The RITPART Rhythm Rising international workshop we ran on May 23-27, 2022 gave me the courage to do what needs to be done, the wisdom to know what needs to be done, and the community to do it.
The workshop first exposed many of the participants to a range of multimodal sensors and learning analytics for investigating the enactive roots of conceptual change. The workshop brought together people who needed to meet each other yet could not have known so, such as roboticists speaking to ecological psychologists, quantitative methodologists speaking to Balinese dancers, and movement directors speaking to epistemologists. The workshop opened our minds to new research possibilities and opened our hearts to recognize our own movement practices, constraints, and potentials upon which hinged the realization of these research possibilities.
The workshop gave the word “holistic” new meaning — researchers who investigate perception, action, and cognition by first sensitively introspecting into their own perceptuomotor composition. The combination of cognitive scientists, movement practitioners, human-computer interaction specialists, technology engineers, and educational designers, all moving and thinking together, created for us an experiential context to openly ponder shared interests, paradigm differences, and the bridges that would benefit everyone. The generosity of the local leaders, their bonhomie, laissez-faire, and savoir-faire let us all safely focus, bellies full, on the work at hand. I return home inspired, empowered, and grateful.