Samuel Tettner, PhD -

For the past decade, my work has been guided by a simple question: What can self-cultivation and self-transformation mean in the context of dancing and listening to music?​I approach this question through aesthetic and somatic practices—treating movement, rhythm, and sensory experience as ways of exploring how transformation is lived and felt in the body.​

 

My early research focused on Sufism within Islamic traditions. Through fieldwork in Turkey, Pakistan, and India, I studied the Sufi practice of zikr, examining how collective chanting, rhythm, and movement allow practitioners to experience and articulate spirituality. I used Marxist theories of space formation to analyze sonic and spatial dimensions of spiritual subjective formation. This work formed the basis of my M.A. research and part of my doctoral inquiry.​

 

Later, I turned toward contemporary dance and the emergence of “spiritual but not religious” identities in the modern West. Conducting research primarily in Spain, I explored how contemporary movement practices create spaces where participants engage with questions of presence, connection, and inner experience outside formal religious frameworks, and how these embodied sensations of selfhood afford new modes of political and social engagement. 

 

Over time, this research began to move from observation into practice. I trained in contemporary and community dance facilitation and began creating participatory formats that combine movement, somatic awareness, and collective attention. These activities invite participants to explore embodiment as a way of relating to themselves, others, and the environments they inhabit. See the facilitation tab to learn more about these.