An Interview with Jennifer Bury by Emmaly Wiederholt for Stance on Dance
September 3, 2018

In this interview, Jennifer discusses the value of movement therapy, the necessity of exploring different methodologies, and her desire to connect and understand those with whom she works.
Click here to read the complete interview.

Photo by Karen Preuss

Nobody Moves Alone

An Interview with Jennifer Bury by Katja Schneider for the Münchner Feuilleton, October 2017
Click here for original German article, see below for English translation.

Photo by Franz Kimmel

It began for me in the middle of the 1980s in the Hasting Studio, which at that time was still situated in a breathtaking location in the English Garden In Munich. For more than half a century, the school was housed on the upper floor of the university – an institution for me: as a child, as a student, even later. At one time, Jennifer Bury stood in front of our class, American, tall, slender, brown curls, laughed, and put forth to us her choreography to “Walk like an Egyptian” from the Bangles. And off we went with a half profiles, which had never been seen on any Greek frieze. It was fun, it was an experiment, and Jennifer Bury was in the middle of it.

More or less exactly 30 years ago this evening Jennifer was back in the studio. I remember well, because I experienced practically what I knew theoretically: the principle of
kinesthetic resonance. That we got to experience this principle so effortlessly and directly is due to Jennifer. Humorous, self-organized, playful, she made it easy to dance together, to learn together. Nobody moves alone, even if you move on your own.

Jennifer’s training as a dancer and choreographer began quite normally, she received a degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and danced with Mucha Purucker during her Munich time, she sparkled with a quality that fascinated me, but which I could not describe in words; probably she was not aware of me at that time.

Connections
Today, Jennifer Bury is a Movement Therapist with her own practice in San Francisco, a Gestalt therapist, a specialist in dance medicine, has training in Pilates, and many other forms. In addition, she has a black belt in Aikido. When asked what she is doing with this large portfolio of techniques, practices, and certifications – from Bartenieff Fundamentals to myofascial massage and yoga, she said, “I’m learning, and teaching, how to be receptive and responsive to the world. I move through the world as the world moves through me. It is about discovering connections, strengthening or restoring contact with myself and my environment. Because when you expand your range of movement options, you also expand your emotional abilities and your ability to connect with others.”

Jennifer Bury regularly returns to Munich to teach workshops at Tanzentdenz. Her courses provide the theoretical, practical and interactive nature of how we communicate nonverbally. How do we connect with others and our environment? And what enables or disables our sense of connection? This micro-research has great influence on the macro level of our lived experience. The more heterogeneous the group, the more interesting for Jennifer: “The dancers are movement experts, but non-dancers – and I love these combinations –  teach the dancers what they have forgotten, what they’ve trained out of themselves. The non-dancers benefit from the experience of the dancers, and the dancers benefit from the freedom of the non-dancers. This is mutual learning and cross pollination. If you work with homogeneous groups, you all tend to stay within your familiar movement vocabulary.

Dissolve and rearrange
This Autumn (2017) Jennifer Bury will come to Munich again before going on to teach in Paris. In her workshop: ”Meeting in Motion: Connecting through Difference” we are dealing with “reaching, grasping, pushing, and pulling”, a few of our primary movements which play a central role in the development of our behavior including how we relate to others, throughout our lives.

Generating opportunities, recognizing potential, deepening communication, that also interests Veronica Fischer. The Munich dancer (formerly also in Micha Purucker’s Dance Energy), Bodytherapist, Feldenkrais practitioner and yoga instructor, she developed her own method of somatic bodywork. “BEGIN”, as the program says, allows the body to be experienced through slow and careful exertion. As Veronica explains: ”This leads, on one hand, to loosening and freeing up compacted body layers or unfavorable movement patterns, and on the other hand, it also helps in reorganizing and further developing the possibilities that we have created”. To do this she incorporates the movements of the Feldenkrais method and yoga postures. “This is how two things come together: the sensitive feeling which can lead to discovery, and the exact anatomical alignment in a vertical axis.” Anyone, young or old, is ready to consciously feel their body. “This way we’re not tempted to repeat mechanical movements.”

The highlighted WEG in “beWEGen” refers to the origins of human movement development, from pulsating and flipping over as the “fish body” into creeping and crawling to finally arrive upright. The aim is to anchor oneself in one’s own body “as the basis for an aware presence and self-responsibility”.

For the first time, Veronica Fischer is offering this advanced training in somatic bodywork in six 3-day modules. The series, which starts in January 2018, is designed for body oriented educators, therapists, sports instructors, yoga instructors and dancers. Fischer will give an overview of the course this October and November which she says: ” is something for “people who have patience for slow, deep, body work which leads to self-examination.” Assisting as guest lecturers are the Munich dance physician Liane Simmel and – Jennifer Bury.

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The Teacher  –  Jennifer Bury

Translated from original interview in German with: Katja Schneider, Tanz Magazine, November 2016

You are a movement therapist with a private practice in San Francisco, have trained extensively in Gestalt therapy, are a dance medicine specialist and Pilates trainer, have a degree in dance from the Tisch School of the Arts in New York University, and have worked internationally as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. In addition, you have a black belt in Aikido. What do you teach?
To be receptive and responsive to the world around you. I move through the world as the world moves through me.

What does that mean in concrete terms?
I work with people at all levels: physical, emotional, and intellectual; I can use a  physiotherapy approach, to address physical issues or a Gestalt therapy approach to address the emotional aspects, depending on what is needed.  These days, I also work with people via Skype. The aim of my work is to restore a sense of connection; a sense of integration within ourselves which in turn strengthens our ability to connect with others and adapt to our environment.

A year doesn’t go by in which you do not complete a course, further education or advanced training. Whether in Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique, or shiatsu and yoga, breathing and massage techniques, to mention just a few fields that you have studied. Is this due to your fundamental curiosity?
As a young person, I thought someone had already figured out the “right” way, and I just needed to find that perfect technique. To this day I haven’t found one method which applies to everyone.  Instead of adapting someone to a technique, I prefer to spontaneously combine aspects of different techniques in response to what arises with each individual. It is exciting to help people discover their strengths, and what works for them. This way, I get to learn from professionals as well as from my clients and bring together all the different elements. Which means I am experimenting and making discoveries daily.  For profound learning it’s important to find someone who excites your curiosity rather than what someone is teaching.

Who was this person for you?
There were a few. The first was my mother. She studied with Joe Pilates in New York in the 1950-60s and would do her Pilates mat work naked on the floor every morning and I would join her. She closed the curtain, took off her bathrobe, and did her “hundred” naked which was very playful, funny, and intimate, but we were also seriously trying to perform these unfamiliar movements and were involved in that process together.  This became the basis of my work.

I remember the modern dance classes which you taught at the Hastings Studio in Munich in the early 1980s. How did you come to be involved with such a broad range of different therapies?
Shortly after completing my dance education at NYU, I flew to Europe with a one-way ticket, and traveled from country to country with just my backpack. I had created a press kit of my choreography in the U.S. and attended different performances and if I liked the work I’d approach the director of the company or the choreographer and ask if they would like to collaborate with me. I was 22 years old when I went to a performance in Munich which included a dance by Micha Puruker which touched me deeply, and to this day he is still a very close friend. In 1985 I went back to New York and created my dance company there, but I soon discovered that living and working there was difficult and exhausting.  Dancing had always been the way in which I could express myself fully and freely, where I felt whole.  When I was performing I couldn’t see the audience, I was pouring my heart out to them through my movement and I couldn’t feel any response.  But when I was teaching I could feel the connection; We were dancing together and learning together.  When I realized how alone and unfulfilled I felt, I stopped performing.  Now I dance and choreograph every day with my clients!

You continue to work within the context of dance. What should participants in your workshops expect?
Dancers are movement experts, but non-dancers – and I love these combinations –  teach the dancers what they have forgotten, what they’ve trained out of themselves. The non-dancers benefit from the experience of the dancers, and the dancers benefit from the freedom of the non-dancers. This is mutual learning and cross pollination. If you work with homogeneous groups, you all tend to stay within your familiar movement vocabulary.

Where will you teach your next course?
At the Tanztendenz Munich (from Nov. 18 to Nov. 20, registration until Nov. 7) and also at Rituel Studio Paris (Nov. 23 & 24). “Beyond Words: The Connection Between Us” incorporates theoretical, practical and playful interactive learning about how we communicate through movement.  Together we will explore the kinesthetic resonance which exists between us. The aim is to experience the depth of our connection to the environment and to others, and all the possibilities that this inherent connection offers.

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By feeling my own vulnerability and desire for connection, I make myself available to simply see and hear them. Instead of trying to figure them out or focusing on the details of their story, I literally get a sense of them and reflect back to them what I see and hear so they can become aware of themselves on that level as well.

In this way, I bring them back to a sense of their own humanity and out of who they believe they are, or how they believe they have to behave.  In this state, possibilities of how to be and respond open up.

I zero in on the essence of their story and welcome their history into the room and our current relationship together.  This real-time and place experience allows the person to experiment with the various new choices of how to be with another, in a safe practice place.

At the end of the session, the client enters back into the world with the sensory remains of having responded differently than they habitually do, as well as the memory of having shared that profound event with someone. This provides a kind of validation of their existence.  Moreover, it renews their tenderness which has been reignited by being whole heartedly seen by another tender being.

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The Importance of Asymmetry in Teaching Dynamic Stabilization to the Dancer -Jennifer Bury
Presentation at the 2004 International Association for Dance Medicine and Science Conference, IAMDS

The point of my presentation is to re-state an obvious fact which is widely understood but rarely discussed or explained: that out bodies are constructed with an external symmetry coupled with a gross internal asymmetry of the viscera. Symmetry of the musculoskeletal system is often presented as the medical norm or the functional ideal, but it is actually rarer than asymmetry. Is symmetry better than asymmetry? This is like asking if mobility is better than stability; they’re opposites, and one cannot exist without the other. We as humans cannot exist without these opposites; nor can we exit long at either of the extremes. Finding a functional balance of stability and mobility in the body is dependent upon recognizing and using our inherent, physiological, and perceptual asymmetries.

All vertebrates are born with a spine in the center of their bodies, housing the spinal cord. This creates a mid-line from which we are able to sense right and left. Regardless of this symmetrical spine we tend to move and locomote asymmetrically; in fact, we move in spirals. Modern research utilizing tiny motion detectors shows that when blindfolded, people tend to turn in one direction, making spirals. The blood being pumped by our asymmetrically placed hearts out to our symmetrical limbs moves according to the laws of fluid dynamics – i.e. flows in tiny spirals. In this case asymmetry is functional, as the heart’s off-center placement coordinates with the spiraling of the blood to avoid a discordant, erratic flow known as “turbulence.” As spirals are directional, our circulatory system is functionally dependent on this fundamental asymmetry. Add to this the fact that we all demonstrate hand foot, ear, and eye dominance, and you might wonder why the anatomy charts show perfectly symmetrical human adults. I thought at first this was due to the fact that science works with a statistical normal, but then I realized that I have never seen any adult human being whose physiological development appeared to be perfectly symmetrical. I know that it would be impossible to show all our individual variations, but I do believe that part of the presentation of this perfect symmetrical body as normal results from the fact that we humans seek out symmetry, which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “beauty as a result of balanced of harmonious arrangement.” The first problem with this is that it is not a functional concept for the body. The second problem is that it can add to the pressure a dancer feels to be perfect, or to achieve the highest state of balance.

What do we do with this dilemma? Reintroduce the experience of asymmetry as a viable, functional tool. This can be done by the first introducing the dancer to a sense of the spine as the midline, from which the differences in movement patterns between the right and left sides of the body are experienced. This is an important point, as without a sense of asymmetry between the right and left sides of the body our brains are unable to perceive the difference. We can innately discern the difference between up and down, front and back, but right and left must be learned. In fact, as the only mammals with asymmetrical brains, we are the only ones able to learn left from right.

This understanding brings us back to the spine as the midline and a reference point for the asymmetries of our limbs and their movement patterns. Pediatric physical therapist Irmgard Bartenieff stated that “…essential to movement and centering is the awareness of the spine’s length from the coccyx deep in the pelvic area to the upper (cervical) spinal vertebrae which, to the surprise of many people, go all the way through the neck to the base of the head.” Excellent devices for introducing dancers to sensory awareness of this spinal midline are any exercises that divide the body in half right to left. There are numerous examples of this sort in the different somatic forms, such as the Bartenieff “Body Half” developmental exercise, which is used by infants as preparation for walking and turning.

Once a kinesthetic sense of center has been established, the concept of dynamic stabilization can be introduced. Dynamic stabilization is the experience of physically sensing, and through practice learning to recognize, the state of balance, the state of non-balance, and all the points between these extremes. The importance of this experience is that dancers become immediately (and often brutally) aware of their own left/right asymmetries in terms of stability and mobility. A simple way of introducing dancers experientially to these imbalances is by using unstable props such as foam rollers, gymnastic balls, bubble cushions, wobble boards, rotating discs, functional footprints, and so on. Using the foam roller length-wise under the spine, for example, will continue to reinforce the awareness of the spine as midline as the dancer attempts to balance on one leg and then the other. This technique teaches discrimination between the stabilizing leg and the mobilizing leg. Simply put, it points out our turning tendencies. A simple test for this is to ask the dancer to grasp an object that is beyond reach. The arm chosen as the reaching arm reveals the direction of the dancer’s turning tendency. This can be coupled with asking the dancer to step over something wide to see if hand and foot dominance correlate. Scar tissue from past injuries, surgeries, and infections can throw this off, not to mention being left-handed in a mostly right-handed-oriented environment.

The dancer now has a personal, kinesthetic understanding of center/balance/symmetry and off-center/imbalance/asymmetry. In a broad sense, this understanding introduces vitality to the concept of the dancer’s goal of achieving the fullest possible expressive and functional range. Rather than striving to attain a perfectly balanced body and movement patterns, the dancer is free to explore the notion of “moving” toward and away from being centered. By increasing the dancer’s sensory awareness of personal movement habits, self-treatment can begin through the practice of a home exercise program incorporating these principles into daily activities, class, and finally performance.

In his “Four Quartets” T.S. Eliot gave an expansive, wonderful description of the experience I have touched on:

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

            Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

            But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

            Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor

            Towards,

            Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

            There would be no dance, and there is only the dance…

            We must be still and still moving.”