Release technique is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of different corporeal practices that emphasize efficiency of movement in dance. Emphasis is placed on breath, skeletal alignment, joint articulation, ease of muscular tension and the use of gravity and momentum to facilitate movement.
Release work appears as part of a somatic paradigm, whereby subjective, internal experience of the body is valued alongside objective, analytical outside view of it.
The development of release technique has strands in therapeutic movement techniques, such as Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Cranio-Sacral Therapy etc.; and also from dance-specific practices, drawing from Modern and Postmodern dance, as well as Eastern movement philosophy and practice such as Yoga and Martial Arts. Practitioners include Eric Hawkins, Doris Humphreys and Mary O'Donnell Fulkerson.
Famous quotes containing the words release and/or technique:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“Technique is the test of sincerity. If a thing isn’t worth getting the technique to say, it is of inferior value.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)