Falling into Weighted Time
Researching Health & Dance
Falling into Weighted Time (Sharing)
Part of March Dance Festival
16 March 2023 @6PM
Online and Critical Path
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Contact Laura to discuss supporting this research & dance development.
Learn more!
Eastside Radio Interview (2023), Dance Informa Interview (2022) and her Intro to Critical Path’s E-News Oct 2022.
Falling into Weighted Time (in development)
Choreographer, performer, scholar, teacher and producer Dr Laura (Amara) Osweiler’s research is based upon sharing and expanding her current practice beyond herself. Her project builds upon her 30 years as a Traditional and Contemporary Middle Eastern Dancer and current choreographic and performance practice that interweaves dance, movement, film, music, audio description and health and employs communication technologies to support access and engage with audiences in different locations.
2023 March Dance Creative Development Residency
During her 2023 March Dance Residency, Laura will expand her theme of Collapsing while Conscious to include hypo-arousal a symptom of CPTSD (when the body shuts down after a hyper-arousal state (fight or flight)).
The work demonstrates the importance of body knowledge and how dance and creativity can be used to manage longer term illnesses. Using a somatic approach Laura mines her body’s experiences to inspire choreography and dance.
Laura will develop the dance’s structure and a script which threads together audio description, verbal description and audio biographical information.
2022 Critical Path Research Residency
During her 2022 Critical Path Research Residency, Laura spent time exploring Cataplexy, a part of Type 1 Narcolepsy where muscles release and the mind and body are on different parts of the spectrum of awake and asleep. Through movement, lighting, dance bungee rigging, music, audio description, visual description, autobiographical narrative and audience interaction, Laura is dancing and telling her story.
Working with producer and director Paul Osborne and international circus and physical theatre performer and audio describer consultant Sarah Houbolt, Laura unpacked the physical experiences of her phases of Cataplexy. This led to exploring themes of isolation, interruption and disruption, Crip Time and Energy, body knowledge, types of memory, forms of consciousness and perceptions of the self.
Audience Sharing Comments
Critical Path Dance Research Residency Sharing | 31 Aug 2022
This sharing was an opportunity for Laura to test and present many of the experimentations, ideas and concepts she’s been researching this year. It captures the very early stages of a work in process.
The video below is closed captioned. Laura is currently working on audio description.
Time Code
00: Acknowledgement of Country
1.25: Audio description of space & Laura
2.00: Thank you to Critical Path Team & collaborators (Paul Osborne, Sarah Houbolt & Tobii Bucknell
3.00: Intro to sharing
3.50: Intro to visual description exercise
4.30: Internal visual description exercise with audience
9.20: External visual description exercise with audience
15.20: Awake Dance | Upbeat & Energised
17.00: Awake Dance | Strength
18.30: Cataplectic Knee Release & Middle Eastern Dance Knee Shimmies Connection
20.30: Audience Chooses my Adventure | Should I show how I fight or accept catapeltic episodes? They choose fight.
21.10: Ankle Harness Walk | My List of Triggers
23.30: Ankles in Dance Bungee Harness | Facts About Narcolepsy
32.50: Story About Walking in Public with a Mild Catapeltic Episode
35.20: Harness & the Box | If the World Took Siestas
37.45: Harness| Slow Weighted
30.30: Harness | Twinkle Toes
41.20: Harness | Large Circles
43.50: Harness | Small and Low
45.15: Harness | Held & Slides
48.30: Nirvana Moment in Deep Catapeltic Episode
56.50: Arms in Harness | Swing & Slide
58.50: Arms in Harness | Accents and Releases
1.01: Discussion with Audiences