This project advances research into mindfulness and performance training, relating to both D/deaf and hearing populations. Building on a new embodied Mindfulness Model by Khoury et al (2023), the fellow, in collaboration with Dr Deborah Middleton, developed a model for ‘Embodied Mindfulness for Performers’, which explains the role of physiological mechanisms which underpin awareness (interoception, proprioception and exteroception) in mindfulness and embodiment training. This journal article is forthcoming in 2024.
The fellow worked closely alongside an international team of Deaf consultants and research associates to develop an embodied mindfulness training programme consisting of a range of adapted mindfulness practices which are both culturally and linguistically accessible for Deaf communities in the UK, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. These practices were delivered and disseminated by workshops throughout the term of the fellowship, and have also been made fully available via a purpose-built website, housing a wide array of mini practices that Deaf communities can access and use in their own time.
The project focused on the Deaf experience of embodied mindfulness and developed both moving and static mindfulness practices that support cultivation of embodied awareness, embodied imagination, and scenic mastery and performance craft that could benefit both D/deaf and hearing performers.
The findings of this practice-led research project have been shared in four invited conference presentations, with an additional three public presentations due to be delivered post-fellowship, in 2024. Three journal articles have been completed with publication forthcoming:
1) ‘Embodied Mindfulness: Cultivation of Embodied Awareness’ (forthcoming).
This output, co-authored with Dr Deborah Middleton, shares a model for Embodied Mindfulness for Performers based on examination of physiological mechanisms of awareness;
2) ‘Embodied Mindfulness for D/deaf and hearing performers: developing an accessible training that supports embodied awareness, embodied imagination, scenic mastery and wellbeing’ (forthcoming).
This output, co-authored with Denise Armstrong (UK) and Rāhera Turner (Aotearoa New Zealand) examines the specific training contexts of performers working in Sign Language and in physical storytelling terrains (specifically those creating work for D/deaf and hearing audiences), and shares an embodied mindfulness training developed to respond to those contexts;
3) ‘Developing a mindfulness-based performance training practice for Deaf and hearing performers: sharing non-hierarchical research processes in action’ (forthcoming).
This output, co-authored with Denise Armstrong (UK), Rāhera Turner (Aotearoa New Zealand) and Thora Hübner (Germany, Aotearoa New Zealand), outlines the Deaf and hearing research team’s approach to non-hierarchical working processes.
Finally, a website housing the practices is live and openly accessible for D/deaf communities based in the UK, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Additional papers are also in progress, one of which is focused on developing an accessible embodied mindfulness scale for Deaf populations in the UK, Aotearoa NZ and Australia, and one of which focuses on the reported benefits to health and well-being that engagement with embodied mindfulness practices can provide.
