Beliefs and biases about race, gender, age, and other differences reside within our minds, our bodies, and systemically. We acknowledge that within the fields of Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies and somatic practices there is a need for greater awareness of difference in all aspects of our body/mind theories, practices and training. Therefore, the faculty and organisation work to make explicit our role in dismantling racism, patriarchy, gender-bias, and all other forms of oppression, marginalization and discrimination. We are committed to the work of aligning our holistic and inclusive frameworks within principles of fairness and equity, while acknowledging both spoken and unspoken marginalization and oppression occurring within the roots of our cultural and implicit biases. We commit to bringing these issues into conscious awareness throughout our teaching/learning processes.
We are grateful for and stand in solidarity with the individuals and groups who work for healing and social justice across all communities; respecting difference in all layers of body/mind experience created by individual histories, identities, and collective narratives.
We seek to foster the continued growth of self-aware professionals within our field, beginning with the intention of creating a safe, inclusive, welcoming and accessible learning environment. We are committed to ongoing processes of inquiry and improvement in our training environments.
We recognize that the language we use in somatic practice and in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies (LBMS) was born within the perspective of white-centered European and American learning and therapeutic environments. Historically, this languaging occurred without explicit attention to cultural, racial, and gender difference, nor awareness of lived experiences within cultures outside of those who were developing theories and practice in these fields.
While our teaching approaches utilize current LBMS and other somatic-based language, we desire deeply to unhook our language from its implicit biases, and to use it as descriptors for investigation rather than established ideals devoid of cultural or situational meaning. We intend to create an openness to discursive practice where traditional ways of interpreting language can be questioned and discussed; in a sincere effort to include individual and collective difference in lived experiences within our movement frameworks.
LSSI believes in the deep intelligence and value of diversity.
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