The Role of Equality Dance Lab as A Medium for Forming Awareness of Space and Body in Producing Empathy for Gender Issues in The Social Space
Kiki Rahmatika
Abstract
The body is the most important element in a dance work. When the body is involved in the process of a dance work, it means that the body is in a conditioning related to the theme, a clue to represent the purpose of the work. Body conditioning does not only involve the dancer’s body, but also their minds and instincts work automatically and simultaneously. Conditioning the body means giving the body a stimulus. In this stage the body will respond organically then produce a new stimulus and create a new response. This can also be said as a repeated action-reaction that produces interaction (empathy) in the dancers’ conditioning environment. My research during the process of practicing the equality dance work in Hujan Hijau Dance Lab Lampung is to foster a sense of empathy in a very patriarchal social environment. During I stay in Lampung, I witnessed many women who lost opportunities to develop themselves because of the patriarchal system. This patriarchal system in the family usually originates from father to daughter or husband to wife. Even though families that practice an egalitarian system have succeeded in placing their daughters or wives in a proud position. Reffering to the experiences of Ken Wilber and Thich Nhat Hanh about breath and emotion, I collaborate the body lab and basic body technique with conditioning theory by ivan Pavlov. The conditioning body lab process lasts for weeks. The bodies of the dancers and male participants involved in this body lab experience changes in response which freely give room for women to make movements in their midst. Through bodily events that are experienced directly, it is hoped that in the future there will be no more daughters and wives who lose the opportunity to achieve their goals.
Keywords: body, empathy, impulse, adaptation, action-reaction
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Reference
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