France) dancer, choreographer and teacher https://www.humanfuturedancecorps.org/biography, Jennifer Monson,(USA) dancer, choreographer and teacher, Sally E Dean (USA/Norway) interdisciplinary performer, performance maker and teacher) http://www.sallyedean.com, Julia Sasso (CAN) dancer, choreographer and teacher, Eryn Trudell (CAN) dancer, choreographer, teacher and founder of mama dances http://www.mamadances.com, http://www.juliasasso.com, Bettina Neuhaus (NL) dance, choreographer and teacher https://www.bettinaneuhaus.com/english/start.htm, Lily Kiara (NL) dancer, singer, song writer and poet http://www.lilykiara.n, Eszter Gal (HUN) dancer, dance maker, teacher http://www.kontaktbudapest.hu,Bahar Vidinilioglu (TR) Instagram: @baharvidinlioglu Facebook: Bahar Vidinlioglu, Deniz Soyarslan (TR) dancer, performance artist and circus practitioner http://www.denizsoyarslan.com Julia Adzuki (SE) explores acoustic and poetic resonance through movement, words and instruments http://www.juliaadzuki.com

Joan Skinner. Born 1924 - Died 2021

Joan Skinner was born in Minneapolis (USA) in the early 1920s. As a child she participated in 'interpretive dancing' classes led by Cora Bell Hunter - who had been taught by Mabel Elsworth Todd, author of the seminal book The Thinking Body. The classes were for younger children and when Skinner transitioned into high school she was no longer eligible to attend them.However, Bell Hunter's classes, especially her use of imagery, had a profound and long lasting effect on Skinner and she would often share her love of those dance classes with her Skinner Releasing students'.

On leaving high school in 1942 she gained a schorlarship to study theatre, music and dance at Bennington Arts College, Vermont. At that time, Bennington was renowned for its visiting artists such as pioneering modern dancers and dance makers such as Martha Graham, Hanya holm and Doris Humphrey. On an occasion when Martha Graham was rehearsing at Bennington College, she approached Skinner and suggested that she should head to New York to continue her dancing career. Having graduated from Bennington, she took heed of Graham's suggestion and enrolled at The Martha Graham Centre and eventually she became a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company in which she danced Appalachian Spring (1944), Dark Meadow (1946), and the premier of Diversion of Angels (1948).

After a number of years of teaching at the Martha Graham Centre and performing in the company she left in 1950. On leaving she became a member of the Merce Cunnigham Dance Company. It was during that time that she embarked on a long journey of personal practice and research, which would eventually emerge as Skinner Releasing Technique. For further information see Emslie, M. A. (2021) Skinner Releasing Technique A Movement and Dance Practice, Triarchy Press. https://www.triarchypress.net/srt.html

Owing to personal circumstances, she ceased performing with Cunningham in 1953. Shortly afterwards she embarked a gruelling concert tour that was choreographed by Jerome Robbins and Ray Harrison. She. continued to perform and choreograph but a shift in her career happened in the 1960s. From 1961-64 she taught at the University of Illinois, Champaign. From 1964-66 she was artist in Residence at The Walker Arts Centre and Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis after which she returned to the University of Illinois for a year - 1966-1967. It was with her dance students at Illinois that the beginnings of Skinner Releasing were first shared and practiced. Skinner credits her Illinois students as giving her practice the name Releasing. She has said, (in Valencia and Bell, 2016 movement research) "They [the students] just kept saying, we're doing the releasing technique. It must have been because I was saying, Well we're releasing this, we're releasing that". https://movementresearch.org/publications/critical-correspondence/susan-klein-and-joan-skinne

In 1967 she became a full time member at The University of Washington, Seattle. From 1985 she became Head of the Dance Department. She retired in 1987 but, continued to teach and develop Skinner Releasing Technique until the early 2000s.

Skinner openly talked about her love of nature and her deep connection with it. SRT draws from natural images that were taken from her direct experience of the natural and more than human world. She was a lover of poetry especially Haiku and Koans and the "image clusters" in SRT are haiku like.

She lived in Seattle with her husband, the musician, James Knapp.

References
  1. Emslie, Manny A (2021). Skinner Releasing Technique A Movement and Dance Practice. UK: Triarchy. pp. Back Cover.
  2. "About SRT". Skinner Releasing Network. Retrieved 2021-10-25.
  3. Emslie, Manny A (2021). Skinner Releasing Technique A Movement and Dance Practice. UK: Triarchy Press. p. 13.
  4. Emslie, M.A (2021). Skinner Releasing Technique A Movement and Dance Practice. UK: Triarchy Press. p. 12.
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