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“I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
In this chapter, we elaborate on alternatives to standardized approaches to conict-resolution
and negotiation training that are more dynamic and embodied and therefore more likely to
yield prociency in practice. Borrowing from ne arts, neuroscience, and intercultural com-
munication, we explain why dance and movement are the frontier and future essential com-
ponents of conict-resolution education. From our own and others’ experiences in the eld,
we examine why practitioners and parties can benet from the eects of mirror neurons,
somatic empathy, and other recently elaborated insights if they step away from their tables
and—yes, we mean it—dance! Shall we?
Honeyman, Coben, and de Palo,1 drawing upon feedback from an international group of
negotiation teachers, write that negotiation teachers “1) over-rely on ‘canned’ material of lile
relevance to students; and 2) share an unsubstantiated belief that role-plays are the one best
way to teach.”
Here, we build on this work, exploring embodied pedagogy generally and movement-based
approaches specically. Can we nd ways to vary training methodologies that are culturally
sensitive, foster creativity, and meaningfully develop third-party capacities for our globalizing
world? Can essential elements of embodied practice be identied that apply across training
methodologies and cultural contexts? How can we take a giant leap forward and move to
multisensory, experiential, and culturally uent training activities?
In the past few years, signicant international aention has been directed to innovative
ways of enhancing pedagogical methods with diverse experiential learning approaches. For
example, a recent international conference, Rethinking Negotiation Teaching, was shaped
around a series of adventure learning activities with a focus on authenticity, real-life engage-
ment, creativity, and the role and value of the emotional experiences.2
is chapter, will place the spotlight on experiential learning of a dierent type. We explore
possibilities of using dance and movement-based activities to supplement, complement, in-
spire, and potentially transform experiential education and take it to a new level of teaching
Building Kinesthetic Intelligence
Dance in Conflict-Resolution Education
NADJA ALEXANDER A N D MICHELLE LEBARON
90 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
and learning. is includes both somatic and kinesthetic dimensions of such activities—in
other words, aention to and experience of the body “from the inside out,” as well as of the
body in motion, through the complex interplay of sensation, emotion, and cognition.3 In
our experiences as educators and intervenors in diverse contexts—from law rms, corpora-
tions, and universities to conicted communities in rst- and third-world regions—we have
observed that this is a vital frontier. It is vital because complex issues and identities at stake in
today’s conicts call for multiple modalities of intervention. Training must help third parties
develop the capacities to work eectively not only in cognitive realms but also in emotional,
physical, imaginative, intuitive, and spiritual dimensions.
Our experience has taught us rsthand the importance of a multimodal approach. Work-
ing with women, youths, and chiefs from remote villages in the fragile and transitional econo-
mies of the Pacic and Africa has opened our eyes to the traditional transformative power of
dance in many non-Western cultures. In indigenous seings around the world, people have
long used dance, movement, music making, storytelling, mime, theater, and ritual to bring
conict to the surface and address it. In such contexts, kinesthetic elements are understood as
integral to resolving conict, making decisions, and eecting change.
Shiing our aention to modern industrialized societies, we note the mushrooming trend
of health and mindfulness retreats that focus variously on achieving balance and perspective
through mental relaxation and nurturing the body. ere is also a signicant increase in the
popularity of ancient pilgrim trails: taking a period of days, weeks, or even months apart from
fast-paced lives to walk in rhythms that gradually reconnect physical, natural, and spiritual
aspects of being.4 ese and other developments indicate an increasing collective questioning
of the widespread focus on rationally oriented production and linear achievement in modern
Western society.
e articial and still deeply entrenched separation of mind and body, logos and ethos,
and brain and brawn is a legacy of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, also referred to
as the age of reason. To preserve the purity and perceived superiority of intellectual reason,
cognitive intelligence was separated from the arts, skills, and other intelligences associated
with physicality, creativity, imagination, and emotionality. As a result, the Western intellectual
tradition yielded pedagogy in universities and professional training contexts that values ratio-
nal functioning, oen to the exclusion of other senses and intelligences. An approach such as
this can be described as disembodied because it blocks access to and rejects ways of being and
knowing that explicitly engage the body. is intellectual privileging has continued despite
recent acknowledgment of the importance of kinesthetic approaches to learning.
e Western philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche recognized the inadequacy of this pedagogy
when he turned his back on the academic circles and institutions of the nineteenth century.
Nietzsche recognized what neuroscientists are now conrming: that the Cartesian assump-
tion of mind-body splits is unfounded, and sound thinking and decision making involve the
synergy of multiple intelligences.5 In other words, knowledge in the sense of “know-why”
is inextricably linked to “know-how” and is optimally situated in bodily experience and
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BUILDING KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE / Teaching Dance
somatic memory. Today, elds as diverse as neuroscience,6 political science,7 education,8
dance therapy,9 and philosophy10 have begun to explore and aest to the signicance of aes-
thetics, emotional intelligence, and somatics to all areas of human activity.
If conict-resolution education is to be eective, then we must ask ourselves how con-
cepts and skills integral to resolving conict can be learned and taught in ways that reconnect
them with physical dimensions of emotion, intuition, and imagination. Given that cognition
and emotion are braided processes that cannot be separated from the body as an instrument
of knowing, training methods that target or isolate the intellect can no longer be seen as
defensible. It is time that conict-resolution pedagogy caught up with these developments.
In the next section, we examine why dance and movement are particularly potent tools for
training repertoires.
Just as unexplored terrain can seem dangerous to the untraveled mind, so body-based
work can feel risky and threatening to people whose aention has been focused on the neck up.
Yet working in a universe that tries to match competing rationalities of conict parties without
accessing the richness of physical resources is a bit like passing up a feast in favor of a bowl of
watery gruel: it is far less enjoyable and truly unnecessary when abundance is available.
Dance, the Moving Imagination
Dance teachers are fond of saying, “If you can walk, you can dance.” We would go one step
further and suggest that if you can breathe, you can move, and if you can move, you can
dance. Dance is, aer all, our moving imagination. It is the kinesthetic manifestation of ex-
pression, or “the hidden language of the soul,” as Martha Graham, modern dance pioneer,
famously said.
Of course, Graham and her contemporaries were working at a time when an essential
“true” and stable core identity was a given. Modern dance was meant to give this core “authen-
tic expression.” In the protean world of the twenty-rst century, complex dynamics of identity
and meaning-making animate conict. As Lion (1999) has wrien, solving contemporary
conicts calls for suppleness, creativity, and resilience. ose who would intervene may be
less focused on the imprecise terminology of a core and more concerned with helping parties
nd ways through labyrinths of contested meanings and identity-shaped narratives (Foster
1997, 1998; Desmond 2001).
Dance and movement help with these challenges because they assist parties in bypassing
conscious stories of conict while summoning creativity as the parties:
articulate and recognize deeply rooted feelings and needs;
embrace new ways of knowing through heightened mind-body (somatic) sensations,
connections, and awareness;
develop increased awareness of inner geographies where habitual responses to conict
reside, thus increasing repertoires of possible conict behaviors; and
experiment physically with new ways of being for the future.
92 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
In the conict-resolution eld, we are witnessing increasing interest in, and applications
of, embodied knowledge. Consider the use of meditation principles focused on breath and
awareness in the practice of mindful mediation.11 In constellation work pioneered by Insa
Sparrer and others in Germany, participants create physical and emotional maps of conict
that yield insights and possibilities outside the reach of conscious cognitive processes.12 e
use of constellations and other related work oers participants creative opportunities to de-
velop a deep somatic understanding of underlying issues and relationships from a systemic
perspective. Likewise, conict-resolution workshops that integrate elements of meditation
and physical self-awareness encourage participants to access their inner dancers as they exam-
ine personal relationships to conict and how they respond to it.
In yet another illustration, Augusto Boal’s eatre of the Oppressed (1974, 2000)—directly
inuenced by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970, 2000)—has been used world-
wide to engage disadvantaged communities in processes of reection, innovation, decision
making, and collaborative lawmaking (legislative theater). Participatory theater has been
used by inmates, trade unionists, and hospital sta; by peasants and workers, students and
teachers, artists, social workers, psychotherapists, and members of nonprot organizations. It
has empowered marginalized voices and developed innovative solutions to conict precisely
because it uses the embodied and symbolic language of theater rather than conventional ap-
proaches. eatre of the Oppressed and Diamond’s eatre for Living have been able to help
those living in conict articulate oen-excluded, undervalued, or ineable realities and nd
creative practical solutions.13
Dance and movement have long enjoyed legitimacy in therapeutic circles. e applica-
tion of dance-therapy principles to help people deal with the aermath of violent conict is
yet another area where the mind-body connection is nurtured. erapeutic use of creative
movement has yielded profound eects in accessing and processing traumatic memories and
strong emotions stored in the body—making these precious aspects of conict conscious,
less charged, and more accessible.14
For some, this discussion may seem to take us far from the everyday understanding of the
term dance and have lile connection with recognized forms of dance such as the fox-trot,
hip-hop, jazz, or classical ballet. Let’s take a look at a standard dictionary denition. e New
American Dictionary denes dance as
1. a series of movements that match the speed and rhythm of a piece of music; and
2. a particular sequence of steps and movements constituting a particular form of dancing.
e rst denition is much narrower than our understanding of dance. We are not aiming
to train participants to move in ways that match pace and rhythm to a particular piece of mu-
sic. In fact, movements that clash with a given rhythm or defy a prescribed tempo can be just
as communicative in revealing undercurrents and group dynamics.
e second denition is broader, referring to a paerned sequence of movements as dancing.
But when do emerging forms get recognized as dance? Hip-hop, for example, was not always
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BUILDING KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE / Teaching Dance
a recognized form of dance. It grew from expression and commentary on everyday life, yet
today it is a dance form with a huge following.15 In recent years, hip-hop has become an ac-
cessible catalyst for conict transformation in marginalized youth cultures from south central
Los Angeles to South Africa. Various other forms of contemporary dance continue to push
the envelope and challenge the boundaries of what is recognized as dance and what is not.
Still, many people harbor the illusion that they don’t dance, at least not outside specic
occasions. Insofar as they dene dance, these standard explanations eectively conne dance,
creating a sense that dance is a thing that artists do, not something we all do in our everyday
lives. A look at colloquial language tells another story. We say, “I’m afraid I stepped on her
toes,” or “How can we shi the painful dance between us?”
In conict, references to dance are frequent. Seeking to identify issues, we urge others
to “stop dancing around the topic.” When oered an outcome, we may “waltz around the
oer,” playing for time and looking at the proposal from dierent angles. In the German lan-
guage, the phrase “to dance at several weddings” (auf mehreren Hochzeiten tanzen) provides
an equivalent to the English expression “have your cake and eat it too”—words oen uered
in situations involving some level of tension or conict. Similarly, “to dance on someone’s
nose” (jemandem auf der Nase herumtanzen) means to walk all over someone. Muhammad
Ali used dance as a metaphor for boxing when he said, “e ght is won or lost far away from
witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under
those lights.”16 en there is the ubiquitous “negotiation dance,” referring to the sequence of
strategies and “moves” negotiators make as they work toward agreement. Mark Young and
Erik Schlie, for example, explore the metaphors of the dance of positions, the dance of empa-
thy, and the dance of concessions.17 Once we begin to notice dance as a powerful metaphor
that is well integrated in our everyday communications, conicts, and resolutions, we realize
its potency as a way of understanding situations and oering mobility in stuck places.
In this chapter, we embrace dance and—more broadly—movement as forms of embod-
ied expression not limited to a recognized sequence of motions. Dance is, and should be,
available to anyone who wants to explore it, regardless of rhythmic ability and coordination.
Dance extends to all forms of movement, whether visible to the human eye or not. Dancing
on the inside, beneath your skin, or in your mind’s eye can be every bit as expressive, exhila-
rating, and exhausting as a rigorous jive. Indeed, it is possible to be very calm on the outside
and feel vibrant on the inside or to move vigorously on the outside from a deep, calm center.
inking of dance this way, it becomes inclusive, accessible, and much less threatening to
many people who might not feel condent dancing in a public space.
We w ou ld go s o f ar as t o c on te nd t h at y ou ca nn o t not dance. What happens if you see a day
of your life as a dance? You become aware of your movements: their rhythms, textures, and
nuances as they express inner states, as they aect others, and as they inuence the relational
elds around you. Imagine you are on a crowded subway during morning rush hour. How does
your body shi, slide, pause, and adaptively dance around the physicality of others? How do
you breathe and situate your kinesthetic awareness in the space? What aitudes are commu-
nicated by your dance? What do the textures of your movements say? Do you experience the
94 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
crowded subway as oppressive and invasive as you press yourself against a wall and close your
eyes, feigning sleep? Or does your presence comfortably ll the space in and around your rela-
tional eld? e frame of dance brings a clear focus on nuances of spatial, place-related inu-
ences we navigate every day. Was your day spent at a computer working on a long document?
How did your posture shi over time? What were the physical sensations you experienced:
heavy/light, tense/relaxed, alert/sleepy, engaged/detached? How did the walk to the refrig-
erator whisper relief to your muscles, coaxing your circulation to restoration? When your pet
brushed against your leg, did you hug it? When your partner called to check on dinner plans,
did your state change? ese are the kinds of questions that arise from “thinking dance.”
If you still feel resistant to the notion of dance as a staple of conict-resolution training,
please join with us in jeisoning images of mediators switching business suits for tutus. Con-
sider times when you have experienced a breakthrough in a problem or received a sudden
insight. Movement is oen a catalyst, whether in the form of walking in the park or mopping
the oor. We will see that there are good neurobiological reasons for this. In addition, con-
ceptualizing relations between people in conict as a dance takes away from binary, zero-sum,
simplistic notions that pervade much colloquial conict language. Dancing, as anyone who
has tried ballroom steps with a partner can aest, is complex and requires aunement to the
other’s intentions and to the environment and sympathetic responses to surprises. Let’s ex-
plore more of the fruitfulness of this idea in relation to conict theory and practice.
So What Would Happen If We Dared to Let Go of Words?
Dance and movement can open up and strengthen underused channels of communication, giv-
ing us ways to engage with one another at kinesthetic, nonverbal levels. e early twentieth-
century dancer and choreographer Doris Humphrey explained, “ere are times when the sim-
ple dignity of movement can fulll the function of a volume of words.” Human dignity, respect
for the other, and gracefulness can go a long way to shiing negative relations in instances of
long-standing or intense conict. ese crucial dimensions of conict transformation are oen
shied nonverbally: holding another’s hand oered in greeting; leaning forward while listening;
the energy that infuses silences; the quality and degree of eye contact; the relaxation of one’s
posture and gestures. Yet while crucial to changing entrenched dynamics, nonverbal aspects of
generative conict handling are among the least examined within the eld.
For those in ongoing interdependent relations, imagining new dances may be a useful met-
aphor to inspire new ways forward. Understanding conict through the metaphor of dance
yields key insights about rechoreographing dynamics and improvising approaches. We be-
lieve that dance’s contribution to the eld is far more than metaphorical; it oers concrete,
practical tools for engaging these oen overlooked but ever-present aspects of conict.
e immense volume of literature around the notion of body language and nonverbal
communication points to the power of kinesthetic communication. Too oen, however, the
focus has been on translating the language of the body into words rather than encouraging
the exploration of communication at a kinesthetic level through breath, body awareness, and
movement in relation to others.18
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BUILDING KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE / Teaching Dance
Grinder and Bandler19 remind us that “the map is not the territory.” Here they refer to the
lters involved in representation and how they potentially transform or dilute meaning. For
example, the moment we select and articulate words to represent feelings that we are physi-
ologically experiencing, a number of things happen:
1. We categorize and constrain our feelings according to word choice. For instance, how
do we choose among angry, upset, and furious? And how do we know—especially across
cultures—that others share the same meanings of these words as we do? Even within
the same cultural context, personal interpretations vary tremendously. In a recent me-
diation, three women—all native-English-speaking lawyers—were unable to agree on
the meaning of the word upset. ey each held dierent associations with the word and
its relationship to the word angry.
2. Our word selection is shaped by language choice and, more deeply, worldview. For ex-
ample, Hanna explains that “with respect to space, Anglos refer to four directions: East,
west, north, and south. Laguna Pueblo indigenous people conceive of seven directions:
Up, down, and center, as well as the four Anglo directions,” indicating arguably more
nuanced and sensitive spatial relationships.20 Such linguistic parameters work to shape
conceptual possibilities. For instance, David Hall and Roger Ames have explored how
the contextual meaning—even pronunciation—of concepts and characters in Chinese
is linked to developments in Chinese philosophy, which did not share the Western
philosophical preoccupation with identifying overarching static truth or principles.21
Similarly, Lee analyzes Chinese characters relevant to negotiation with a view to draw-
ing aention to the cultural and historical contextual meanings embedded in them.22
As another example, the German language, which tends to require more words to ex-
press an idea than English does, is considered by many to be a more-fecund language
than English in terms of expressing emotion. In an Al Jazeera interview, Johan Galtung
suggests that European languages such as French and German may be more suitable
for conducting mediation processes than English because they are less direct and al-
low more creative possibilities for participants to move in and around the conict to
explore options for resolution while saving face. Interestingly, he oers the view that
the Japanese language is possibly even less suitable for mediation than English, but for a
very dierent reason: it is so indirect and noncommial that it may be dicult to make
any progress toward agreement at all!23
3. Our word selection is also shaped by our level of linguistic uency and our emotional-
kinesthetic awareness (conscious mind-body connection). Here the notion of mul-
tiple intelligences is relevant, discussed further below. Shiing conict oen involves
engaging dierent types of intelligences, such as rational (thought), emotional (felt),
spiritual (interconnected), and kinesthetic (sensed, intuited), to bridge gaps between
conscious ways of knowing and physiological ways of being. As diverse intelligences are
welcomed into conict-resolution processes, they can dance together into new alche-
mies not previously imagined.
96 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
An example of the importance of nonverbal dimensions comes from a multiparty com-
mercial mediation that took place in Australia a number of years ago. Four institutional parties
were represented by thirteen people of Anglo-Australian, upper-middle-class background.
Legal advisers were available by telephone. ree days had been set aside for the mediation of
this maer, which had been litigated for over ten years. e dispute related to employment;
a signicant amount of money was at stake as well as symbolic issues. Halfway through the
second day, lile substantive progress had been made. As lunchtime was approaching, the
mediator arranged for the participants to walk together to a restaurant where one table had
been reserved. She suggested to the parties that they talk about whatever they liked, but it
would be good to have a break from the mediation. is they did.
In the aernoon, the participants were invited into groups with peers from their side and
one person from another party in each group. Each group was given a separate and private
working area. e mediator hoped that group dynamics would shi with the introduction of
others into each group. e groups were asked to collaboratively draw an image of how they
imagined each of the other three parties felt at this time in the mediation and to nd ways
to facilitate participation by every group member. Aer rejoining the plenary, groups shared
and explained their images, and the subjects of the images were invited to change or add to
them. e visual qualities of the collaborative images were powerful for all present. is inter-
vention—shiing modes of engagement and pausing the conscious mind—was the turning
point of the mediation. e change in atmosphere was palpable. e mediation progressed to
a sustainable resolution.
For another illustration, we turn to indigenous seings, where mediations involving land
issues are oen conducted on-site. It is not uncommon for parties, representatives, and law-
yers to spend time walking on the land in question. is collective phenomenological en-
gagement with the soil and its textures, the ora and fauna, the ow and feel of the country,
can be harnessed meditatively to help tease out how various parties make meaning of—and
place value on—the terrain they traverse. For example, some may value its traditional sa-
credness, some its meaning as a family property over generations, others its environmental
values, and yet others its resource richness or development potential. A skillful mediator can
then encourage participants to demonstrate appreciation of the values and needs associated
with these dierent meanings—whether through the vehicles of dialogue, ritual, storytell-
ing, or exchange of maps and other representations of the site in question from multiple
cultural perspectives.
Here is one nal example of somatic intelligence in practice, this time from the Pacic.
During a series of conict-resolution workshops, a senior Ni-Vanuatu24 chief once shared
the view that his country “has peace but no unity.” As he continued, it became clear that he
was referring to a disembodied concept of peace—a peace that was not felt or experienced
among the diverse tribes making up the still-young postcolonial territory. He explained his
desire for unity as the need for all Ni-Vanuatu people to feel part of one country and to
experience their national identity in embodied ways as strongly as their tribal sense of self.
When asked how he would know that such unity had been achieved, he placed his hand on
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BUILDING KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE / Teaching Dance
his chest and spoke of the signicance of having one voice despite the more than one hun-
dred dierent tribal languages. en he moved his hand to cover his heart as he described a
collective feeling of pride and love for all tribes within the country. Unity therefore evoked
an embodied state of awareness.
e preceding three examples show the ways that language can be powerfully transcended
in conict processing. Given the limitations of language, what would happen in conict-reso-
lution training and practice if we dared be less dependent on words?
Expressive arts therapy, in particular dance therapy, has been at the forefront of experimen-
tation with “dance language” grounded in physical experience. In intercultural or postconict
seings, from Iraq to Haiti to Bolivia, from sub-Saharan Africa to Israel to Peru, expressive
arts modalities have been applied for decades to address conict-related trauma. is work
has consistently revealed the capacity of expressive embodied practices to shape and reshape
identities, understandings, and relations. By engaging the creative and imaginative capacity of
individuals in addressing situations of conict or trauma, these methods have been potent in
generating change in both mental and material domains.25
One of the concrete reasons that embodied practices prove eective in conict and post-
conict seings is that they can quickly and deeply foster intergroup trust, receptivity, and
exibility when encountering the unfamiliar. is is captured succinctly in the comments of
one student from a tango class: “Learning to be a good Argentine Tango follower is about
surrender. So in Saturday’s ‘Followers’ Workshop’ we practiced exercises in trust (yes, gently
tipping to the side or backwards or frontwards with our eyes closed, trusting that someone
would break the fall), feeling our partner’s weight change and again, with eyes closed, being
in tune with and following our partners’ movement around the oor. I had to slow down, let
go of everything else on my mind, and be totally present in the moment. . . . Leave a desire
for control at the door. And take the lesson home.”26 As you read this comment, consider the
parallels to conict-resolution skills. How oen do we encourage students to trust the process
and surrender to it without worrying about the outcome? And what about the skills of mind-
fulness, being in the present, and drawing on multiple intelligences? Sound familiar?
e experiential lessons we learn from dance have much to oer students and practitioners
of conict resolution. In the next section, we explore the links between culture, multiple intel-
ligences, and dance and consider some ways to integrate dance into experiential training to
support the use of role play.
Dance, Culture, and Intelligence
In the 1980s, Howard Gardner rst wrote about the concept of multiple intelligences, includ-
ing linguistic, logical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial-visual, interpersonal, intrapersonal,
naturalist, spiritual, and existential.27 Such work eectively demonstrated that conventional
conict approaches—so oen linear, verbal, deliberative, and disembodied—are insucient
to address the diversity of human modes of understanding. When we come to see the self as
a multifaceted perceptual, expressive, and relational center, engaging multiple intelligences
becomes integral to engaging complex and diverse individuals in conict seings.
98 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
Neuroscience has recently explored how many forms of intelligence—cognition, emo-
tion, and aitudes—are embodied. For instance, Antonio Damasio, among others, exam-
ines the physicality of emotion and shows us that what we come to experience as emotions
are in fact interpretations of physical sensations.28 Examples of physiological expressions of
feelings recognizable to many people include goose bumps, blushing, sweaty palms, short-
ness of breath, bueries in the stomach, and other manifestations of energy in the body.
Physical sensation not only informs our perception but also structures or limits it. e au-
tonomic nervous system, which controls our ability to access thoughts, discover new ideas,
and change our behavior, is shaped by physical contact and rhythm from an early age and
inuenced by physical cues in later life.29 Because all perception is ltered through the body
with its corporeal memory of experiences, including trauma, the body shapes and limits
our understandings of and responses to the world. Much of this is precognitive; therefore,
it becomes crucial to directly engage the body to bring perceptions, judgments, and emo-
tions to a conscious level of choice.30 Seasoned conict practitioners know the role that in-
tuition or gut feeling can play in reading situations. Increasing body awareness can work to
enhance perception of the subtle cues and signals—both internal and external—in which
such intuition is grounded.
Just as the body shapes perception, so too can embodied approaches reshape it. Physical
practices have been shown to have signicant eects on cognition, learning, mood, and moti-
vation. Physical exercise promotes development in these areas and does so relatively quickly.31
Moreover, embodied practices that emphasize proprioception (awareness of the body in
space) and encourage internal aunement have been shown to have benecial eects on the
neurophysiological regulation systems that foster openness to change and receptivity toward
others.32 us an emphasis on physical dimensions and engaging these dimensions through
movement can lead directly to conceptual, emotional, and behavioral shis.
In fact, the body has been shown to play a role in mental processes where we least expect it.
Research has indicated that mental processes once thought disembodied are, in fact, physical
phenomena. Almost 100 years ago, the researcher and philosopher Robert Chenault Givler,
drawing on the neuroscience and physical sciences of the time, found that the expression
of our physical and bodily experiences inuences our understanding of, and the meaning
we ascribe to, ethical notions such as the concepts of right and wrong.33 is line of inquiry
continues in the present. For example, in her review of research linking body awareness and
movement to decision making, Lenore Hervey highlights Warren Lamb’s system of move-
ment-paern analysis and its application to corporate seings.34 Essentially, the research
conrms that all processes of decision making have observable kinesthetic elements, both
shaping and being shaped by relational factors. In other words, our bodies play an integral part
in conict, communication, and making choices.
Understanding the inuence of the body in shaping perception, responses, and relations
is a complex task. While there is evidence for certain pan-human expressions and gestures,
it has also been shown that our bodies interpret and code the world around us in culturally
specic ways.35 e anthropologist Judith Hanna explains that cultural dierences are usu-
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BUILDING KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE / Teaching Dance
ally reected in movement and that paying careful aention to the body can therefore reveal
pivotal cues about cultural dierences, uncovering nuances, textures, and relational habits
relevant to conict. At the same time, she warns that phenomenological experiences and ex-
pressions also dier from person to person.36 is is because relationships between body and
self are rooted not only in biology but also deeply in social and cultural forms, including ritu-
als, rites of passage, and festivals. Both collective and individual identities are expressed via
movement; it is a language that reveals whole worlds to an auned observer. Hanna suggests
that it also may be a more-accurate, less-ltered, and less-adulterated communication vehicle
than verbal language.
Dance also heightens kinesthesia, or awareness of one’s own body and others’ bodies; in
fact, learning about the subtle cues, demands, and tendencies of one’s body has been linked to
developing empathy, or understanding how other moving bodies might feel.37 Dance there-
fore provides an essential avenue to more-accurately perceiving not only our own but also
others’ personal and cultural positions, in physical as well as conceptual terms.
Recent work in neuroscience has explored empathy as an embodied phenomenon. When
people observe or plan actions, motor neurons become activated in the same way that they
do when the action is actually being performed.38 In addition, neuroscientists have found that
when subjects witness the pain or fear of others, the area of the brain that is associated with
pain and aective experiences is activated.39 When people watch one another move, their
brains are essentially practicing ways of relating to others. e human capacity to imitate,
learn, and connect with others is, at base, a kinesthetic experience.40
Dance also has been shown to help stimulate new neural pathways and shi cognitive
habits. Body awareness and the neuromuscular transformations that accompany movement
can oer insight into habitual cultural and social paerning. Moreover, movement has been
shown to release emotions and latent memories, uncover new connections between groups,
and reveal alternative interpretations and innovations on personal, cultural, and political lev-
els.41 Out of this kinesthetic intelligence, new vantage points and solutions begin to surface as
parties develop awareness of, and explore choices about, what was previously unconscious.42
e acknowledgment and incorporation of such dimensions into conict intervention
would maximize the resources available for understanding and transformation across seemingly
intractable lines of conict. For example, imagine that a group is struggling with what appears
to be an inextricable, entangled series of issues related to a complex environmental problem.
Wat ch in g a da nc e on th em e s o f ec ol og y, d iv er si ty, h ar mo ny, a nd ba l an ce mi gh t th ic ke n th e pa r-
ties’ conversations, introducing new vitality, increased nuance, and more-thoughtful texture.
Malvern Lumsden brings it all together when he says, “Our sense of what is real begins
with and depends crucially on upon our bodies, especially our sensorimotor apparatus, which
enables us to perceive, move, and manipulate, and the detailed structures of our brains, which
have been shaped by both evolution and experience.”43 Neuroscience now conrms what
conict intervenors, dancers, and others have known through their own methodologies: all
decision making involves rational and emotional processes centered in the body, and we can-
not observe, think, or respond clearly without our bodies and our feelings. Emotocognitive
100 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
processes cannot be neatly excised from one another; they occur in concert. e body is an
essential channel into understanding and engaging these processes. us we can engage our
kinesthetic and emotional intelligences to help us move through dierences with less resis-
tance than if we were relying on rational thinking alone to nd our way out of negative feelings
or feel our way into positive thoughts.
For conict-resolution practitioners and teachers, insights from neuroscience and dance
theory and practice are crucial to understanding how people in conict wrestle with ethical
dilemmas and make choices. We cannot ignore them.
Building Dance-Related Intelligence
In dealing with challenging conict situations, we need diverse inner resources and intelli-
gences. Chief among these is somatic, or movement-based, intelligence. is way of knowing
assists us in drawing on physical cues and resources to:
sense and shi group, interpersonal, and intrapersonal dynamics;
discern physical movements in others that signal internal changes;
discern changes in vocal rhythms that may relate to shis in aitudes, relationships, or
perspectives;
notice via physical cues when processes are safe or unsafe for others; and
learn ways of using breath and movement to promote exibility rather than rigidity
when working with strong emotions.
Here are some suggestions for cultivating somatic intelligence, along with tips on increasing it:
Notice your physical responses to stress and conict and learn ways to center and calm
yourself, using breath, visualization, or movement.
Adopt a physical practice in your life: an activity or an art form like dance. Keep a jour-
nal as you engage in this practice and write what you learn about your body and its ways
of signaling.
In conict-resolution contexts, you can do the following:
Incorporate centering techniques when tensions are high. e simple act of breathing
deeply or shaking limbs can do wonders in shiing mental and emotional states.
Pay careful aention to nonverbal cues, devising an internal interpretive map as the
process proceeds.
Respond eectively to spatial, temporal, and kinetic dimensions of negotiation. If dia-
logue reaches an impasse, suggest changing postures or positions in the room; if empa-
thy proves dicult, incorporate subtle forms of physical or conceptual mirroring; if a
direct approach is not shiing dynamics, use a creative or embodied method to help
parties “step out” of entrenched antagonistic roles.
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Use physical language to give implicit permission to parties to aend to physical needs
and cues. For example: “I need to stretch my back. How about taking a few minutes to
get our circulation going?”
In premediation workshops, which may form a part of team or multiparty conict inter-
ventions, invite parties to consider how the ways they hold themselves, their postures toward
others, and their respect for personal physical signals are all germane to shiing conict. Ex-
ploration of these and other dimensions can be fruitfully done via workshops where move-
ment-based practices are used to tap the body’s wisdom on these points.
As we have described, embodiment exercises have the ability to communicate subtle com-
plexities, which form essential themes for addressing conict at deeper levels. For example,
Hervey describes an activity where she asks participants to move to principles and values
that she calls out to the group. As part of debrieng, she, with feedback from members of the
group, describes what was noticed about the movements. Hervey points out that principles
and values, although oen-interpreted and one-dimensional ideals—such as justice and
delity—may evoke diverse embodied responses from participants.44 Read together, these
embodiments highlight the complexity of living values in the twenty-rst century and reveal
positive stories but also dark and shadowy sides.
In another example, Janis Sarra, a University of British Columbia business-law profes-
sor, recently convened a dance-based workshop on fairness. Collaborating with two pro-
fessional dancers, academicians worked from movement experiences to examine corporeal
aspects of fairness and how somatic intelligence can inform nuanced conversations and
subtle dimensions of this contentious concept. Participants reected that movement not
only revealed unthought-of aspects of fairness but also gave them more mobility to further
thicken their dialogue.
Do Dance and Movement Methods Fit with Traditional Methods,
Including Role Plays?
Now hang on a minute, some of you may be thinking. We have just discussed at length the no-
tion of dance as embodied expression. Isn’t that exactly what role plays do? Embody learning
by making participants move around and experientially play out a role in a given scenario? So
aren’t we already “dancing”?
Well, yes and no. Yes, role plays do engage kinesthetic learning styles more than traditional
lectures. And it is true that conict-resolution education has traveled a long way from the hier-
archical days of predominantly theory-based, one-way oral communication between profes-
sors and students. However, the Kinaesthetic learning potential of roleplaying is not acheived
just by geing particiapants to physically act out a prescribed role within a thity minute time
frame. Kinaesthetic learning is about the deep insights available to teachers and learners from
authentic somatic experiences rather than once-removed responses to standardized role-play
experiences that are constructed at arm’s length from participants’ real lives. In this section we
bring together the ideas presented in this chapter to suggest how role plays and other experi-
ential methods can be enhanced to heighten the quality of embodied learning.
102 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
Prework
As conict-resolution teachers, we usually emphasize the importance of the negotiation or
mediation seing. We explain the importance of establishing a collaborative atmosphere
where parties can feel safe to voice their concerns without retribution and to engage cre-
atively in problem solving without being prejudged by others. Why should it be any less
relevant for somatically integrated conict-resolution training?
Lumsden explains the importance of creating a safe space where the rules of the regular
classroom are suspended and students can behave and move freely, dierently, and authenti-
cally. He stresses that the requirement of safety encompasses both physical and emotional ele-
ments, so the space should oer participants a link “between the internal and external worlds,
facilitating the exploration of new ways of being and emotional expression, and experiment-
ing with new dimensions of existence.”45
How can this be achieved? Creating an environment that evokes playfulness, creativity,
warmth, and isolation from the “outside world” is a good start. In e King’s Speech, the
much-acclaimed 2010 British historical lm drama, King George VI works with an Aus-
tralian speech therapist, Lionel Logue, to overcome his debilitating stammer. In one scene,
Logue transforms the cold and impersonal but very stately room from which the king will
make his speech into a cozy, inviting, and very safe space, draped with throws, curtains,
rugs, and cushions from the rooms in which he and King George VI had trained and re-
hearsed. e warm and familiar environment has an immediate relaxing eect on the king,
both mentally and physiologically, and he goes on to make one of his most powerful war-
time speeches. Similarly, in workshop situations we might imagine drama and dance stu-
dios scaered with diverse, colorful props and remnants of others’ imaginative creations,
stories, and explorations.
While most of us do not have ready access to therapists’ comfortable rooms or custom-
built dance studios, there is much we can do to enhance the somatic possibilities of training
spaces. For example, encourage all participants to join you in bringing along so balls, non-
fragile objects, scarves, and other props. If you do not have access to a geographically isolated
space, see what can be done to block out the outside world; for example, use old sheets, sofa
covers, and blankets as curtains. Bring in inatable furniture—it is cheap and easy to trans-
port. Consider how to integrate the restroom, kitchen, break-out, or hallway spaces. What
else can you do to create a comfortable, informal learning space?
In addition to preparing the physical space, think about how you frame the training in
announcements and materials sent to participants. Young and Schlie advocate the use of dance
as a metaphor for conict-resolution and negotiation training on the basis that it “challenges
such dichotomous constructs as ght versus ight, harmony versus war, and adversaries versus
partners.” ey posit that “creatively accessing a [dance] metaphor . . . can help us understand
more of the varied facets of negotiation and approach the eld in a more dierentiated way.”46
Using dance as a metaphor from the very start to frame the language of negotiation, mediation,
and conict resolution is a powerful way to invoke safety and spaciousness.
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At Work
So how might dance intelligence be able to manifest itself in a conict-resolution workshop?
Here are some ideas you might like to try out in your next workshop or training session. Feel
free to vary aspects to suit your training needs. Be creative!
Work with peripheral vision. Before students move into a role play, ask them to form
a circle and to x their eyes on a point on the opposite side of the room. Ask participants
what they can see other than that point while keeping their eyes focused on it. For ex-
ample, can they notice the color and texture of the walls, ceiling, or oor? Can they see
any surrounding furniture or objects? How many people in the circle are within their
view, and what can they notice about them—clothing, hair, shoes? You can also ask
participants to move across the room while keeping their eyes on a certain point, navi-
gating people and objects as they go. In this second activity, movement is added to the
use of peripheral vision, thereby heightening focus and self-awareness while expanding
the visual horizon. e debrieng discussion that follows can address peripheral vision
as a physiological skill for conict intervenors and a metaphor for how people might
experience conict in a very specic or narrow way and how to help them expand their
frame of reference. It may also be a metaphor for the ability to identify resources that
may not be obvious to those directly involved in the conict.
Embody excellence in mediation. Invite participants to nd a space of their own
and to draw an imaginary circle of excellence in front of them into which they will
step during the activity. Ask them to think of someone they consider to be the type
of excellent mediator that they themselves would wish to be and to imagine that this
person is in the room with them. Now ask participants to notice as many details as
they can about the excellent mediators. For example, how do the excellent mediators
hold themselves and move and sit? How do they express themselves through facial
and bodily gestures? How do their eyes move and “speak”? How do they sound and
feel? As participants calibrate these details, they step into their imaginary circle of
excellence, close their eyes, and emulate and embody these characteristics. is can
be a very powerful and transforming experience for many, especially those who iden-
tify well with their person of excellence. Depending on the focus of the workshop,
participants might embody excellent negotiators, peacemakers, and so on. is activ-
ity is best done immediately prior to a role play and at a stage in the training when
participants have a realistic idea of the excellence they wish to emulate in conict-
resolution skills.
What’s your ginch? Ginch is the Canadian dancer Margie Gillis’s term for the embod-
ied equivalent of what conict intervenors might call tension, impasse, deadlock, or just
plain being stuck. We all can identify ginches in our bodies, so this activity draws upon
somatic knowledge, inviting analogies between how we address ginches in our bodies
and how we deal with ginches in a conict-resolution context.
104 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF RESOLUTION / 7
Invite participants to move around the room freely, loosely, and comfortably,
“dancing out” any discomfort or tension. Aer several minutes, ask them to identify
their biggest, ugliest, most persistent ginch, whether it be a sore neck, nagging knee
problem, locked jaw, tight back, or some other symptom. As they continue to move
around the room, suggest to participants that they create space around their ginch and
allow it to move and release itself. In other words, rather than leing a robust masseur
or mediator hammer the problem, focus on it and let it breathe; give it the space and
time to sort itself out.
Moving to which music? Select a piece of music with some texture and complexity,
perhaps from the world-music genre. Ask participants to move around the room and
respond to dierent aspects of the music; for example, sad or melancholy themes, hap-
py or lively themes, high or low notes, percussion, melody, and so on. How does the
experience of the music change for participants? Are they “dancing” to the same music
each time? How might this translate to their understanding of how dierent people
experience the same conict?
Flowing and frozen embodied scenes. Body-sculpting activities and other somatic
methods of learning engage participants kinesthetically and emotionally to enhance
and deepen learning. ey can be used in numerous ways to explore conict-resolution
themes. Drawing on the illustration in the previously cited work of Hervey, have par-
ticipants work individually or in groups to move in a owing tableau to concepts such
as hope, fairness, justice, impasse, resolution, fear, trust, and so on. Other options might
include making a body sculpture of the felt sense of your group following the activity,
showing in two snapshots the emotional texture of your group before and aer the
activity, or standing in relation to a partner in a way that conveys your understanding
about fairness, justice, or some other concept.
Our experience indicates that integrating these types of activities into training heightens
the level of authentic engagement of participants and improves the overall quality of integra-
tive learning. Participants seem to be able to bring more of themselves into the roles they play
and are beer able to share their personal experiences of conict resolution with others.
Shall We Dance?
Well, go gure . . . It turns out that dance is not as ightening as I had thought. I started using it as a
warm-up in a biweekly class on conict resolution, and it turned out to be the thing students looked
forward to most! Dance and movement, when used as part of training and framed as paerned
physical activities, can help participants shi perspectives and increase physical health at the
same time. ough academic cultures are notoriously physically phobic, it makes sense for
people with physical bodies to use them! And doing so not only brings people into awareness
of where they may be holding tension but also allows them to nd ways to release it.
Who knew I could dance? One of the unexpected outcomes of using dance and movement
in teaching and training contexts is that people who express reluctance are oen surprised
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at its positive impact. In one class, participants found ways to talk about mobility that posi-
tively aected their relations with one another following movement exercises that included a
wheelchair-bound member of their group. Resistance turned to positive anticipation as they
moved beyond stereotypes of dance awkwardness and discovered its capacity to transport
them into new, more nuanced conversations.
Underneath the skin . . . It is important to remember that not all dance is visible. We dance
within—navigating dierent sensibilities, inuences, and inclinations. We maneuver through
inner terrain, endeavoring to stay awake to the braided feelings and thoughts that animate our
behavior. is inner dance, too, is worth rening. ere are many ways to do so, including
tools of mindfulness, meditation, and contemplative prayer. Instruments like the Enneagram
assist in helping us pay aention to our habits of perception and paerns of behavior. We are
always dancing within as long as we are living; the key is having a way to monitor the dance so
that we are able to live with suppleness, exibility, and grace.
In the subway . . . In the midst of the worlds in which we live, dance is a constant. When next
in a public place, notice the dierent rhythms that animate those around you. Notice your
resonance with certain people, your desire for distance from others. What dances of connec-
tion or empathy are part of your daily travels? What dances of separation or judgment are part
of your repertoire? Conict intervenors have a responsibility to stay current with these ques-
tions. Aspiring to neutrality, we are most helpful to parties when we are aware of our inner and
outer dances and how our necessary partiality “dances” with others. Dances are everywhere;
noticing rhythm, cadence, symmetries, and asymmetries only makes their complexities more
evident and, ultimately, more beautiful.
Without rhythm . . . Have you ever felt you lost your rhythm, weighed down by grief or sad-
ness or an unforeseen setback? What is it like to feel that the dance is going on around you,
yet you are not a part of it? Everyone feels excluded sometimes; conict unaddressed can seri-
ously impair a sense of rhythm and coherence in life. Conict trainers and intervenors are well
advised to cultivate empathy for people in these states. One way of thinking about interven-
tion is that it is an avenue to help people nd new rhythms with one another aer a rupture or
falling out. Dance and movement vocabularies are helpful in encouraging parties to discover
new resonances and new ways to move forward jointly and individually.
In a professional conict-resolution context . . . As conict intervenors, we ask much of dis-
puting clients. We ask them to reveal themselves to us, trust us, and expose their vulnerability
while we hide comfortably behind a shield of professionalism. Similarly, as trainers we may
nd ourselves slipping into the routine of asking participants to role-play while we safely en-
sconce ourselves behind the veil of facilitator. Dance intelligence is about using our essential
somatic awareness. It helps us to access other ways of knowing and being within ourselves
and to recognize this in others. It builds bridges between our inner and outer worlds. Dance
intelligence helps us, as conict intervenors and trainers, to connect with others and build
empathy and trust. It enhances our ability to weave uently in and among cultures and to
reach that deep level of human awareness that the Africans call Ubuntu.47 Surely that is what
conict resolution is all about.