Between the tongue (lingua) and the finger (digitus): moving between language and writing.

Following the distinctions made by ceramicist Tom Kemp, between language (lingua: tongue) and writing (digitus: finger), this workshop will offer somatic explorations of the the physical structures of tongue and fingers to play with the ways writing moves and moving writes. Attending to the material structures supports playful ways of listening to the fine motor dance and sensory possibilities of language and writing in embodied ways. This workshop emerges from a sustained practice in exploring ways of moving into and out of writing finding pathways and possibilities within the limits and of each modality. The on-going loops of attending to both the movement in writing and how writing can bring us into moving counters hegemonic use of writing as law, authority, or as a fixing in place. How then can we set writing in motion? How can we attend to the somatic, bodily textures within writing and expand writing’s vitality? How can this writing in turn help us to attend to mirco and everyday movement as significant and signifying beyond the heightened attention to virtuosic movement? The workshop explores asemic writing, attending to the peripheral and tangential murmurations where movement and language loop in meaning making. We will move and write together and see what emerges from our shared experiences and approaches to speaking and mark making, moving and di/stilling.