Widening Field: Journeys in Body and Imagination

This is an inspirational handbook for working in the creative arts. It emphasizes the imagination, creativity and being receptive to our bodies, surroundings, materials, and what we create. The authors draw attention to the sensing, feeling, moving body as a basis for any imaginative activity. But while A Widening Field does draw on the authors' dance and movement background, it elaborates and extends their work by drawing in creative writing and all kinds of creative work with materials. The book stresses the importance of intuitive, instinctive ways of knowing, perceiving and creating and describes sources and strategies for working in and between various forms of expression, including: moving, making things with materials, and writing. It is designed to provoke and inspire rather than as an instruction manual. Tufnell and Crickmay's previous book, Body Space Image, addressed improvised movement, experimental performance and how to create performance settings. A Widening Field looks at the role of imagination in our lives and how it is awakened and nourished through attention to the present, the feeling world of the body, and whatever appears as we make art.