What is Somatics? And, What are Somatic Classes like?
It’s difficult to describe in words, so I asked ChatGPT the following question: How to describe the topic of Somatics?
The bot did a pretty good job with its explanation (see below). For these classes, I gear experiences toward the individuals in attendance.
And, I am a certified movement analyst. (Kista Tucker)
The Russell School Of Ballet
14119 Sullyfield Circle, Chantilly, VA 20151
Sunday mornings at 10:00am
Additional classes during weekday mornings are being considered.
The fee is $20 per class.
ChatGPT’s Explanation:
Somatics can be described in several ways, depending on whether you're speaking to a general audience, an academic audience, or people working in movement, dance, and the performing arts.
What is Somatics?
Somatics is the study and practice of the body as experienced from within. It explores the relationship between bodily sensations, movement, perception, awareness, and the mind, emphasizing how we experience and understand ourselves through our bodies.
Unlike approaches that focus primarily on how the body looks or performs from the outside, somatic approaches emphasize the individual's internal experience: what we feel, sense, perceive, and discover through movement and stillness.
Four ways to describe Somatics
1. Simple and accessible
Somatics is the study of the body's internal experience—how we sense, feel, move, and become aware of ourselves through our bodies.
2. Professional and interdisciplinary
Somatics explores the relationship between bodily awareness, movement, perception, and the mind. Through attention to internal sensations and movement experiences, it investigates how we develop awareness, organize our actions, and understand ourselves in relation to our surroundings.
3. Dance and performing arts
Somatics explores movement from the inside out. It emphasizes bodily awareness, sensory perception, and the connection between intention, sensation, and action. In dance and performance, somatic practices can deepen movement understanding, expand expressive possibilities, and support more conscious relationships between the performer, the body, and the audience.
4. Communication and human connection
Somatics examines how we experience, interpret, and communicate through the body. It considers how sensation, posture, gesture, movement, and bodily awareness contribute to our understanding of ourselves and our connections with others.
What topics fall under Somatics?
Depending on the discipline and context, somatic study may include:
Body awareness: Recognizing internal sensations and physical states.
Movement and perception: Exploring how we sense, organize, and experience movement.
Mind–body relationships: Investigating the connections between thought, emotion, sensation, and action.
Embodied learning: Understanding how experience and awareness influence learning and behavior.
Expression and communication: Exploring how the body conveys meaning beyond spoken language.
Presence and attention: Developing awareness of oneself, others, and the surrounding environment.
Movement practices: Studying approaches such as the Feldenkrais Method, the Alexander Technique, and Body-Mind Centering.
Somatics is a broad field, so these topics are not all included in every somatic approach.
My recommendation
If you're describing Somatics as a subject area within an interdisciplinary framework involving movement, communication, and the performing arts, I would use this definition:
Somatics is the study of the body's lived, internal experience and the relationship between bodily awareness, movement, perception, and meaning. It explores how we sense, understand, express, and connect with ourselves and others through embodied experience.
This definition is broad enough for an academic or professional context while remaining accessible to people outside the field.
One important distinction: Somatics is not simply the study of the body. It is the study of the body as it is experienced by the person living in it. That distinction captures much of what makes the field unique.
I then asked ChatGPT to provide resources for its reply to me. Here’s what it stated:
Certainly. The description I gave you was a synthesis of ideas from the field of Somatics, rather than a quotation from one particular source. The strongest support for it comes from professional somatic organizations and specialists in movement studies.
Here are reliable sources you can consult, especially if you're using the definition in an academic paper, presentation, or interdisciplinary discussion involving dance, movement, communication, and the performing arts.
1. Primary sources for defining Somatics
1. International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA)
Professional organization · Scope of practice
ISMETA describes somatic movement education and therapy as enhancing human functioning and body–mind integration through movement awareness. It specifically discusses internal sensations, proprioception, interoception, lived consciousness, and our interactions with the environment.
This is the strongest professional source for the definition I gave you.
Read ISMETA's description of the profession
2. Laban/Bartenieff and Somatic Studies International
Movement analysis · Somatic practice
This source explicitly distinguishes the body as experienced from within from the body observed externally. It explains how somatic learning emphasizes the mover's own experience rather than external ideals of what movement should look like.
This is particularly relevant to dance, choreography, and movement analysis.
3. Somatische Akademie Berlin
Definition · History · Body–mind integration
This overview discusses Somatics as a range of educational and therapeutic methods focused on bodily awareness, movement, and psychological and physical processes. It also discusses Thomas Hanna's influential understanding of the body as experienced from within.
2. Sources for specific aspects of the definition
Aspect of Somatics
Recommended source
Internal, first-person bodily experience
Laban/Bartenieff and Somatic Studies International
Bodily awareness, sensation, and movement
ISMETA's professional scope of practice
Somatics in dance and performance
“Somatics: A Buzzword Defined”
Body–mind integration and embodied learning
Movement, attention, and learning
These sources support the central ideas in the description: internal experience, awareness, movement, perception, learning, and the relationship between body and mind. The connection to communication and human connection is a broader interdisciplinary interpretation, rather than a single universally accepted definition.
3. An academic reference worth pursuing
A useful starting point is Kelly Ferris's article, “Somatics: A Buzzword Defined,” published in the Journal of Dance Education. The article explores why Somatics can be difficult to define, how it relates to dancers' experiences, and how bodily awareness informs movement, reflection, and creative problem-solving. The ISMETA page above provides an overview and identifies the journal publication.
For foundational scholarship, also look for:
Hanna, Thomas. “What Is Somatics?” In Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment, edited by Don Hanlon Johnson, pp. 341–352. North Atlantic Books, 1995.
Eddy, Martha. “Somatic Practices and Dance: Global Influences.” Dance Research Journal, 2009. This is another useful avenue for examining the relationship between somatic practices and dance.
For formal academic writing, verify the full bibliographic details and the edition you consult before citing either work.
4. A definition you can cite and adapt
For your interdisciplinary work, I suggest the following wording:
Somatics is a field of study and practice that emphasizes the body's subjective, lived experience. Through movement, sensory awareness, and attention to bodily processes, it explores the relationship between perception, action, and body–mind integration, including how people experience themselves and interact with their environment.
This is a paraphrased synthesis, not a direct quotation. It is supported particularly well by ISMETA and Laban/Bartenieff and Somatic Studies International.
Pillars of The Profession+1
If you are developing a framework that brings together Somatics, Communication, and the Performing Arts, I would keep one distinction clear: Somatics contributes the perspective of embodied, first-person experience; communication contributes the study of how meaning is expressed and interpreted; and the performing arts provide contexts in which movement, expression, and meaning can be created and experienced.
That distinction allows you to build your own interdisciplinary framework without suggesting that Somatics, by itself, already encompasses every aspect of communication or artistic expression.