How does this environment affect my movement choices?

We initially asked this question working indoors in a theater under artificial light, then outside on a cement courtyard in front of a large building next to a busy street. The question returned as we moved to a forested urban greenbelt, a landscaped lawn, and other sites on campus, set between building and street.

After five days in an urban environment, we left Anchorage to work in different settings on the Glacier Ranger District of the Chugach National Forest (and adjacent state lands). To address this question systematically, we repeated a simple movement score in two different undeveloped settings-- coastal forest at the edge of a muskeg, and the dry flood channel of a broad glacial river valley. The score directions were: walk to a spot and find stillness, pick another spot, move to it, find stillnes. This score asked us to make clear choices of direction, orientation, and proximity. In the forest, we oriented in relation to the trees. The thick undergrowth and slope kept us moving slowly. In the open river valley, we were drawn to play with level, and speed, in relation to the vegetated banks that marked the edge of the channel, and a sunken area created by the current that flows here at high water and high tide.