June 5, 2025 • 37 mins
What if your body isn’t just something you live in, but something that lives through you?
In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Jennifer Polins, dancer, choreographer, educator, and founder of the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. Together, we explore the quiet power of movement as a form of healing, creativity, inquiry, and intuition.
Jen shares how dance can be a space for transformation and truth-telling—one that invites us to listen through sensation, not just thought. From the choreography of daily life to the stillness between steps, this conversation serves as a reminder that your body is wise and always speaks.
Movement is a birthright. Healing is not linear. And presence begins in the bones.
Find me on Instagram @ToHumisHuman and www.sonorouslight.com
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hi, friends, and welcome back to another episode
of To Hum is Human, the podcastwhere we explore the
transformative power of tuninginto our intuition to express
our passionate purpose.
(00:21):
I'm your host, Donabell, and I'mthrilled you're here.
Today's episode, Tuning IntoYour Body, Intuition Beyond the
Mind, is about something Ibelieve we all need to reconnect
with, our bodies as intuitiveguides.
So often we think of intuitionas a whisper in the mind or a
gut feeling, but what if it'salso in the way we move,
(00:44):
breathe, and inhabit space?
Our bodies carry deep wisdom,and when we learn to listen to
posture, sensation, energy, andWe gain access to a form of
knowing that's ancient,personal, and profoundly
creative.
To guide us in this exploration,I'm so honored to welcome my
(01:05):
next guest.
Jennifer Pollans is a dancer,choreographer, educator,
curator, and the foundingartistic director of the School
for Contemporary Dance andThought, or SCDT, based in
Northampton, Massachusetts.
Jen's work centers movement as avehicle for imagination, joy,
(01:26):
and transformation.
She blends rigorous contemporarydance practice with somatics,
improvisation, and healing arts,drawing from over 25 years of
experience in the field.
From her early years performingwith companies like the Joffrey
Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, andthe Zurich Opera House Ballet to
(01:46):
her groundbreaking contributionsto experimental performance and
education, Jen brings anembodied brilliance to
everything she does.
Through SCDT, Jen has created avibrant platform for
performance, community dialogue,and artistic growth for
children, teens, andprofessionals Thank you so much
SPEAKER_02 (02:21):
for that wonderful introduction.
I'm so happy to be here with youtoday.
SPEAKER_00 (02:25):
Well, it's a joy for me to have you on the show.
And I'm going to do somethingdifferent for this episode.
I'd like to just take a momentand start with a breath.
So let's just both take a nicedeep inhale and exhale.
(02:46):
It's always nice to arrive at aplace in this moment.
So Jen, when you tune into yourbody right now, what is it
telling you?
Oh
SPEAKER_02 (02:57):
boy.
When I tune into my body rightnow, I'm feeling multiple
sensations at the same time.
I'm distracted by the state ofthe world.
I was just reading the news.
I'm really excited to be hereand honored and yeah, just to be
able to have a chance to talkabout the work that I'm doing at
(03:18):
every moment.
I'm in my house with a bunch ofTeenagers or almost not
teenagers sleeping upstairs.
Yeah, and it's cold and rainingoutside.
SPEAKER_00 (03:29):
Those are a lot of sensations.
Yeah, a lot of sensations.
Lots of things, lots of things.
Well, you describe movement asinquiry.
Yes.
So what was the first questionyour body ever asked you and how
did you answer?
The
SPEAKER_02 (03:45):
first question, well...
I have a very, very early memoryof looking at myself in the
mirror when I was about two ormaybe even younger.
It's one of my first memories.
And looking at my like sort of,you know, like a toddler would
just running around busy, busy,and then stopping and seeing a
mirror and seeing myself andhaving this realization that
(04:07):
that was me in the mirror.
And that like curiosity of who Iam, maybe in this version, I
don't know what I believe aboutlife and death and all of that
has sort of propelled me and theversion continues to expand or
change as i discover more aboutmyself and i feel extremely
(04:31):
lucky to be able to be a dancerin this version of this life of
whoever i am because it's givenme opportunities to understand
What it means to be alive and bepresent in the moment in a way
that I feel like people are sortof robbed from in our culture.
SPEAKER_00 (04:53):
Well, it's a very go, go, go culture.
And sometimes being just beingis sort of overlooked.
Now, many of us treat the bodyas a vehicle or a tool.
But not always as a teacher.
What does it mean to listen tothe body as an intuitive guide
for you?
SPEAKER_02 (05:13):
It means that there's intelligence and
understanding that is integratedwith our mind, with our
intellect and knowing in waysthat we might not understand
unless we start to inhabit whatour actual brain does.
feels like in the back, in thefront, in the center, where our
(05:36):
brain, not our mind, but ouractual brain that is our mind,
where it sits in our, in ourskull actually, and where our
alignment is and how our spine,you know, like how alive our
spine is and where our organslike engage with our posture.
It's a never ending exploration.
(05:59):
And a lot of that work, Idiscovered in my early 20s
through work of BonnieBainbridge-Cohen and the
body-mind centering work thatwas located in Western Mass for
many years before she moved tothe West Coast.
And that work has reallyprofoundly affected me.
So this intelligence of thebody-mind, the mind of the body,
(06:22):
and how it shapes the our daysand our lives and our ability to
perceive what's happening in the
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
moment.
It's very physical.
It's very visceral.
I feel as if when we were movingthrough our day, a lot of it's
up here.
Just...
just in the mind and we can goalong and about our day.
But how often do we actuallytune into where's my brain
situated in my skull right now?
Or how are my organs beingsquished in this outfit?
(06:50):
Things like that.
What does that feel and how doesthat make me be in the present
moment?
And
SPEAKER_02 (06:56):
how, when I discover that there's a front of my spine
and I can sort of Listen fromthat place.
How does that change how Ilisten?
How do all of these discoverieschange how I can listen?
Has been a huge long-termsomatic question for me.
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
Well, I rarely think about the front of my spine.
Right.
And when you think about whenyou're even speaking to someone,
are you fully engaged lookingand being with that person,
keeping the spine directly infront of them?
Wow.
I just learned something today.
You just helped me think aboutanother way of perceiving.
And that's so cool.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (07:32):
And these perceptions aren't like it's not
like we discover them and thenwe can put them like these are
just now tools.
They're gifts.
Right.
That that you can have with youall the time at the supermarket.
And I think another overarchingquestion for me, which
definitely formed a CDT, was howdo we take all these beautiful
(07:52):
things?
secret practices in the dancestudio dance studios are often
hidden up five flights of stairsyou know like far away from the
hustle and bustle and normalnormalcy of culture of our human
culture and also danceperformances are often unless
you're in the know I've heard somany people say I like dance but
(08:16):
I don't understand it I'mconfused it looks like you all
know what you're doing but I'm Idon't know what you're doing,
right?
So there's this question thatI've continued to hold maybe
since my time at the Joffreyactually, which is how do we
bring this power and thisintelligence and this beauty and
this opportunity into our dailylives?
(08:37):
So outside of the studio.
and engage these practices aswe're alive, not just as we're
on the dance floor.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:48):
Well, I would love if you could take us back in
time to when you really felt thepull to study dance.
SPEAKER_02 (08:56):
I started studying dance when I was four.
It's not a unique story of momsending daughter to ballet.
I do remember not being a ableto connect right away that we
were pretty much planning aperformance.
We were rehearsing.
So I was just so in the moment.
So I remember my first fewperformances, I was very
confused when I was on the stageat like four and five.
(09:19):
I was very young.
But I do remember that.
So now I teach little kids and Ihave this understanding of their
immediate experience and thenHow we're sort of building
something towards a future, youknow, is an interesting thing
with the little kids.
And I had that experience.
I think I started to reallythink I wanted to be a dancer
(09:42):
when I was about 14.
So it took a long time.
I was practicing ballet.
I was only doing ballet.
And I liked it or didn't, youknow, depending on the year.
And then...
I think I saw a VHS because I'm55, so I'm old.
So my mom had a VHS tape of SwanLake and I watched that.
(10:03):
And there was just somethingabout both the incredible
physicality, the virtuosity andthe music I was pretty obsessed
with.
And I just decided that I wasgoing to be a ballet dancer.
SPEAKER_00 (10:14):
Wow.
I mean, there's no question.
You're just like, yep.
And so would you attribute thatmoment watching that when that
sort of light clicked on.
You're like, oh, yeah, that'sit.
That's totally it.
Well, you founded the School forContemporary Dance and Thought
in 2013.
And it's just known as a vibranthub for performance, education,
(10:36):
and public dialogue.
And it's a place for emergingand established artists to
deepen their craft.
What was happening for andaround you at that time?
SPEAKER_02 (10:46):
Just finished grad school.
So I was a professional balletdancer and did not go and get an
undergraduate degree.
I graduated from high school ahalf a year early and moved to
New York City to dance with theJoffrey Ballet when I was 17.
So I had a professional balletcareer from 17 to about 24,
which brought me to Europe.
And in that short span of timenow, but it was very intense, I
(11:12):
realized that my interest wasn'tballet.
It was dance.
just physicality andunderstanding our body more for
art, for efficiency, like forclarity in myself.
So ballet is the practice isvery clear.
It's like it's very pure.
It's like to do it, you have tobe extremely tuned in a certain
(11:35):
way.
So my desire for understandingabout how to be more tuned led
me away from ballet and towardssomatics, which is a large field
of studying the mind of the bodythrough a variety of different
approaches and techniques andforms.
I moved away from performance asmy priority and more towards
bodywork and healing and stillcentered around creativity, like
(12:00):
understanding creativity andstarted to teach and wound up in
a grad school, found the onlygrad school for dance that gave
life experience credits.
So I have to really credit DonnaFaye Birchfeld, who founded the
Hollins University MFA programthat has a low residency
(12:21):
program.
So there was a bunch of us thathad been professional dancers in
our early careers and not hadour bachelor's degrees that were
able to come into American DanceFestival in North Carolina and
work.
And it was from that culminationof that incredible two years of
(12:41):
time.
It just, it was like sort ofborn after that.
SPEAKER_00 (12:46):
Well, the name itself includes contemporary
dance, but also thought.
Yeah.
That's very curious because mostpeople don't associate those two
things necessarily in a school.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (12:59):
right.
So I did that on purpose.
And I think it's reallyeffective.
I love things that are effectivevery quickly, you know, sort of
resonate and engage humans,right?
So that I'm glad I thought ofthat title.
It's a little bit long, theSchool for Contemporary Dance
and Thought, but it definitelyencompasses everything.
What I've found, especiallymoving away from ballet and into
(13:23):
the somatic world and then foundimprovisation, moved to Western
Mass because of BonnieBainbridge-Cohen, Nancy
Stark-Smith.
Thank you so much.
(14:00):
of being in a body?
What does it mean to be in afall and be in relationship to
other people as we're fallingthrough space into unknown
territory?
What does it mean to train ourreflexes to not always be in
fight or flight, but to be ableto be open as we're moving into
(14:20):
very unknown spaces together ina collaborative way?
So all of that stuff was soexciting to me about being able
to moving to Western Mass.
It also felt like I met a tribeof movement philosophers.
Yeah, so really intelligent,really curious humans that were
(14:43):
using their bodies to study whatit means to have a fulfilled
life.
SPEAKER_00 (14:49):
It must have been such a profound experience and
to be able to actually have acommunity that supports you in
that way.
I know very little about contactimprovisation.
So could you tell our listenerswhat that really means?
SPEAKER_02 (15:05):
I had the opportunity to work closely with
Steve Paxton, who also passedaway last year, about a year and
a half ago, for a long time.
He said that he created contactimprovisation in the late 1960s.
He was one of He was theinstigator of contact
improvisation in New York Cityas part of this Judson church
(15:30):
sort of lineage.
But he created it to bring thewilderness back to dance, is
what he said, which is reallybeautiful.
Many quotes of his are sobeautiful.
I feel like it's an evolvingpractice, not even a technique,
but an evolving practiceexploring one's relationship to
gravity.
(15:51):
It's like the duet betweenyourself and gravity or a group
of people moving and gravity.
So that's the basic premise ofit.
It has evolved.
Contact improvisation is also adance form that is more
accessible to people that aren'tnecessarily trained dancers,
which is a wonderful thing.
(16:11):
So like in a ballet class, ifyou haven't had some development
of the vocabulary, it's hard.
It's like you have to start atthe beginning.
But with contact, you canquickly be rolling a point of
contact with someone else'sbody.
There's still a lot of skills tounderstand so you don't get
smushed.
There's still nuances and a lotof things to understand about
(16:34):
the technique of it, but it's anaccessible form for people that
haven't had contact.
the ability to have dance,formal dance training, which is
also a beautiful, beautifulthing.
Steve talked about reclaimingtouch.
So not just from being sexual orsensual even, but just sort of
(16:55):
that touch of mother and child,that touch that we have as
children and using that as partof the territory to explore in a
creative art form.
SPEAKER_00 (17:06):
Yeah.
That's so primal when you thinkabout That's ancient.
That's just from the beginningof human existence and
understanding a connection thatis nonverbal, something that is
just purely contact.
And it's beautiful.
So SCDT, the most amazing thingabout it is you're challenging
(17:31):
people.
conventional models of, if youwould call it concert dance, I
don't know if that's such athing, or being a champion of
more inclusive vision ofembodied art.
And when you came to thatdecision to make that part of
your school, what was thereception to that?
How did people respond in thecommunity?
SPEAKER_02 (17:50):
Well, when I started in 2013, Northampton was
different than it is now.
So it felt like there was a lotof space for SCDT to form.
I started with Jennifer Nugent,who was in the Western Mass area
for a little while, who's nowback in New York City and is my
(18:13):
age.
I just have so much respect forher as an artist, a movement
artist.
She's a beautiful, wonderfuldancer.
And we started small.
We just said, what if we couldcreate a school purely based on
the things that bring us themost joy and just start to
invite in artists that we knew.
I had like this whole career inEurope.
She had this whole career in NewYork City.
(18:35):
And I had just come from my MFAprogram.
So I had all these newconnections.
And what if we just bringartists in and invite them to
share with the public whatthey're busy with in the moment,
what they're most interested in,what they're really like where
their appetite is right now.
And let that be the impulse forthe school to start.
(18:56):
And it just immediately tookoff.
It was easy.
It felt all very easy for a longtime.
Classes were full.
We started a lot of the programsthat still exist now.
And it just It just almostexploded into being, it felt
like at the moment.
(19:16):
And it was very exciting.
The youth classes were full.
I had been working at thePioneer Valley Performing Arts
High School for 16 years and hadleft and wanted to keep working
with teenagers and startedhatchery.
We immediately had 14 kids.
So it just sort of went
SPEAKER_00 (19:37):
boop.
Well, when you have somethingthat's aligned with joy, it just
feels easier.
I'm up for that.
I'm up for joy.
Yeah.
When people think about dance,there's a lot of impression
about perfection.
Yeah.
What do you see emerge whenpeople engage in movement
practices with presence andpermission?
SPEAKER_02 (19:56):
Yeah, perfection transforms.
UNKNOWN (19:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (19:59):
And we could have a whole hour long discussion on
what perfection is, right?
So perfectionism can be limitingbecause it can sort of point you
in a direction and then you missa lot of the things that happen
along the way.
So I think a lot of thepractices and trainings that
(20:20):
SCDT is grounded in is noticingwhat's happening along the way
and having that journey or thoseexperiences be more more
amplified or more engaged withthan perhaps in a normal dance
class you know that feels like adifference in in the training
(20:40):
that we're offering again it'sit becomes more accessible
because everybody canparticipate you know you don't
have to you know be able totouch your toes with your legs
straight or like have like acertain base of coordination
necessarily to be able to feelwhat it feels like to let your
body release into the floor orclose your eyes and sense what's
(21:02):
happening on the inside.
We all can do that to a varietyof degrees.
And that is an endless game orpractice.
It is constantly changing.
And every time we engage inthese somatically based
underlying physical practices ofinquiry, we're creating more of
a map of sensation andunderstanding of ourselves.
SPEAKER_01 (21:25):
So
SPEAKER_02 (21:26):
it's a little bit more like what we do in yoga in
a way.
And then from that place, wetake it into maybe learning a
phrase.
But it's coming from the insideout rather from the outside in.
Worrying about what
SPEAKER_00 (21:41):
it looks like to other people.
SPEAKER_02 (21:42):
Right.
It's not about what it lookslike.
And it looks beautiful.
Yes.
It's about what it feels likeand being able to appreciate
that.
the beauty in being in a roomwith a bunch of other people
practicing that together.
SPEAKER_00 (21:59):
Now, you've spoken about movement as a way to
process emotions, and you workwith many people navigating
trauma, growth, ortransformation.
How can movement become a portalto healing or remembering?
Oh,
SPEAKER_02 (22:16):
so many ways.
I mean, a lot of people havetrauma with touch.
And I just feel like if we canbe present in a classroom and In
the moment, it's a play betweenwhat we have to hold on to from
our past and what we can let goof, right?
(22:38):
So that practice of noticingwhat we're holding on to and
what we can let go of on verysmall levels or very big levels
feels like a healing practicerelated to personal trauma and
psychological turmoil, which weall have to varying degrees.
It's delicate.
It's a For me, the dance studiowas always a safe space.
(23:03):
It was a place where I was soexcited to explore the
boundaries.
But that's not true foreverybody.
So I feel like the field ofsomatics has been really
evolving and changing in thepast 10 or 15 years in good ways
to understand what safety is andhow we can create safe spaces,
(23:24):
even within the context of aclassroom environment.
SPEAKER_00 (23:28):
Well, when you...
also include others within yourown personal transformation.
I can imagine it's a verydifferent experience because
there's a holding of and supportof whatever you happen to be
going through at that time.
Yeah, and
SPEAKER_02 (23:46):
that's a tricky thing too, to figure out how
much we hold our own issues, toparticipate in a group
experience, how much we makespace for personal issues with
the group experience.
I've been doing this for a longtime, so there's so many stories
and just different versions ofhow classes unfold.
(24:07):
I will say dance is so communal.
We take class together.
So there is something aboutbeing able to witness, to be
seen, because that's a crazything about dance is our whole
body is seen in a dance class aswe're trying and learning and
fumbling through and exploringand experiencing.
And we're also seeing others.
(24:28):
So we're in this vulnerablespace state together, which is
quite unusual and
SPEAKER_00 (24:37):
beautiful.
When you think about bringingall those pieces together and
then having a performance, howdoes performance and pedagogy
intersect for you in helpingothers reclaim the wisdom of
their bodies?
SPEAKER_02 (24:54):
Well, that's a very interesting question.
We talk about it a lot in ourboard meetings right now.
The SCDT board is made upprimarily of other artists,
working artists, and thenbusiness people and lawyers and
financial people.
And we're talking aboutaccessibility all the time with
(25:17):
how our programming engages thepublic.
Because the cool thing aboutlive performance is it's not
just now the dancers in the roomtogether, the performers, the
artists in the room together.
We're all in the room together.
The audience is sitting there orstanding there or walking around
(25:37):
or whatever the structure is ofthe performance together in a
space, right?
Which is really different thanhow most of our Our living is
going at this point virtually.
And so we really look at that.
We look at how we're engagingthe public.
Performance can be looked at asa consumer event.
(25:59):
So it's like if you go to aBroadway show or you go to a
ballet, there's a certain levelof experience that you can count
on.
And then if you go to a veryalternative experimental
performance, there's a wholeother aesthetic and experience
that the audience has.
We're interested in the fullspectrum of entertainment, like
(26:19):
entertainment being one end ofthe spectrum and experimental
artist-centered work on theother.
When people don't understand,like when a language is more
foreign or there's lessexplained, some people tend to
get really uncomfortable.
And so part of our job, I think,as an experimental movement
(26:39):
performance art space is to helppeople find ways in to a less
defined performance space.
And that's really interestingand forever we'll be talking
about it and trying tounderstand and explore it.
It feels really important to beaware of that for SCDT and to be
(27:02):
right at the edge so that We'reincluding the audience and
giving the audience anopportunity to discover what it
means to be in a generativespace where we don't
necessarily, none of us knowwhat's going to happen next,
right?
So that experience feels realand potent and difficult to
(27:23):
navigate with this captiveaudience as we prepare
performances.
Hatchery is a great is a greattool because it's family
friendly and there's always morecohesive.
Like it's more like here's, hereare these things that we're
developing and we'll, we'll givethem to you as the audience.
(27:45):
Um, and we sneak in lots ofexperimentation.
We sneak in little surprisesalong the way.
And then hut, which is the mostexperimental of what SCDT does
feels like the opposite.
It's like, you're welcome here.
And we're not going to take careof you at all.
It's like it's up to you to findyour way.
And this is a sacred space forthe artists to have a chance to
(28:11):
explore their world withouthaving to caretake the audience
at all, which is also a verybeautiful thing to have.
the public be able to be exposedto.
Definitely.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:23):
So the hatchery, is that the teen component of the
school?
And then Hutt, if you couldexplain what Hutt is, because
I've been to several and theyare so invigorating.
There's something that's soalive in those performances.
If you could tell us what Huttis.
SPEAKER_02 (28:39):
Yeah.
So Hutt is 10 years old and it'sa program that was created by
Jake Maginsky, who is a soundartist and a professor at At
Smith College and myself, alongwith sort of rotating poet
curators as well, it's aperformance where there are
three artists.
There's a movement artist, apoet or an artist that works
(29:03):
with words in some way, so itcould also be theater, and then
a sound artist.
And each artist gets a 20-minuteset.
to share their work with thepublic.
And there's little breaks inbetween.
So the artists don't worktogether.
It's like first it's dance andthen you have a break and then
it's poetry and then you have abreak and then it's sound and
then you're done.
And the idea was to bring indifferent publics.
(29:28):
So often music and sound artistsdon't go see dance or poetry,
you know?
And so there's this mix in thepublic that is really exciting.
And then we get to see So, yeah.
(29:55):
Even though they're very, verydifferent, there's often some
through line that we can detect.
But we don't really introduce orwelcome the public.
The thing just starts and thenit ends.
And it's my favorite.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
I'll have to say it's my favorite, too.
I love...
the juxtapositions because aspeople attending the event,
we're sort of programmed in aparticular way.
It's like, well, why did thesethree people get put together?
Or we try to make sense of thegrouping.
But then you also experiencethem each separately and they're
(30:31):
always so unexpected.
That's what I love about it.
It's like, I've never seenanything like that.
I've never experienced anythinglike that.
It takes a little while tointegrate because your mind is
just being, your wholeeverything is being exposed
something so new and novel.
Yeah.
It's just so exciting.
I love that you're doing that
SPEAKER_02 (30:51):
too.
Yeah.
We try to take advantage ofpeople coming through for the
five colleges or people arealways contacting us at SCDT to
share their work.
So we have this sort ofprofessional guest artist series
that we weave into our seasons.
HUT is the ongoing series thatis highlighting professionals in
(31:12):
the fields.
We have works in progress serieswhere professionals come in, but
it's works in progress.
So you're not seeing finishedwork.
And we have a lot of supportprogramming for artists at all
levels.
But this feels like you reallyget to come in and see these
seasoned, dedicated,experimental art forms.
(31:35):
And there's a resonance that asyou started this, this talk with
is beyond the intellect to, youknow, intuitive resonance that
we're wanting to just let be andnot like get in the way of as
much.
And
SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
there's, there's a lot of freedom in that.
And at the moment you, you,Right.
(32:17):
practices or rituals that helpyou stay attuned to your body's
wisdom, especially in thesechaotic and demanding times?
SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
Well, I try to be physical every day.
I mean, it's really different asI'm aging and have such an
administrative load at thispoint.
And I have said before, I feellike maybe it's like a survival
skill I have created, buteverything feels like a creative
practice to me.
So that's mostly where I'm at atthis point is like Noticing,
(32:49):
especially when I have aversion,resistance, fear, fatigue, when
I lose hope, noticing that as asa physiological experience and
getting curious about thoseplaces, as well as the times
when things happen really easilyand everything works and I have
(33:13):
an easy day or I write a grantand it just flows.
Sometimes I'll just take a walkand notice the things that I
pass by.
Yeah, the things that don't havemuch important so that I'm not
labeling as important and try toneutralize everything in that
way so that maybe the thingsthat I'm focused on or
(33:37):
hyper-focused on or mostconcerned about, if I let that
go, this idea of letting gofeels like it's a theme in this
conversation, what's around me?
What else is happening?
What else can I see?
What am I missing?
And that just feels like a verymuch of a delightful and
grounding practice I have asmuch as I can.
SPEAKER_00 (33:59):
Yeah.
Well, and just to see the beautyand joy that's right in front of
you, right?
SPEAKER_02 (34:06):
Yeah.
And just see everything a littlebit like maybe it's not beauty
and joy, but it's still...
And it's not all consuming.
It's not everything.
There's many ways to experiencean experience.
SPEAKER_00 (34:22):
Most definitely.
Right.
If someone listening right nowfeels disconnected from their
body, you know, like you'resaying, being tired or numb or
afraid, what's one smallinvitation you would offer them
today?
SPEAKER_02 (34:37):
Jump up and down 10 times.
And then lie down on the floorand breathe.
10 times, notice how many timesyour mind drifts away and where
you go.
Put one hand on your heart andone hand on your belly and take
a breath in and out and justcontinue to know that we are in
(34:58):
this wild collective planet alltogether.
And every human is in a state ofa dance of struggling, feeling
disconnected and feelingconnected.
I don't know.
There's so much right now.
I mean, we're so privileged tobe able to be giving advice.
(35:18):
So yeah, partly getting into ayoga class, going for a walk,
looking at a flower.
SPEAKER_00 (35:28):
Yeah.
Now is the time becauseeverything's in bloom, but it
seems like a call to presence.
Yeah.
A call to really just, whew,just be in the body for a moment
and just see what it's tellingus, right?
SPEAKER_02 (35:43):
Yeah, yeah.
And I think part of why we arewhere we are in our culture is
because it's important to knowwhat is happening on a deep
level and understand that.
And the more we can all do thatindividually and start to do
that in our culture, maybe wehave hope about how we can
(36:03):
navigate all of these hugechallenges right now.
and move forward together.
We're not alone in it
SPEAKER_00 (36:11):
at all.
Well, Jennifer Polland, thankyou for joining us today.
Your presence, your wisdom, andyour devotion to the body as a
source of knowing is a gift, notjust to dancers or artists, but
to anyone longing really to comehome to themselves.
You remind us that movement isnot just something we do, but
(36:34):
something we are.
SPEAKER_02 (36:35):
And something we all have the right to do.
SPEAKER_00 (36:40):
Exactly.
Wow.
So much to think about fromtoday's episode because there's
something really sacred aboutbeing witnessed in motion when
the body says what the heartcan't find words for.
So I really appreciate youbringing that awareness to us
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
today.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
I feel like we're just at thetip of the iceberg of this
conversation.
So
SPEAKER_00 (37:06):
much to unpack and uncover.
UNKNOWN (37:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:12):
You can also find more episodes and updates at
sonorouslight.com.
(37:39):
or on your favorite podcastplatform.
Until next time, keep humming.
Hi, friends, and welcome back to another episode
of To Hum is Human, the podcastwhere we explore the
transformative power of tuninginto our intuition to express
our passionate purpose.
(00:21):
I'm your host, Donabell, and I'mthrilled you're here.
Today's episode, Tuning IntoYour Body, Intuition Beyond the
Mind, is about something Ibelieve we all need to reconnect
with, our bodies as intuitiveguides.
So often we think of intuitionas a whisper in the mind or a
gut feeling, but what if it'salso in the way we move,
(00:44):
breathe, and inhabit space?
Our bodies carry deep wisdom,and when we learn to listen to
posture, sensation, energy, andWe gain access to a form of
knowing that's ancient,personal, and profoundly
creative.
To guide us in this exploration,I'm so honored to welcome my
(01:05):
next guest.
Jennifer Pollans is a dancer,choreographer, educator,
curator, and the foundingartistic director of the School
for Contemporary Dance andThought, or SCDT, based in
Northampton, Massachusetts.
Jen's work centers movement as avehicle for imagination, joy,
(01:26):
and transformation.
She blends rigorous contemporarydance practice with somatics,
improvisation, and healing arts,drawing from over 25 years of
experience in the field.
From her early years performingwith companies like the Joffrey
Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, andthe Zurich Opera House Ballet to
(01:46):
her groundbreaking contributionsto experimental performance and
education, Jen brings anembodied brilliance to
everything she does.
Through SCDT, Jen has created avibrant platform for
performance, community dialogue,and artistic growth for
children, teens, andprofessionals Thank you so much
SPEAKER_02 (02:21):
for that wonderful introduction.
I'm so happy to be here with youtoday.
SPEAKER_00 (02:25):
Well, it's a joy for me to have you on the show.
And I'm going to do somethingdifferent for this episode.
I'd like to just take a momentand start with a breath.
So let's just both take a nicedeep inhale and exhale.
(02:46):
It's always nice to arrive at aplace in this moment.
So Jen, when you tune into yourbody right now, what is it
telling you?
Oh
SPEAKER_02 (02:57):
boy.
When I tune into my body rightnow, I'm feeling multiple
sensations at the same time.
I'm distracted by the state ofthe world.
I was just reading the news.
I'm really excited to be hereand honored and yeah, just to be
able to have a chance to talkabout the work that I'm doing at
(03:18):
every moment.
I'm in my house with a bunch ofTeenagers or almost not
teenagers sleeping upstairs.
Yeah, and it's cold and rainingoutside.
SPEAKER_00 (03:29):
Those are a lot of sensations.
Yeah, a lot of sensations.
Lots of things, lots of things.
Well, you describe movement asinquiry.
Yes.
So what was the first questionyour body ever asked you and how
did you answer?
The
SPEAKER_02 (03:45):
first question, well...
I have a very, very early memoryof looking at myself in the
mirror when I was about two ormaybe even younger.
It's one of my first memories.
And looking at my like sort of,you know, like a toddler would
just running around busy, busy,and then stopping and seeing a
mirror and seeing myself andhaving this realization that
(04:07):
that was me in the mirror.
And that like curiosity of who Iam, maybe in this version, I
don't know what I believe aboutlife and death and all of that
has sort of propelled me and theversion continues to expand or
change as i discover more aboutmyself and i feel extremely
(04:31):
lucky to be able to be a dancerin this version of this life of
whoever i am because it's givenme opportunities to understand
What it means to be alive and bepresent in the moment in a way
that I feel like people are sortof robbed from in our culture.
SPEAKER_00 (04:53):
Well, it's a very go, go, go culture.
And sometimes being just beingis sort of overlooked.
Now, many of us treat the bodyas a vehicle or a tool.
But not always as a teacher.
What does it mean to listen tothe body as an intuitive guide
for you?
SPEAKER_02 (05:13):
It means that there's intelligence and
understanding that is integratedwith our mind, with our
intellect and knowing in waysthat we might not understand
unless we start to inhabit whatour actual brain does.
feels like in the back, in thefront, in the center, where our
(05:36):
brain, not our mind, but ouractual brain that is our mind,
where it sits in our, in ourskull actually, and where our
alignment is and how our spine,you know, like how alive our
spine is and where our organslike engage with our posture.
It's a never ending exploration.
(05:59):
And a lot of that work, Idiscovered in my early 20s
through work of BonnieBainbridge-Cohen and the
body-mind centering work thatwas located in Western Mass for
many years before she moved tothe West Coast.
And that work has reallyprofoundly affected me.
So this intelligence of thebody-mind, the mind of the body,
(06:22):
and how it shapes the our daysand our lives and our ability to
perceive what's happening in the
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
moment.
It's very physical.
It's very visceral.
I feel as if when we were movingthrough our day, a lot of it's
up here.
Just...
just in the mind and we can goalong and about our day.
But how often do we actuallytune into where's my brain
situated in my skull right now?
Or how are my organs beingsquished in this outfit?
(06:50):
Things like that.
What does that feel and how doesthat make me be in the present
moment?
And
SPEAKER_02 (06:56):
how, when I discover that there's a front of my spine
and I can sort of Listen fromthat place.
How does that change how Ilisten?
How do all of these discoverieschange how I can listen?
Has been a huge long-termsomatic question for me.
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
Well, I rarely think about the front of my spine.
Right.
And when you think about whenyou're even speaking to someone,
are you fully engaged lookingand being with that person,
keeping the spine directly infront of them?
Wow.
I just learned something today.
You just helped me think aboutanother way of perceiving.
And that's so cool.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (07:32):
And these perceptions aren't like it's not
like we discover them and thenwe can put them like these are
just now tools.
They're gifts.
Right.
That that you can have with youall the time at the supermarket.
And I think another overarchingquestion for me, which
definitely formed a CDT, was howdo we take all these beautiful
(07:52):
things?
secret practices in the dancestudio dance studios are often
hidden up five flights of stairsyou know like far away from the
hustle and bustle and normalnormalcy of culture of our human
culture and also danceperformances are often unless
you're in the know I've heard somany people say I like dance but
(08:16):
I don't understand it I'mconfused it looks like you all
know what you're doing but I'm Idon't know what you're doing,
right?
So there's this question thatI've continued to hold maybe
since my time at the Joffreyactually, which is how do we
bring this power and thisintelligence and this beauty and
this opportunity into our dailylives?
(08:37):
So outside of the studio.
and engage these practices aswe're alive, not just as we're
on the dance floor.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:48):
Well, I would love if you could take us back in
time to when you really felt thepull to study dance.
SPEAKER_02 (08:56):
I started studying dance when I was four.
It's not a unique story of momsending daughter to ballet.
I do remember not being a ableto connect right away that we
were pretty much planning aperformance.
We were rehearsing.
So I was just so in the moment.
So I remember my first fewperformances, I was very
confused when I was on the stageat like four and five.
(09:19):
I was very young.
But I do remember that.
So now I teach little kids and Ihave this understanding of their
immediate experience and thenHow we're sort of building
something towards a future, youknow, is an interesting thing
with the little kids.
And I had that experience.
I think I started to reallythink I wanted to be a dancer
(09:42):
when I was about 14.
So it took a long time.
I was practicing ballet.
I was only doing ballet.
And I liked it or didn't, youknow, depending on the year.
And then...
I think I saw a VHS because I'm55, so I'm old.
So my mom had a VHS tape of SwanLake and I watched that.
(10:03):
And there was just somethingabout both the incredible
physicality, the virtuosity andthe music I was pretty obsessed
with.
And I just decided that I wasgoing to be a ballet dancer.
SPEAKER_00 (10:14):
Wow.
I mean, there's no question.
You're just like, yep.
And so would you attribute thatmoment watching that when that
sort of light clicked on.
You're like, oh, yeah, that'sit.
That's totally it.
Well, you founded the School forContemporary Dance and Thought
in 2013.
And it's just known as a vibranthub for performance, education,
(10:36):
and public dialogue.
And it's a place for emergingand established artists to
deepen their craft.
What was happening for andaround you at that time?
SPEAKER_02 (10:46):
Just finished grad school.
So I was a professional balletdancer and did not go and get an
undergraduate degree.
I graduated from high school ahalf a year early and moved to
New York City to dance with theJoffrey Ballet when I was 17.
So I had a professional balletcareer from 17 to about 24,
which brought me to Europe.
And in that short span of timenow, but it was very intense, I
(11:12):
realized that my interest wasn'tballet.
It was dance.
just physicality andunderstanding our body more for
art, for efficiency, like forclarity in myself.
So ballet is the practice isvery clear.
It's like it's very pure.
It's like to do it, you have tobe extremely tuned in a certain
(11:35):
way.
So my desire for understandingabout how to be more tuned led
me away from ballet and towardssomatics, which is a large field
of studying the mind of the bodythrough a variety of different
approaches and techniques andforms.
I moved away from performance asmy priority and more towards
bodywork and healing and stillcentered around creativity, like
(12:00):
understanding creativity andstarted to teach and wound up in
a grad school, found the onlygrad school for dance that gave
life experience credits.
So I have to really credit DonnaFaye Birchfeld, who founded the
Hollins University MFA programthat has a low residency
(12:21):
program.
So there was a bunch of us thathad been professional dancers in
our early careers and not hadour bachelor's degrees that were
able to come into American DanceFestival in North Carolina and
work.
And it was from that culminationof that incredible two years of
(12:41):
time.
It just, it was like sort ofborn after that.
SPEAKER_00 (12:46):
Well, the name itself includes contemporary
dance, but also thought.
Yeah.
That's very curious because mostpeople don't associate those two
things necessarily in a school.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (12:59):
right.
So I did that on purpose.
And I think it's reallyeffective.
I love things that are effectivevery quickly, you know, sort of
resonate and engage humans,right?
So that I'm glad I thought ofthat title.
It's a little bit long, theSchool for Contemporary Dance
and Thought, but it definitelyencompasses everything.
What I've found, especiallymoving away from ballet and into
(13:23):
the somatic world and then foundimprovisation, moved to Western
Mass because of BonnieBainbridge-Cohen, Nancy
Stark-Smith.
Thank you so much.
(14:00):
of being in a body?
What does it mean to be in afall and be in relationship to
other people as we're fallingthrough space into unknown
territory?
What does it mean to train ourreflexes to not always be in
fight or flight, but to be ableto be open as we're moving into
(14:20):
very unknown spaces together ina collaborative way?
So all of that stuff was soexciting to me about being able
to moving to Western Mass.
It also felt like I met a tribeof movement philosophers.
Yeah, so really intelligent,really curious humans that were
(14:43):
using their bodies to study whatit means to have a fulfilled
life.
SPEAKER_00 (14:49):
It must have been such a profound experience and
to be able to actually have acommunity that supports you in
that way.
I know very little about contactimprovisation.
So could you tell our listenerswhat that really means?
SPEAKER_02 (15:05):
I had the opportunity to work closely with
Steve Paxton, who also passedaway last year, about a year and
a half ago, for a long time.
He said that he created contactimprovisation in the late 1960s.
He was one of He was theinstigator of contact
improvisation in New York Cityas part of this Judson church
(15:30):
sort of lineage.
But he created it to bring thewilderness back to dance, is
what he said, which is reallybeautiful.
Many quotes of his are sobeautiful.
I feel like it's an evolvingpractice, not even a technique,
but an evolving practiceexploring one's relationship to
gravity.
(15:51):
It's like the duet betweenyourself and gravity or a group
of people moving and gravity.
So that's the basic premise ofit.
It has evolved.
Contact improvisation is also adance form that is more
accessible to people that aren'tnecessarily trained dancers,
which is a wonderful thing.
(16:11):
So like in a ballet class, ifyou haven't had some development
of the vocabulary, it's hard.
It's like you have to start atthe beginning.
But with contact, you canquickly be rolling a point of
contact with someone else'sbody.
There's still a lot of skills tounderstand so you don't get
smushed.
There's still nuances and a lotof things to understand about
(16:34):
the technique of it, but it's anaccessible form for people that
haven't had contact.
the ability to have dance,formal dance training, which is
also a beautiful, beautifulthing.
Steve talked about reclaimingtouch.
So not just from being sexual orsensual even, but just sort of
(16:55):
that touch of mother and child,that touch that we have as
children and using that as partof the territory to explore in a
creative art form.
SPEAKER_00 (17:06):
Yeah.
That's so primal when you thinkabout That's ancient.
That's just from the beginningof human existence and
understanding a connection thatis nonverbal, something that is
just purely contact.
And it's beautiful.
So SCDT, the most amazing thingabout it is you're challenging
(17:31):
people.
conventional models of, if youwould call it concert dance, I
don't know if that's such athing, or being a champion of
more inclusive vision ofembodied art.
And when you came to thatdecision to make that part of
your school, what was thereception to that?
How did people respond in thecommunity?
SPEAKER_02 (17:50):
Well, when I started in 2013, Northampton was
different than it is now.
So it felt like there was a lotof space for SCDT to form.
I started with Jennifer Nugent,who was in the Western Mass area
for a little while, who's nowback in New York City and is my
(18:13):
age.
I just have so much respect forher as an artist, a movement
artist.
She's a beautiful, wonderfuldancer.
And we started small.
We just said, what if we couldcreate a school purely based on
the things that bring us themost joy and just start to
invite in artists that we knew.
I had like this whole career inEurope.
She had this whole career in NewYork City.
(18:35):
And I had just come from my MFAprogram.
So I had all these newconnections.
And what if we just bringartists in and invite them to
share with the public whatthey're busy with in the moment,
what they're most interested in,what they're really like where
their appetite is right now.
And let that be the impulse forthe school to start.
(18:56):
And it just immediately tookoff.
It was easy.
It felt all very easy for a longtime.
Classes were full.
We started a lot of the programsthat still exist now.
And it just It just almostexploded into being, it felt
like at the moment.
(19:16):
And it was very exciting.
The youth classes were full.
I had been working at thePioneer Valley Performing Arts
High School for 16 years and hadleft and wanted to keep working
with teenagers and startedhatchery.
We immediately had 14 kids.
So it just sort of went
SPEAKER_00 (19:37):
boop.
Well, when you have somethingthat's aligned with joy, it just
feels easier.
I'm up for that.
I'm up for joy.
Yeah.
When people think about dance,there's a lot of impression
about perfection.
Yeah.
What do you see emerge whenpeople engage in movement
practices with presence andpermission?
SPEAKER_02 (19:56):
Yeah, perfection transforms.
UNKNOWN (19:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (19:59):
And we could have a whole hour long discussion on
what perfection is, right?
So perfectionism can be limitingbecause it can sort of point you
in a direction and then you missa lot of the things that happen
along the way.
So I think a lot of thepractices and trainings that
(20:20):
SCDT is grounded in is noticingwhat's happening along the way
and having that journey or thoseexperiences be more more
amplified or more engaged withthan perhaps in a normal dance
class you know that feels like adifference in in the training
(20:40):
that we're offering again it'sit becomes more accessible
because everybody canparticipate you know you don't
have to you know be able totouch your toes with your legs
straight or like have like acertain base of coordination
necessarily to be able to feelwhat it feels like to let your
body release into the floor orclose your eyes and sense what's
(21:02):
happening on the inside.
We all can do that to a varietyof degrees.
And that is an endless game orpractice.
It is constantly changing.
And every time we engage inthese somatically based
underlying physical practices ofinquiry, we're creating more of
a map of sensation andunderstanding of ourselves.
SPEAKER_01 (21:25):
So
SPEAKER_02 (21:26):
it's a little bit more like what we do in yoga in
a way.
And then from that place, wetake it into maybe learning a
phrase.
But it's coming from the insideout rather from the outside in.
Worrying about what
SPEAKER_00 (21:41):
it looks like to other people.
SPEAKER_02 (21:42):
Right.
It's not about what it lookslike.
And it looks beautiful.
Yes.
It's about what it feels likeand being able to appreciate
that.
the beauty in being in a roomwith a bunch of other people
practicing that together.
SPEAKER_00 (21:59):
Now, you've spoken about movement as a way to
process emotions, and you workwith many people navigating
trauma, growth, ortransformation.
How can movement become a portalto healing or remembering?
Oh,
SPEAKER_02 (22:16):
so many ways.
I mean, a lot of people havetrauma with touch.
And I just feel like if we canbe present in a classroom and In
the moment, it's a play betweenwhat we have to hold on to from
our past and what we can let goof, right?
(22:38):
So that practice of noticingwhat we're holding on to and
what we can let go of on verysmall levels or very big levels
feels like a healing practicerelated to personal trauma and
psychological turmoil, which weall have to varying degrees.
It's delicate.
It's a For me, the dance studiowas always a safe space.
(23:03):
It was a place where I was soexcited to explore the
boundaries.
But that's not true foreverybody.
So I feel like the field ofsomatics has been really
evolving and changing in thepast 10 or 15 years in good ways
to understand what safety is andhow we can create safe spaces,
(23:24):
even within the context of aclassroom environment.
SPEAKER_00 (23:28):
Well, when you...
also include others within yourown personal transformation.
I can imagine it's a verydifferent experience because
there's a holding of and supportof whatever you happen to be
going through at that time.
Yeah, and
SPEAKER_02 (23:46):
that's a tricky thing too, to figure out how
much we hold our own issues, toparticipate in a group
experience, how much we makespace for personal issues with
the group experience.
I've been doing this for a longtime, so there's so many stories
and just different versions ofhow classes unfold.
(24:07):
I will say dance is so communal.
We take class together.
So there is something aboutbeing able to witness, to be
seen, because that's a crazything about dance is our whole
body is seen in a dance class aswe're trying and learning and
fumbling through and exploringand experiencing.
And we're also seeing others.
(24:28):
So we're in this vulnerablespace state together, which is
quite unusual and
SPEAKER_00 (24:37):
beautiful.
When you think about bringingall those pieces together and
then having a performance, howdoes performance and pedagogy
intersect for you in helpingothers reclaim the wisdom of
their bodies?
SPEAKER_02 (24:54):
Well, that's a very interesting question.
We talk about it a lot in ourboard meetings right now.
The SCDT board is made upprimarily of other artists,
working artists, and thenbusiness people and lawyers and
financial people.
And we're talking aboutaccessibility all the time with
(25:17):
how our programming engages thepublic.
Because the cool thing aboutlive performance is it's not
just now the dancers in the roomtogether, the performers, the
artists in the room together.
We're all in the room together.
The audience is sitting there orstanding there or walking around
(25:37):
or whatever the structure is ofthe performance together in a
space, right?
Which is really different thanhow most of our Our living is
going at this point virtually.
And so we really look at that.
We look at how we're engagingthe public.
Performance can be looked at asa consumer event.
(25:59):
So it's like if you go to aBroadway show or you go to a
ballet, there's a certain levelof experience that you can count
on.
And then if you go to a veryalternative experimental
performance, there's a wholeother aesthetic and experience
that the audience has.
We're interested in the fullspectrum of entertainment, like
(26:19):
entertainment being one end ofthe spectrum and experimental
artist-centered work on theother.
When people don't understand,like when a language is more
foreign or there's lessexplained, some people tend to
get really uncomfortable.
And so part of our job, I think,as an experimental movement
(26:39):
performance art space is to helppeople find ways in to a less
defined performance space.
And that's really interestingand forever we'll be talking
about it and trying tounderstand and explore it.
It feels really important to beaware of that for SCDT and to be
(27:02):
right at the edge so that We'reincluding the audience and
giving the audience anopportunity to discover what it
means to be in a generativespace where we don't
necessarily, none of us knowwhat's going to happen next,
right?
So that experience feels realand potent and difficult to
(27:23):
navigate with this captiveaudience as we prepare
performances.
Hatchery is a great is a greattool because it's family
friendly and there's always morecohesive.
Like it's more like here's, hereare these things that we're
developing and we'll, we'll givethem to you as the audience.
(27:45):
Um, and we sneak in lots ofexperimentation.
We sneak in little surprisesalong the way.
And then hut, which is the mostexperimental of what SCDT does
feels like the opposite.
It's like, you're welcome here.
And we're not going to take careof you at all.
It's like it's up to you to findyour way.
And this is a sacred space forthe artists to have a chance to
(28:11):
explore their world withouthaving to caretake the audience
at all, which is also a verybeautiful thing to have.
the public be able to be exposedto.
Definitely.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:23):
So the hatchery, is that the teen component of the
school?
And then Hutt, if you couldexplain what Hutt is, because
I've been to several and theyare so invigorating.
There's something that's soalive in those performances.
If you could tell us what Huttis.
SPEAKER_02 (28:39):
Yeah.
So Hutt is 10 years old and it'sa program that was created by
Jake Maginsky, who is a soundartist and a professor at At
Smith College and myself, alongwith sort of rotating poet
curators as well, it's aperformance where there are
three artists.
There's a movement artist, apoet or an artist that works
(29:03):
with words in some way, so itcould also be theater, and then
a sound artist.
And each artist gets a 20-minuteset.
to share their work with thepublic.
And there's little breaks inbetween.
So the artists don't worktogether.
It's like first it's dance andthen you have a break and then
it's poetry and then you have abreak and then it's sound and
then you're done.
And the idea was to bring indifferent publics.
(29:28):
So often music and sound artistsdon't go see dance or poetry,
you know?
And so there's this mix in thepublic that is really exciting.
And then we get to see So, yeah.
(29:55):
Even though they're very, verydifferent, there's often some
through line that we can detect.
But we don't really introduce orwelcome the public.
The thing just starts and thenit ends.
And it's my favorite.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
I'll have to say it's my favorite, too.
I love...
the juxtapositions because aspeople attending the event,
we're sort of programmed in aparticular way.
It's like, well, why did thesethree people get put together?
Or we try to make sense of thegrouping.
But then you also experiencethem each separately and they're
(30:31):
always so unexpected.
That's what I love about it.
It's like, I've never seenanything like that.
I've never experienced anythinglike that.
It takes a little while tointegrate because your mind is
just being, your wholeeverything is being exposed
something so new and novel.
Yeah.
It's just so exciting.
I love that you're doing that
SPEAKER_02 (30:51):
too.
Yeah.
We try to take advantage ofpeople coming through for the
five colleges or people arealways contacting us at SCDT to
share their work.
So we have this sort ofprofessional guest artist series
that we weave into our seasons.
HUT is the ongoing series thatis highlighting professionals in
(31:12):
the fields.
We have works in progress serieswhere professionals come in, but
it's works in progress.
So you're not seeing finishedwork.
And we have a lot of supportprogramming for artists at all
levels.
But this feels like you reallyget to come in and see these
seasoned, dedicated,experimental art forms.
(31:35):
And there's a resonance that asyou started this, this talk with
is beyond the intellect to, youknow, intuitive resonance that
we're wanting to just let be andnot like get in the way of as
much.
And
SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
there's, there's a lot of freedom in that.
And at the moment you, you,Right.
(32:17):
practices or rituals that helpyou stay attuned to your body's
wisdom, especially in thesechaotic and demanding times?
SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
Well, I try to be physical every day.
I mean, it's really different asI'm aging and have such an
administrative load at thispoint.
And I have said before, I feellike maybe it's like a survival
skill I have created, buteverything feels like a creative
practice to me.
So that's mostly where I'm at atthis point is like Noticing,
(32:49):
especially when I have aversion,resistance, fear, fatigue, when
I lose hope, noticing that as asa physiological experience and
getting curious about thoseplaces, as well as the times
when things happen really easilyand everything works and I have
(33:13):
an easy day or I write a grantand it just flows.
Sometimes I'll just take a walkand notice the things that I
pass by.
Yeah, the things that don't havemuch important so that I'm not
labeling as important and try toneutralize everything in that
way so that maybe the thingsthat I'm focused on or
(33:37):
hyper-focused on or mostconcerned about, if I let that
go, this idea of letting gofeels like it's a theme in this
conversation, what's around me?
What else is happening?
What else can I see?
What am I missing?
And that just feels like a verymuch of a delightful and
grounding practice I have asmuch as I can.
SPEAKER_00 (33:59):
Yeah.
Well, and just to see the beautyand joy that's right in front of
you, right?
SPEAKER_02 (34:06):
Yeah.
And just see everything a littlebit like maybe it's not beauty
and joy, but it's still...
And it's not all consuming.
It's not everything.
There's many ways to experiencean experience.
SPEAKER_00 (34:22):
Most definitely.
Right.
If someone listening right nowfeels disconnected from their
body, you know, like you'resaying, being tired or numb or
afraid, what's one smallinvitation you would offer them
today?
SPEAKER_02 (34:37):
Jump up and down 10 times.
And then lie down on the floorand breathe.
10 times, notice how many timesyour mind drifts away and where
you go.
Put one hand on your heart andone hand on your belly and take
a breath in and out and justcontinue to know that we are in
(34:58):
this wild collective planet alltogether.
And every human is in a state ofa dance of struggling, feeling
disconnected and feelingconnected.
I don't know.
There's so much right now.
I mean, we're so privileged tobe able to be giving advice.
(35:18):
So yeah, partly getting into ayoga class, going for a walk,
looking at a flower.
SPEAKER_00 (35:28):
Yeah.
Now is the time becauseeverything's in bloom, but it
seems like a call to presence.
Yeah.
A call to really just, whew,just be in the body for a moment
and just see what it's tellingus, right?
SPEAKER_02 (35:43):
Yeah, yeah.
And I think part of why we arewhere we are in our culture is
because it's important to knowwhat is happening on a deep
level and understand that.
And the more we can all do thatindividually and start to do
that in our culture, maybe wehave hope about how we can
(36:03):
navigate all of these hugechallenges right now.
and move forward together.
We're not alone in it
SPEAKER_00 (36:11):
at all.
Well, Jennifer Polland, thankyou for joining us today.
Your presence, your wisdom, andyour devotion to the body as a
source of knowing is a gift, notjust to dancers or artists, but
to anyone longing really to comehome to themselves.
You remind us that movement isnot just something we do, but
(36:34):
something we are.
SPEAKER_02 (36:35):
And something we all have the right to do.
SPEAKER_00 (36:40):
Exactly.
Wow.
So much to think about fromtoday's episode because there's
something really sacred aboutbeing witnessed in motion when
the body says what the heartcan't find words for.
So I really appreciate youbringing that awareness to us
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
today.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
I feel like we're just at thetip of the iceberg of this
conversation.
So
SPEAKER_00 (37:06):
much to unpack and uncover.
UNKNOWN (37:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:12):
You can also find more episodes and updates at
sonorouslight.com.
(37:39):
or on your favorite podcastplatform.
Until next time, keep humming.
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