Body Listening arose out of a desire to understand the inner mechanics of the body’s transmission and reception of intention. Its originating contexts are team sports, geography and landscape, live engagements between performers, and between performers and publics. Body Listening  prepares the body to register and process spatial and performative awareness.

The protocols have been developed through artistic interactions, collaborative practice, workshop presentation and dedicated research undertaken from Shanghai to Berlin, Seoul to Dublin, Melbourne to Liverpool, Tokyo to Dresden, Chuncheon to the Central Australian Deserts with actors, dancers, musicians, scientists, indigenous elders, academics and multiple publics.

The international mobile research laboratory, AMPERS&ND 2011-2014 introduced musicians into the research mix for the first time, and this element created a new reaction in the process, specifically in relation to ‘sensibility’, language and application of the protocols. Consequently, we developed a new way of speaking to an audience about how humans define themselves in daily life through their body and their senses, using sound as a primary agent of receiving and processing information.

Over 30 years of research, Body Listening has evolved into training and practice protocols that speak to performing artists enabling the formation of a highly sensitised, connected ensemble.