ABSTRACT
Somatic practices in dance have gained greater visibility, acknowledgment and a place in the discourses of dance studies. Dancers and dance educators have brought a range of practices, techniques and methods into their work for a variety of reasons. Because Alexander Technique is a practice that has its own body of discourse and organizational structures, this chapter presents the broader context within which dance has been considered. It provides some brief observations about dance in the 1970s and 1980s. Some applications of Alexander Technique to dance began in the 1960s in the UK with the Jooss-Leeder–trained dance educator Jane Winearls and in the United States with the ballet-trained Joan Murray and with Deborah Caplan. A major field within which the discourse on dance and Alexander Technique has developed is that of education. The question of the “body” in Alexander Technique is both an interesting and complicated one.
