The Discipline of Authentic Movement (AM) is one of the central approaches in dance-movement therapy; its key theoretical concepts, methods and forms of performance, however, are also present in creative and reflexive processes of different (psycho)therapeutic, artistic and educational practices, in the field of arts based research and creative supervision. The study explores Authentic Movement as a field of diverse practices displaying common features as well as differences in their primary functions, performance contexts and working formats: it starts by drawing three symbolic maps (named tree, rhizome, universe) which allow for a multiperspective view of the field and yet stay focused on examining Authentic Movement within the dance-movement therapy as the arts therapies discipline with which the AM practice has originally been most connected. The central part traces the development of the AM field and outlines the fundamental characteristics of its theory and practice. The final chapter of the study addresses the concept of the development of witness consciousness, through which Janet Adler terms the Discipline of Authentic Movement as the practice of embodied knowing.
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