| This dissertation provides a theoretical, archetypal, and imaginal approach to integrating psyche and soma through the development and design of a distinctive movement praxis rooted in mythology, the Mythic Movement Practice. This proposed movement practice is composed of eight Signature Moves which are based on the eight Effort Actions of Rudolf Laban's Action Drive, as well as on the mythic narratives of eight archetypal deities from Ancient Greece. The gods and goddesses that are explored are Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hades, and Persephone. The archetypal realm addressed in this dissertation centers upon the imaginal world, the mundus imaginalis , of Greek mythology. To date, no systematic investigation of the potential congruencies between the archetypal and mythological realm of the Greek deities and aspects of Laban's Action Drive has been considered. This exploration is significant because it brings the somatic body into the fields of depth and archetypal psychology, pioneered by Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman, and it links myth with Laban's movement taxonomy.;Further, by drawing on the research of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Maxine Sheet-Johnstone, this dissertation extends prior work on the phenomenology of movement, as it focuses on the Mythic Movement Practice as a 'lived body experience.' In addition, movement, as presented in this model, serves as a symbolic, somatic set of non-linguistic signs. Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotic theory is incorporated to demonstrate that the Signature Moves are an expressive medium that utilizes kinesthetic language.;The intention of the development and design of the Mythic Movement Practice and its eight Signature Moves is to deepen the mythic imagination, expand a mover's mythic and movement palette, facilitate a 'lived body experience,' and to ultimately enhance the connections between psyche and soma. |
