Rori
Smith
I am an artist, somatic movement educator and researcher of bodily experience. I have been immersed in Continuum since 2014 and joined the Continuum Teachers Association in 2023.
I have always loved movement as a thinking process, as a way of knowing about being. This interest drew me to studies in dance improvisation and phenomenology, the philosophy of experience.
In my practice Continuum is embodied philosophy, direct learning about how what is - biology, ecology, physics - links up with what I experience the world to be. Its method of slow response to sensation provides an unobstructed perspective from which to learn about, and learn from, the processes of movement and exchange that comprise the life of our bodies in the world that includes us.
In 2022, Elaine Colandrea and I published “The Elemental Body: A Movement Guide to Kinship with Ourselves and the Natural World”, a Continuum workbook for those who are curious about how they belong to the animal, vegetable, mineral, winds and waters.
In addition to teaching open, community-based classes and individual lessons, I enjoy presenting Continuum to other educators in the fields of performance, environmental studies and philosophy. I earned an MFA in dance from Temple University in 2013 and will complete an interdisciplinary PhD in art and philosophy in 2025.