Physical Conversations between the East and West: An Arts Based Inquiry into the Cross-Cultural Emotional Climate during a Time of Political Tensions

Creative Arts Educ Ther (2018) 4(1):38–57 DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2018/4/5 Physical Conversations between the East and West: An Arts Based Inquiry into the Cross-Cultural Emotional Climate during a Time of Political Tensions 东西方的身体对话：一种基于艺术的政治紧张时期跨文化情感环境的探讨 Abstract This article reviews an arts based project that came to completion in Shanghai during September 2017. During this project, a group of people interested in creative arts therapies from the USA and China used physical storytelling (PS) drawn from both Eastern and Western perspectives to investigate the emotional climate of our contemporary world. In this project, participants introduced stories related to their current life experiences and a small group developed dance improvisations as an initial response to the stories. A larger group then used arts and poetry to express their reflections – leading to the development of metaphors that moved beyond the initial story material to express multiple personal and social aspects not apparent in the initial narrative. As this project was collaborative in nature, several common themes and images emerged. Although initial episodes introduced the theme of individual struggle, this expanded into a metaphorical exploration of general human struggle with larger social and natural forces. The final episode included movement, arts and fairy tale images that suggested a developing creative partnership between the East and West. 摘要 本文回顾了2017年9月在上海完成的基于艺术的科研项目。在这个项目中，一群对美国和中国的创造性艺术治疗感兴趣的人使用东西方视角的身体故事(PS)来调查我们当代世界的情感环境。在这个项目中，参与者介绍了与他们当前生活经历相关的故事，一个小组开展了舞蹈即兴创作作为故事的初步回应。然后一个较大的团体使用艺术和诗歌来表达他们的反思 – 导致隐喻的发展超越了最初的故事材料，表达了在初始叙事中不明显的多个个人和社会面向。由于该项目本质上是协作性的，因此出现了几个共同的主题和意象。虽然最初的剧集引入了个人斗争的主题，但这些扩展为对具有更大社会和自然力量的一般性人类斗争的隐喻探索。最后一个环节包括了动作、艺术和童话意象，表明东西方之间正在发展创造性的伙伴关系。 关键词: 基于艺术的研究, 身体故事, 舞蹈/动作治疗, 创造性艺术治疗, 跨文化探究