Towards a decided body and choreography

This thesis examines a state termed the decided body, which describes an engaging and qualitatively fluid presence in performance. My research explored this state of presence and drew from the embodied qualities arising out of the state as source material for choreography. Dancers were trained in passive sequencing, which is a somatic technique where a conscious body passively resists intentional movement and is instead physically moved by others. The process of passive sequencing produced a particular state of embodied conscious that allowed dancers to intuitively initiate new pathways of movement in the action of improvising. This thesis tracks the creation of two new dance works built from the process of passive sequencing to improvisation to setting choreography and then to preparing for performance. It also provides a theoretical framework from performance studies and contemporary healing practices on how passive sequencing functions on the body-mind complex to create this state of the decided body.