'Covert' responds to three converging afflictions in society: our growing fixation with spending time looking at a screen the proportion of our lives we spend sitting/lying down, as a result the invasion of our privacy in the digital age To address these challenges (amplified in the Covid-19 pandemic) this handbook compiles 30 'movement meditations' that encourage readers to put down their phones and tablets to reclaim both an active and contemplative lifestyle, one that is highly integrated with, and inspired by, our surroundings. 'Covert' joins-up inner reflection, subtle physical play and public space to suggest ways of resisting invasion and activating the self in an era of sedentary screen time and surveillance. Using 30 carefully crafted 'movement meditations' - each with an accompanying photo to explain it - Covert outlines a straightforward, embodied practice that we can use to defend and preserve ourselves in the everyday world against the intrusion of digital media and the surveillance state. The 'Covert' practice is a way to diminish the lure of the screens, sidestep invasive scrutiny, and nurture the dialogue between our conscious and unconscious selves. By prioritizing introspective interactions with the quirky and complex world around us, 'Covert' shows that we have the means to cultivate our interior and imaginative selves through a dynamic, physical engagement with the wider world.

About the Author
Melanie Kloetzel (MFA, PhD) is a performance maker, scholar and educator who is committed to research that spans stage, site, and screen. Director of the dance theatre company kloetzel&co., and co-director of the art intervention collective TRAction, Kloetzel employs practice-as-research methodologies to develop events and encounters in theatre spaces, alternative venues, spaces of public assembly, and online environments. Kloetzel is Professor of Dance at the University of Calgary. Her publications can be found in Dance Research Journal, Contemporary Theatre Review, Choreographic Practices, New Theatre Quarterly, and the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, among others, and her two books, the co-edited anthology 'Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces' and the co-authored '(Re)Positioning Site Dance: Local Acts, Global Perspectives', are currently available from University Press of Florida and Intellect, respectively. Phil Smith is a writer, performer and researcher, specialising in walking, site-specificity and mythogeographies. With Helen Billinghurst he is one half of Crab & Bee, who created the art project 'Plymouth Labyrinth'. Phil's many publications include 'Guidebook for an Armchair Pilgrimage' (2019) with Tony Whitehead and John Schott; 'Making Site-Specific Theatre and Performance' (2018); 'Walking's New Movement' (2015); and 'Mythogeography' (2010). He is the company dramaturg of TNT Theatre (Munich) and Associate Professor (Reader) at the University of Plymouth.


Book Information
ISBN 9781913743154
Author Melanie Kloetzel
Format Paperback
Page Count 110
Imprint Triarchy Press
Publisher Triarchy Press