When the Camera Is a Mirror: How Video Storytelling Can Be a Tool for Self-Reflection and Growth

During the final year of my program, Vedome Telo, I created a body of work titled “Somatic Experiences and Creative Expressions: Somatic Self-Care and Trauma Recovery – Reconnecting with the Body Through Movement and Experimental Visual Storytelling.” It was not just an academic endeavor — it was a deeply personal journey, a gentle dance between memory, movement, and meaning.

At its heart, this study is an exploration of how somatic practices, experimental video, and symbolic imagery can become tools for healing, self-care, and trauma recovery. Through intuitive movement and visual storytelling, I explored the sacred relationship between the body and physical space, between the seen and the felt, the external and the internal.

The Body Remembers: Somatic Healing Through Movement

Using somatic approaches — particularly Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) — I examined the way trauma lives in the body, and how we might begin to release it, not just through words, but through movement, breath, and visual expression.

Movement, as LMA teaches, is not merely physical — it is an outward expression of inner intent.

In its basic definition Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is rooted in conceptualizing, and analyzing the ways that humans move their bodies. In the article “Laban Movement Analysis: An Introduction for Actors”, Suzy Woltmann (2022) explains that “through Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) Laban categorized movements using Eukinetics, or Efforts, and Choreutics, or Space Harmony. His work was carried on, particularly by Bartenieff and Ullmann, and situated into these categories: Body, Effort, Shape, and Space. These categories are often referred to using the acronym BESS." (Woltmann, 2022)

In trauma recovery, this becomes especially important: our stories live in our bones, in our postures, in our gestures. Sometimes, what the mouth cannot say, the body whispers. And the camera listens.

In this work, I revisited personal experiences of trauma from growing up in a war zone — focusing specifically on themes that had followed me through life like invisible threads:fear of open spaces, fear of abandonment, and the slow journey toward self-acceptance.

Series of images and creative work came out of this process.

Filming the Invisible: Experimental Video as a Healing Tool

Recently, the topic of physical space has resurfaced in my life with new urgency. After moving to a new country — stepping into a completely unfamiliar environment — I began to notice subtle but profound changes in my body. With each passing day, I started observing: How does my body feel here? What shifts when the landscapes around me are no longer known?

This transition sparked a deeper somatic inquiry. I began to track sensations, posture, and breath. Were my shoulders curling inward or expanding outward? Was my spine softening or stiffening in response to the new energy of this place? I noticed tension in my lower back — a familiar ache connected to themes of grounding, safety, and belonging.

Moving to a new physical space is not only a logistical shift — it's a visceral, embodied experience. Our nervous systems register change before our minds catch up. The body speaks first. And in this new chapter, I found myself tuning in more closely to its whispers.

This became the starting point for another layer of my research into somatic storytelling and the relationship between place, body, and personal narrative. The body, once again, became both compass and storyteller, showing me how I adapt, contract, or expand in response to my environment.

Guidance into Intangible

I approached video not as a tool of performance, but as a mirror — a compassionate observer. Rather than choreographing movement, I allowed my body to move intuitively, following areas where I felt tension or pain. The camera became a companion, recording without judgment.

Through this process, I explored the dialogue between body and space:

• Do I shrink or expand in this environment?

• Are my shoulders folding inward or opening to the world?

• How does my lower back feel in this new country, this unfamiliar ground?

In this exploration, I focused on two visual storytelling techniques: the wide shot and the close-up. The wide shot offered a feeling of scale — my body within vast physical space, often triggering sensations of exposure or fear. The close-up, in contrast, became a way to reclaim intimacy, to look closely at the details of self, the edges of skin and muscle, the quiet emotions behind the eyes.

Each frame became a frame of self-inquiry, and through this aesthetic container, I could safely explore sensations that might otherwise feel overwhelming.

The Camera as Companion, Not Critic

This wasn’t about polished performance or picture-perfect visuals. It was about rawness, instinct, intuition. I found that some movements came from pain — a curled hand, a tense neck, a still torso — and others from release. The body becomes its own storyteller, and the footage becomes both memory and mirror:

By dissecting individual images and studying body posture and gesture, I could begin to reflect deeply on my own healing process. Where was there restriction? Where was there ease? What had shifted — physically and emotionally — since leaving everything familiar and arriving in a new country?

This process gave rise to a series of visual poems — small moments of truth captured in motion, which I later used in a qualitative analysis of the relationship between somatic experience, movement, and personal storytelling.

Why This Work Matters

In a year of so much instability and personal transition, this work reminded me that self-care is not always soft — sometimes it is brave, messy, and transformative. The fusion of somatic practice and experimental visual storytelling offers something powerful:A way to witness ourselves without judgment. To explore our inner landscapes through the body. To reclaim narrative control by choosing what, how, and where we show ourselves.

This is not just for filmmakers or dancers. Anyone with a body, with memories, with emotion — anyone who wants to come home to themselves — can use these tools.

To tell your story is to meet yourself anew. To film your body in motion — especially in its most vulnerable states — is to fall back in love with your own presence.

Perhaps healing begins the moment we’re willing to look.

Reference:

Backstage(2022). Available at:

https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/laban-movement-analysis-guide-50428/(Accessed: 16 June 2025)