Dance Choreographer Carol M. Press Department of Theater and Dance, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA Theory andresearchmethodology of self psychology are integratedwiththe experiences of modern dance choreographers to investigate the importance of creativity, art mak- ing, and aesthetics in mental health and our everyday lives. Empathy, as aesthetically based, is explored to understand the capacity of the arts to unite us in our humanity. Connections between aesthetic development, creativity, and infant patterns of learning are drawn. The inuence of sensual and exploration/assertion motivational systems upon the contemporary choreographer are highlighted, leading to an understanding of the selfobject function of sensation and movement for the dance artist. Through an examination of the moment to moment ritualized experiences of studio work, the cre- ative process in making dances is discussed. Ultimately understanding creativity and aesthetically based empathy inform our delineation of mental health and the need for aesthetic experience in everyday life. Key words: Heinz Kohut; self psychology; creativity; modern dance; choreography; em- pathy; aesthetics; Daniel Stern; intersubjectivity; subjectivity; procedural knowledge; beauty; ugliness; selfobject function; motivational systems; forward-edge strivings; Paul Taylor; now moments; Ellen Dissanayake I hold that unless psychoanalysis can sooner or later apply the lessons it learns in the laboratory of the clinical setting to the broader arena of human pursuitsto art, religion, philosophy, anthropol- ogy, and, above all, to historyit will not have made the contributions that society has a right to expect from it . . . I am deeply convinced, however, that . . . psychoanalysis can live up to its potential- ities and become an important aid to mankind in its struggle for survival. . . . I am convinced that psychoanalysis . . . is capable of employing its re- search tools in the investigations of mans activities in the cultural and social elds, and that it will make contributions of great signicance which will assist man in his attempt to gain control over his social and historical destiny. (Kohut, 1980: 536537). I came to self psychology an artista modern dance choreographer, teacher, and Address for correspondence: Carol M. Press, EdD, Department of Theater and Dance, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-7060. Voice: +805-403-7330; fax: +805-893-7029. carolpress@cox.net, cpress@theaterdance.ucsb.edu researcherembedded in an artistic frame- work that stood on the belief that the relations between experiences of self and culture were the bedrock of creativity. My engagement of this framework provided a scaffold for my cre- ative work, but I wanted more. I wanted to explore what experiences of self meant and, consequently, to develop a working vocabulary as a researcher and teacher to articulate such experiences and to support creativity further in myself and others. I wanted to use new vocab- ulary as a guide to new questions regarding art making. I came to self psychology searching, an investigation fueled by creative play. I was en- couraged by Kohuts (1977) own written com- mitment to creative process: Ideals are guides, not gods. If they become gods, they stie mans playful creativeness; they impede the activities of the sector of the human spirit that points most meaningfully into the future (p. 312). Kohuts image was of a psychologist apply- ing the theories of self psychology to the broader Self and Systems: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1159: 218228 (2009). doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04354.x C 2009 New York Academy of Sciences. 218 Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 219 arena of human pursuits. I, however, am not a psychologist and approached the intersection of self psychology and the arts from a different perspective. Consequently, I have attempted to bring art to self psychology as well as bring- ing self psychology to art. Therapists are con- fronted with pathology, with people in pain, and search to help. In writing that concentrates on descriptions of pathology and interactions to alleviate suffering, far less is written directly describing what is health. As an artist, I came with the premise that creativity embraced what was the nest of human kind, exemplifying our greatest potentials for health. I wanted to de- scribe possibilities for understanding connec- tions between creativity, self-development, and mental health with greater depth. Self psychol- ogy was a treasure trove for me, requiring ex- cavation of what was there but not necessar- ily emphasized. Within this cross-pollination I have searched for what is compelling within each eld in understanding the human pull, the human need, for aesthetic creative experi- ence. I outline here concepts from my work, pointing out additional references should you wish to investigate further. Empathy Self psychologys most essential compelling concept, from Kohuts original conceptions through the many evolutions that have sprung forth in self psychology, is empathy. Kohut went to great length to be clear that empathy is not sympathy or intuition, even though those ex- periences may be nourished by empathy. Em- pathy in its most elemental form is an act of imagination. Kohut (1959/1978) emphasized empathy as a neutral term meaning vicari- ous introspection (p. 206) and the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of an- other person (Kohut, 1984: 82), which could be used for ill or good: Introspection and empathy should be looked at as informers of appropriate action. . . . These pur- poses can be of kindness, and these purposes can be of utter hostility. If you want to hurt somebody, and you want to know where his vulnerable spot is, you have to know him before you can put in the right dig. . . . When the Nazis attached sirens to their dive bombers, they knew with endish em- pathy how people on the ground would react to that with destructive anxiety. This was correct em- pathy, but not for friendly purposes. Certainly we assume on the whole that when a mother deals with her child, and when an analyst deals with his pa- tient, correct empathy will inform her appropriate maternal and his appropriate therapeutic analytic action. So (empathy) is an informer of appropriate action, whatever the intentions may be. (Kohut, 1981/1991: 529530) Empathy as an informer of appropriate ac- tion for a therapist represented for Kohut (1959/1978) the mode of observation, the core research methodology, which dened the eld of psychoanalysis, differentiating self psychol- ogy from sciences that require extrospection as the basic mode of inquiry. Within this mode of observation was the potential for appropriate action on the side of therapists to empathically engage their patients, create empathic environ- ments, and establish trust. Such an empathic bond between patient and clinician was essen- tial for therapeutic change. Signicantly, Kohut (1977) viewed the infant as being hardwired to expect an empathic responsive environment lled with appropriate actions from caregivers, with the same un- questioning certitude as the respiratory appa- ratus of the newborn infant may be said to expect oxygen to be contained in the sur- rounding atmosphere (p. 85). As the baby de- velops frominfancy onward, what constitutes as an appropriate empathic response must be de- velopmentally situated. In Kohuts (1984) nal book How Does Analysis Cure? he begins to pos- tulate a developmental line of empathy. Where at rst, touch might be absolutely necessary for the infant to experience empathic response, a smile from afar might sufce as the child devel- ops, depending upon the circumstances. What occurs is a low form of empathy, a body- close form of empathy, expressed in holding and touching and smelling, is now expressed only in facial expressions and perhaps later in 220 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences words, Improud of you (Kohut, 1981/1991, p. 533). Within all developmental stages, empathic action is impeded if one loses oneself psycho- logically into the others reality. Psychological merger is not empathy. As a matter of fact, it is the opposite. If one loses oneself in anothers reality, one has no basis, no leg to stand on we might say, no perchfromwhichto imaginatively peer into anothers reality. Kohut (1987) com- pared this necessary stance to the partaking of theater: This is not a total giving up of ones personality. It is a temporary, controlled merging with another personality in the same way as in an artistic experi- ence, let us say in the theater, when one immerses oneself in the tragedies of Shakespeare. The un- derstanding comes by reason of the reverberations from our own early experiences to the experiences of the patient; they meet, as it were, halfway. (271) Implicit in Kohuts writing, we see a contem- porary self-psychological perspective of empa- thy as always occurring within a relational ma- trix. In the essay Selfhood and the Dance of Empathy, Jan Rieveschl and Michael Cowan (2003) highlight that one can never entirely think and feel oneself into the subjective ex- perience of another because the empathic lis- tener inescapably contributes to the joint con- struction of emerging meanings. . . . [D]espite peoples effort to go where another is, they never entirely leave their own selves behind (p. 118). Indeed, they conceive of empathy as a transactional or relational process, that is an interpersonal event, a dance wherein meaning is mutually created (p. 118). Empa- thy from this perspective is always relational and intersubjective. If relationship is a dance, the back-and-forth movement of inuencing and being inuenced, then empathic attune- ment choreographs it creatively. . . . Evolved empathic communication is an exquisite mu- tual feedback process, the dance that is hu- man discourse at its best (p. 111, 128). This empathic relational matrix is the foundation of the creating and partaking of aesthetics and art. Aesthetics We experience, develop, and engage empa- thy aesthetically. By aesthetics I mean the qual- itative sensory experiences of life that form and informour emotional existence. These aes- thetic qualities are cross-modal, encompassing the senses of touch, sound, taste, and vision, and formthe basis of artistic pleasure as creator and spectator. Daniel Stern (1985) in his book The Interper- sonal World of the Infant argues that infants expe- rience life in terms of shapes, intensities, and temporal patterns (p. 51), which ultimately formthe aesthetic foundation of all art forms space, shape, time, and energy (see also Beebe & Lachmann, 2002). Stern adds to this mix the experience of vitality affects,, which are elusive qualities . . . captured by dynamic ki- netic terms, such as surging, fading away, eeting, explosive, crescendo, decrescendo, bursting, drawnout, andso on (p. 54), which can be accompanied by an experience of a rush. Stern directly identies the connections between this global cross-modal world of shape, time, energy, and vitality affects and the adult world of art: Abstract dance and music are examples par ex- cellence of the expressiveness of vitality affects. . . . The choreographer is most often trying to express a way of feeling, not a specic content of feeling. . . . Like dance for the adult, the social world expe- rienced by the infant is primarily one of vitality affects before it is a world of formal acts. It is also analogous to the physic world of amodal percep- tion, which is primarily one of abstractable quali- ties of shape, number, intensity level, not a world of things seen, heard, or touched. (5657) Stern goes further to highlight that, be- yond the direct experience, the organizing of these experiences promote subjectivity and creativity: These are the basic elements of early subjective ex- perience. . . . Infants are not lost at sea in a wash of abstractable qualities of experience. They are grad- ually and systematically ordering these elements of experience to identify self-invariant and other- invariant constellations. . . . Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 221 This global subjective world of emerging organi- zation is and remains the fundamental domain of human subjectivity. . . . [I]t is the ultimate reser- voir that can be dipped into for all creative expe- rience. . . . That domain alone is concerned with the coming-into-being of organization that is at the heart of creating and learning. (67) These aesthetic experiences do not evolve in isolation but within a relational matrix. An early recognizable form is baby talk, which demonstrates cross-modal aesthetic and empathic responsiveness between mother and baby. Ellen Dissanayake (2000), in her book ART and Intimacy, elaborates: From the rst weeks, in all cultures, human moth- ers (and even other adults) behave differently with infants than with adults or even older children. In most cases a mothers vocalizations to the baby and her facial expressions, gestures, and head and body movements are exaggeratedmade clear and rhythmic. Babies in turn respond with cor- responding sounds, expressions, and movements of their own, and over the rst months a mutual mul- timedia ritual performance emerges and develops. Exquisitely satisfying to both participants, it inun- dates both mother and baby with a special pleasure that is all the more powerful because it is not just felt alone . . . but is mirrored or shared. (77) Dissanayake discusses the signicance for our aesthetic enjoyment of art: We respond cross-modally and emotionally to the swoop and exuberance of a dance movement, the sense of hesitation or resignation and defeat in an actors gesture, or the thick guttural innuendo in a jazz singers voice, usually before recognizing or assigning symbolic meaning to the dance style or the spoken or sung words. (147) According to Stern, language for the baby developmentally draws such cross-modal ex- perience into the background. Stern (1985) presents the image of a baby enjoying a patch of sunlight prior to language development: The infant will experience the intensity, warmth, shape, brightness, pleasure, and other amodal aspects of the patch. The fact that it is yellow light is not primary (p. 176). Language, how- ever, highlights symbolic representation, which separates the more cross-modal global experi- ence. Stern explains: Language forces a space between interpersonal experience as lived and as represented (p. 182). For the baby: Someone will enter the room and say, Oh look at the yellow sunlight! Words in this case separate out precisely those properties that anchor the experi- ence to a single modality of sensation. By binding it to words, they isolate the experience from the amodal ux in which it was originally experienced. Language can thus fracture amodal global experi- ence. A discontinuity in experience is introduced. (176) Art brings forth what is primal to our ex- istence and our intersubjective relations from birth onwardour aesthetic experience of be- ing in the world. This commonality binds us together as humans. Even though such experi- ences may slide into the background, art and creativity connect us to ourselves and to each other. Within the relational empathic matrix, we develop our aesthetic preferences. Our aes- thetic likes anddislikes translate into our subjec- tive sense of beauty and ugliness [see Hagman (2005) for an extensive psychoanalytic investi- gation of beauty, ugliness, creativity, art, and clinical work]. In art making, these preferences evolve into aesthetic signatures [see Press (2002: 105106) for elaboration of aesthetic sig- natures in dance], which distinguish an artists work. Aesthetics and empathic relations are com- mingled from birth. In everyday life our aes- thetic preferences become part of our pro- cedural memory and knowledge. According to Frank Lachmann (2004), in his talk On the Co-construction of Empathy, procedural memory derives through interactions between parent and baby, such as cross-modal transfer, rhythm coordination, state sharing in terms of action, feeling, or proprioception. The aes- thetic dance between caregiver and infant cre- ates and informs our way of being in the world. These procedural memories are noncon- scious but not repressed. Consequently, and quite fortunately, we do not have to relearn how to tie our shoes but we have a distinct aesthetic quality to our shoe tying that is recognizable as 222 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences ours. Through procedural memory and knowl- edge, we enter all relationships with procedu- ral interaction, implicit relational knowing. The cross-modal coming-into-organization experi- enced by the infant now takes adult form as we organize and navigate through relationships in adult life, seeking those we mesh with aes- thetically. According to Rieveschl and Cowan (2003) When two people talk, they quickly and unconsciously negotiate a physical, cog- nitive, and affective choreography, which con- textualizes and conditions the verbal content of their communication. . . . Authentic con- versations are not conducted, but cocreated (p. 125). Lachmann (2004), acknowledging the in- uence of the Boston Change Process Study Group (Stern et al., 1998), highlights several in- terpersonal interactions as procedurally based: how to relate to a baby, how to irt, how to have fun, howto dance, howto enter the subjec- tive state of another person and how to signal ones readiness to respond to another person entering our private life; as actions that are in part organized on a procedural level. These actions are indeed organized on an aesthetic level and are the basis for empathic relations. Steven Knoblach (2000), in his book The Musical Edge of Therapeutic Dialogue, describes this aesthetic empathic exchange between him- self and his patients through the use of tone, pitch, rhythm, and improvisational turn tak- ing. Lachmann (2001), in his article Words and Music, acknowledges the important ex- istence of such aesthetic co-constructed dia- logues within the therapeutic situation: As we listen to music or to the associations of analysands, our accompanying rhythms are likely to alter, as we mold our rhythms to the rhythms of the other and they mold their rhythms to ours. In this rhythmic interaction, our own repertoire of rhythms will increase. The beat of our music and that of our analysands can be coordinated or syn- copated, but, one hopes, we do not get too far off the beat. (174) In Gilbert Roses (2004) book Between Couch and Piano: Music, Art, Psychoanalysis and Neuro- science, we hear a patient, a musician, describe his interaction with a therapist, which indeed is off the beat: I cant locate him as a person and feel like its a space of theatre (the theatre of therapist and pa- tient) . . . I imagined him on stage as a musician. I believe I would be really put off.. . . It all reminds me of the feeling I get (and other musicians, too) when I play chamber music with a new person. He/she may be a great musician, but if the chemistry isnt right and the energy and sound colors dont match, it just doesnt work. I think what bothered me most was a lack of smooth transition between this guys silences and his talk- ing. The languagethe sounddid not meet the silence. So I wasnt able to perceive an organic rhythm of breath etc.and the silence (and the talking) didnt mean much. The silences seemed empty and the sounds forced, that is, not enough tension or too much. (910) Such aesthetic empathic attunement pulls us to art as creator and spectator. We are nour- ished by a greater understanding of ourselves and culture. Creativity for the Modern Dance Choreographer Creativity requires that artists aesthetically engage their chosen mediums while respond- ing to sense of self, audience, and cultural com- munity. For the performing artist, direct inter- action with audience is intensied. The cre- ative process is not necessarily a direct one but an intersubjective exchange between creator and medium. However, Kohut (1976/1978, p. 816823) and self psychologist George Hag- man (2005, p. 7379) each delineated three phases of creative engagement. Kohut looked at a precreative time, a time of frantic cre- ativity and original thought, and a time of quiet work. Hagman expanded these phases into a more textured intersubjective dialectic with inspiration and self-crisis, aesthetic reso- nance, transmuting externalization. [See Press (2002, pp. 91104) for an extensive discussion of Kohut, Hagman, phases of creativity, and the Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 223 modern dance choreographer.] The choreog- rapher navigating through such phases engages an aesthetic self-empathy and intersubjective dialogue with the medium. Fortitude and courage are the mainstays. The creative process requires the strength of psychological stability to risk the unknown, to come to what is unexpected, and to interact withthe evolutionof thought, feeling, andform. Choreographer Merce Cunningham puts it distinctly: You have to love dancing to stick to it. . . . it gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, noth- ing but that single eeting moment when you feel alive. . . . it is not for unsteady souls. (Cunningham in Brown et al., 1998: 90) The moment when you feel alive, captures the poignancy of authenticity and the transfor- mation of that which is nebulous into some- thing that speaks of the relational aesthetic empathic matrix. How to traverse phases of creativity so that poignancy, authenticity, and transformation guide? Within self psychology are several concepts that I nd particularly useful to discuss creative engagement and pro- cesses as a dancer: selfobject function, sensual motivational system, exploratory/assertive mo- tivational system, forward-edge strivings, and now moments. Selfobject Function, Movement, and the Choreographer Something functions as a selfobject when ones experience of self-cohesion and whole- ness is conrmed. For the dancer, movement and the creation of an external formthe art workserve vital selfobject functions. In gen- eral I choreograph and perform my own solos. Many choreographers choreograph on other dancers, and those dancers also serve signi- cant selfobject functions. But for all choreog- raphers, movement grounds us in the art form for movement is the mediumthat draws us, that compels us to create. We establish a relationship with movement, and in so doing we establish a self-empathic relationship with ourselves, for we (or our dancers) create the movement. I use several choreographers to illustrate this inter- subjective relation between themselves and the medium of movement. Kenneth King There are many formidable challenges to making dances. First and foremost its the ac- tion of dancing that completes my own sense of being. . . . Im a tall, lean, slim person and I like that feeling, the body being light and unimpeded. I like to move full out, very ex- pansively and rapidly. Ive devised a lot of arm and spine movements that are all my own, so the body coils, twists, bounds, spins, spirals, gy- rates, dips, bounces, curves. . . . But the most important thing is to nd out how one dances for ones self. (King in Kreemer, 1987: 154, 157) Dan Wagoner I am absolutely absorbed with movement. I love movement. And I trust movement. So all of my dances begin with movement, and the basic problem or idea is always a move- ment problem. As I make movement choices, I dance them over and over, turn them around, add onexplore in as many directions as pos- sible and then trust the movement will lead me somewhere interesting. (Wagoner in Kreemer, 1987: 31) Twyla Tharp When I started working, I wanted to go to a place where I felt I had a right to be, where I wasnt taking somebody elses material . . . I was getting to something that was so pure and nonderivative . . . that I could call it my own and start from there. In terms of the invention of movement, its a matter of honesty. It may have been an illusion, but nonetheless it drove 224 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences me to do a lot of work in the studio. (Tharp in Perron, 2001: 48) Motivational Systems and the Choreographer Joe Lichtenberg (1989) in Psychoanalysis and Motivation denes ve motivational systems: the need for regulation of physiological require- ments, the need for attachment/afliation, the need for exploration/assertion, the need for antagonism/withdrawal, and the need for sensual/sexual response (see also Licht- enberg et al., 1992, 1996). Both exploration/ assertion and sensual motivational systems hold signicant experiences for the dancer/ choreographer. Movement is grounded in the sensation of bodily experience. When we watch a great baseball pitcher throwing a ball at 90 miles per hour or a dancer spinning across a stage, we are excited by their visceral display. Dancers learn to heighten their awareness and focus of sensation and to use the kinesthetic for explo- ration and expression through their art form. The selfobject function of movement begins and ends with sensation. According to early modern dance pioneer Loie Fuller (Fuller in Brown et al., 1998): What is the dance? It is motion. What is motion? The expression of sensation. What is sensation? The reaction in the human body produced by an impression or an idea perceived by the mind. (17) Choreographer Alwin Nikolais (Nikolais in Brown et al., 1998) describes this as a sensitivity to motion, the qualitative experience connected to movement: So in the nal analysis the dancer is a specialist in the sensitivity to, the perception and the skilled execution of motion. Not movement but rather the qualied itinerary en route. The difference may be made even clearer by giving the example of two men walking from Hunter College to 42nd and Broadway. One man may accomplish it to- tally unaware of and imperceptive to the trip, hav- ing his mind solely on the arrival. He has simply moved from one location to another. The other may, bright-eyed and bright-brained, observe and sense all thru (sic) which he passes. He has more than movedhe is in motion. (118) Sensation moves us. Sensation is at the core of the selfobject function of movement for the choreographer. Without words, for choreographer, performer, and spectator, a kinesthetic empathy takes us to aesthetic ex- perience, informed by our early interactions, woven into our development throughout our lives. Such a sensual qualitative motivation is associated with all the arts. Dissanayake (2000) reminds us, First and foremost . . . the arts are things that people do with their bodies (178). Motivation for exploration, self-assertion, ef- cacy, and vitality allows the choreographer to take sensuality, motion, movement and create art. Lichtenberg (1989) discusses such motivation: Problem solving by exploration and assertion to- gether triggers the pleasure that comes froma sense of efcacy and competence . . . Looked at in this way, the exploratory and assertive activity of in- fants would not be to seek stimuli as such, but to experience the particular affective sense of alive- ness of the aroused exploratory state. Competence would then be a measure of infants ability to or- ganize and regulate their activity to produce a new version of the desired state. (126, 136) So infants experience pleasure and vitality from the competence and efcacy that comes from exploration and assertion. In Art and the Self of the Artist, Charles Kligerman (1980) claims that the motivation to create is an in- nate intrinsic joy in creating, related to what has been termed functional pleasure. This is per- haps the most important factor, but the one we know least about (p. 378). I maintain that this joy is the vitality that comes from exploration, assertion, efcacy, and competency. This cap- tures the doing of art making, the focus and vi- tality that enrich creative aesthetic experience. Such joy, or the promise of the joy to come, may serve to sustain the artist through the phases Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 225 of creative engagement when uncertainty lurks until the nal creation emerges. The Selfobject Function of Form The doing of the art making brings forth form, the art work. The process and the nal product both serve vital selfobject functions for the modern dance choreographer. Art making is inherently an intersubjective enterprise be- tween artist, medium, and art work. Choreog- rapher Dan Wagoner (Wagoner in Kreemer, 1987) poignantly describes his relationship to movement, problem solving, the creation of his dances, and their power to reinforce meaning and cohesion in his life: Im really trying to get something across to myself. Choosing a problem thats to be solved by move- ment, exploring the problem as deeply as I can, and from this making movement choices that are nally put together as a dance, gives me a structure within which to dance and live. . . . As this chain of activity lls the years, it becomes a history or record of a life. . . . This is the only way I can judge if a dance works. If it becomes a strong part of my life, then I feel it works. (28, 31, 32) Forward-Edge Strivings Connections to joy, exploration, assertion, ef- cacy, vitality, combined with the capacity of art making to serve selfobject functions, helps explain motivation for artists who are in de- spair, who appear to turn to art making to gain much needed cohesion. Whether in despair or not, all artists search for what Marian Tolpin (2002), in Doing Psychoanalysis of Normal Development: Forward Edge Transferences," identies as forward-edge strivings that de- rive their force and momentumfromstill-viable tendrils of healthy childhood motivations, striv- ings, expectations, and hopes of getting what is needed (p. 168). In his autobiography, Pri- vate Domain, modern dance choreographer Paul Taylor describes his fall from grace as a per- former and his rebirth through an intensica- tion of his energies as a choreographer [see Press (2002, 2005) for extensive discussions re- garding Taylor and self psychology]. After 20 years of touring and 6 years of amphetamine addiction, Taylor must come to grips that his body as performer is failing him. Additionally, he has bleeding ulcers and does not know that he has contracted hepatitis. During the pre- miere of his dance American Genesis in 1973, he collapses on stage. His life as a performer comes to an end; Taylor calls it his death in Brooklyn (p. 329). Taylor ultimately makes a choice. His forward-edge strivings come forward and with them he nds the hope to continue and to re- dene his life through a greater focus as chore- ographer. Out of the ashes of despair, Taylor (1988) nds joy in his art making: Dances were no longer made out of necessity or to prove any- thing . . . the strongest reason was that the act of making dances brought me happiness (p. 359). Taylor understands that his work comes from deep within himself: Strangely enough, the best places that new dances take me can usually be traced back to things in the past that have already left an imprint and are being revisited, continuations of paths or patterns that started in childhood, or maybe even much earlier, and which repeat themselves in different forms without me realizing it until later. (360) Ultimately, his forward-edge strivings have taken hold of him and led him out of despair: Today its the dance making that brings excitement. The rehearsing in itself is everything and is its own reward. Even seeing the completed dances for the rst time onstage isnt as thrilling as working in the studio. (360) Studio Experience and Moments Taylor highlights working in the studio. The ritual of spending time in the studio can be the lifeline to art making for choreographers. Each day choreographers enter their studios, and movement somehow evolvesthe miracle of creativity sustained by the selfobject function of a special space and ritual. In Private Domain 226 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Taylor (1988) describes such a relationship with his studio: The studio needs no changes, is already more than a place to dance in, is brighter than its own white- ness, bigger than its dimensions, more real than truth or reason. No studio can keep its mental health in conditions of complete reality. Let other dance studios be dementedours will stay one of the sane ones that dream. On entering it, especially when its empty and quiet, you can see it for what it isan illusionary place, a crenellated castle keep of smiles and sunbeams, a dreamchamber, and this despite its aroma of perspiration and the sadness of baggy leotards. (163164) As a choreographer, I depend upon the self- object function provided me through the ritual of entering a special space, the studio, know- ing that at least the day before I was successful in discovering some movement. The journey in the studio is an intersubjective dialogue be- tween myself (composed of all my personal and cultural experiences) and my medium. I search for moments of meaning through movement, moments that feel authentic and lled with potential. I liken these experiences to Daniel Sterns (2004) descriptions of moments in his book The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Ev- eryday Life [see Press (2006), for an extensive discussion of moments and choreographic process]. For Stern (2004): A present moment . . . composes a short emotional lived story. . . . The duration of a present mo- ment is the duration of a phrase. . . . It is the basic building block of psychological meaningful subjec- tive experiences that extend in time. (xv, 42, 44) He emphasizes that our lived story is ex- perienced in the now: We are subjectively alive and conscious only now. Now is when we directly live our lives. . . . The only time of raw subjective reality, or phenomenal experience, is the present moment (p. 3). A present mo- ment becomes a nowmoment when highly charged with immediately impending conse- quences . . . heavy with presentness and the need to act (p. 151). When this happens the possibility arises for a: Moment of opportunity, when events demand ac- tion. . . . Events have come together in this moment and the moment enters awareness such that action must be taken, now, to alter ones destinybe it for the next minute or a lifetime. . . . It is a small window of becoming and opportunity. (7) Through such moments, moments of meet- ing may evolve in which individuals have a shared feeling voyage (p. 172). When choreographing I enter into the studio and work to be present in my body. I move and explore phrases of movement withinthe present moment that feel signicant to me, waiting to experience now moments charged with po- tential, urging me to explore further. I take hold of those moments, moving forward through moments of opportunity to take my chore- ographic design further. Ultimately I search for moments of meeting between myself and my medium, between myself and audience, be- tween mediumand audience. Sometimes in the process I feel frustration and am lled with doubt and questions. Where will this process take me? Anywhere? Does this feel right to- day? Can this not be easier? The process is al- ways challenging, but the prospect of fulllment and cohesion urge me on. I ground the process in the experience of moments, the moment to moment experience of moving through space, and believe that my forward edge will take me somewhere where authenticity is prominent in my life and relations. I describe through the telling of a dream I had: Many years ago, on the eve before I was to meet my newtherapist, I had a dreamthat I was walking through the countryside. A gentle soothing breeze was blowing. I was dressed in drab nondescript clothing. I came across a farmhouse and a lovely young woman had placed upon an outside clothes- line many leotards. The breeze had dried them. They were ready for wear. In my dream I watched the motion of the leotards as they danced through the air, a symphony of rhythm. The following day I told my newtherapist of my dreamand I associated to the words in a Bob Dylan song, The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. I knew the answer to my life, the answer to my struggle, was blowing in the wind. The task of my life was how to don Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 227 the leotards, to work through the psychological is- sues that blocked my embracing them; who I am in my inner core is most easily experienced and transmitted through the aesthetic and procedural knowledge expressed within my dance. . . . The basic premise of my dream, of my life, has never changed. My need to feel and to evolve develop- mentally who I am aesthetically, and in so doing to feel an empathic tie with myself and others, to participate in a co-constructed world of empathy, is ongoing. (Press & Hagman, in press) Social Destiny, Historical Destiny, and Art Kohut had faith that self psychology would assist humankind in gaining control over their social and historical destiny by exploration in the broader arena of human pursuits, such as art. [See Hagman (2006: JuneJuly) and Kindler et al., (in press) for journal issues dedi- cated to such investigative endeavors.] The arts connect us to our profound human need for aesthetically based empathy, exploration, asser- tion, sensuality, vitality, and moments of mean- ingful exchange. Beauty is found in anything that is poignantly authentic. Kohut (1987) be- lieved mental health was based upon a capacity to give shape and formto authenticity construc- tively within ones life: The success of analysis is not to create people who cannot have strong feelings, who cannot be passionate, who can- not y off in a rage or be violent, but to en- able them to choose when, where and how to express their strong feelings (p. 165). Artists attempt this throughout their work. Hopefully, individuals are nourished through the partak- ing of art and search within their own lives for the dance of aesthetically based empathy and expression. Ellen Dissanayake (1988), in What Is Art For?, emphasizes this vital aesthetic function: Our world and our selves have fragmented to a degree unimaginable in earlier human history, and if there is to be any coherence at all in our lives, it is up to us to put it there. To this extent, we are all called upon to be artiststo shape, nd signicant aspects of, impose meaning upon, discern, or state what is special about our experience. Response to the mystery of life becomes a personal aesthetic gesture. (190) Words help frame ideas, but ultimately self psychology is not a psychology of objective truths but a psychology dedicated to exploring the seeds and development of human experi- ence. 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