The Fundamentals of Movement
Healing Through the Practice of Movement
The Fundamentals of Movement is a film by Daniel Proietto exploring movement as a practice of attention, presence, and healing.
The work approaches movement not as a technique to master, but as energy allowed to move freely through the body. Through mindful and intentional practice, it examines how releasing tension and habitual control can open pathways to clarity, expression, and embodied awareness.
An Orientation to Practice
At the core of this work is the understanding that movement begins with an open and receptive state — physical, mental, and perceptual. Rather than imposing form, the practice invites the body to listen, respond, and reorganize itself through attention.
Mindfulness is not presented as a method to achieve results, but as a condition that allows movement to emerge with integrity and coherence.
Dance, Healing, and Transformation
Drawing on personal experience and long-term artistic research, Daniel Proietto reflects on movement as a means of processing lived experience, including trauma. Central to the work is the concept of The Alchemy of Pain — the capacity of the body to transform complex emotional states into expression, communication, and form.
Healing here is not framed as resolution, but as an ongoing process of integration and presence.
Reconnecting with the Body as Nature
Developed in dialogue with outdoor and site-specific performance practices, the work understands the body as part of a larger natural system. Movement becomes a way of restoring alignment — not by returning to an ideal, but by re-establishing relationship with sensation, rhythm, and space.
The film offer visual and reflective material that situates movement within a broader ecological and perceptual context.
Movement as Flow
The practice presented here is grounded in the idea of flow — not as performance optimization, but as a state of continuity between attention, action, and sensation. Through simple, accessible movement explorations, the work examines how openness and receptivity can support physical intelligence, emotional regulation, and clarity of intention.
Practice Materials
The film include guided movement explorations designed to be approached without prior technical knowledge. These practices invite repetition, reflection, and adaptation, allowing each reader or viewer to engage at their own rhythm and depth.
About the Creator
Daniel Proietto is a dancer, choreographer, and founder of KNOW NATION. His work emerges from decades of artistic practice and research across dance, theatre, and embodied disciplines, approaching movement as a language through which physical, emotional, and perceptual experience can be explored and transformed.
Context within KNOW NATION
The Fundamentals of Movement marks an essential foundation within Know Nation’s broader cultural work. It establishes a shared vocabulary of movement, attention, and embodiment that informs the platform’s engagement with performance, architecture, and film.