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Idea by

Rennie Tang and Lisa Sandlos

Soma-City

Los Angeles, United States of America
Soma-City is an interdisciplinary collaboration between urban designer Rennie Tang and movement analyst/dance educator Lisa Sandlos that draws on our combined perspectives and expertise to develop strategies for enabling fuller physicality and more dynamic human movement in urban public spaces.

Call for ideas 2021

The Movement Choir Guide


Caring for Cities through a Human Movement Infrastructure

The Movement Choir Guide


Caring for Cities through a Human Movement Infrastructure
Workshops and resources for making visible the care of public spaces through Movement Choirs.
File under
Type of project
  • New alliances

We are interested in movement vocabularies of those who do the work of caring for urban public spaces. Based on a study of these vocabularies we will create and develop a "Movement Choir," a collective experience that makes visible the human movement infrastructure involved in the care of public spaces. Movement Choirs, first developed by Rudolf von Laban in the 1920s, were originally produced as large-scale pageants to highlight the expressive dimensions of movements workers did in performing their industrial labour. We engage in the collaborative process of a Movement Choir to establish deeper connections between bodies, landscapes and public spaces – in other words, a human movement infrastructure. Using material collected from this process we will develop The Movement Choir Guide to include embodiment techniques, notation systems, and diagrams for use by designers interested in cultivating a culture of care in cities.


Movement Workshop led by Sandlos and Tang at Dance Studies Association Conference at Northwestern University, Evanston IL, August 2019

Embodied Mapping Workshop with Cal Poly Pomona Landscape Students led by Tang, Owens Valley CA

Movement Workshop led by Sandlos and Tang at Dance Studies Association Conference at Northwestern University, Evanston IL, August 2019

Embodied Mapping Workshop with Cal Poly Pomona Landscape Students led by Tang, Los Angeles River CA

The Movement Choir Guide


Caring for Cities through a Human Movement Infrastructure

The Movement Choir Guide


Caring for Cities through a Human Movement Infrastructure
Workshops and resources for making visible the care of public spaces through Movement Choirs.
File under
Type of project
  • New alliances

We are interested in movement vocabularies of those who do the work of caring for urban public spaces. Based on a study of these vocabularies we will create and develop a "Movement Choir," a collective experience that makes visible the human movement infrastructure involved in the care of public spaces. Movement Choirs, first developed by Rudolf von Laban in the 1920s, were originally produced as large-scale pageants to highlight the expressive dimensions of movements workers did in performing their industrial labour. We engage in the collaborative process of a Movement Choir to establish deeper connections between bodies, landscapes and public spaces – in other words, a human movement infrastructure. Using material collected from this process we will develop The Movement Choir Guide to include embodiment techniques, notation systems, and diagrams for use by designers interested in cultivating a culture of care in cities.


Movement Workshop led by Sandlos and Tang at Dance Studies Association Conference at Northwestern University, Evanston IL, August 2019

Embodied Mapping Workshop with Cal Poly Pomona Landscape Students led by Tang, Owens Valley CA

Movement Workshop led by Sandlos and Tang at Dance Studies Association Conference at Northwestern University, Evanston IL, August 2019

Embodied Mapping Workshop with Cal Poly Pomona Landscape Students led by Tang, Los Angeles River CA


Idea by

Rennie Tang and Lisa Sandlos
Soma-City
Los Angeles
United States of America
Soma-City is an interdisciplinary collaboration between urban designer Rennie Tang and movement analyst/dance educator Lisa Sandlos that draws on our combined perspectives and expertise to develop strategies for enabling fuller physicality and more dynamic human movement in urban public spaces.