tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39663775826737646172023-06-20T06:59:22.152-07:00SOUL - Centre of the Body and MindSoul Centrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08960919247340666927noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966377582673764617.post-79290183883163477662013-07-24T19:18:00.001-07:002013-07-24T19:21:04.823-07:00SOMATICS IN NZ<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;"><b>An
email interview with Wilhemeena Monroe and Felicity Molloy.</b></span></h3>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;"><b> </b></span></h3>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;"><b>Felicity:
Why somatics in the therapeutic/ bodywork/ movement sector? Please can you
describe your influences - e.g Unitec, Butoh, Skinner Releasing, East West,
Body Weather etc.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Wilhemeena:
It is my understanding that somatics is “of the body” the body as experienced,
the phenomenological body, subjective body or what Edward Maupin calls it the
“body epiphany”, an initial discovery of the body/mind unity, a discovery which
matures into a more sustained state of “embodiment”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">In this
way the question of why somatics in these industries seems absurd. Without the
experience of the body in these industries we have no legs to stand on.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">We are
merely looking at the body as an aesthetic and not an experience. Like
comparing a photograph of a dancer or a painting, with the living, breathing
organism which is multi-dimensional and has a life force, an energy and an
emotional body and a creative body as well as blood, bones and flesh that are
constantly moving, constantly changing. This is somatics – the living breathing
self.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">So you can
look at a body as a therapist and just see mechanics and work on that level,
and the same with dance – you can see the mechanics of the body in that lift,
the beauty perhaps of that pirouette from a mechanical perspective.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Then you
can look at it from a somatics perspective – the breath, the energy, the magic
of the dance, the healing moment that changes your perception. As well as the
experience of the dancer, the experience of the audience, where they can feel
the dance moving in them. The
experience of the client – what they can feel, and the experience of the
practitioner – what they feel is important, from a somatics perspective.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">For me my
“experience” of being a dancer and a therapist has always had this approach.
Perhaps I am not naturally a methodical person. I have always had a penchant
for the magic of the dance, the magic of the moment – and I found this in
somatics.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Over the
years I have studied a vast array of somatic modalities, among them Skinner
Releasing Technique, Shin Somatics, Chi Kung, Yoga, and Butoh, each with a
unique perspective – Skinner Releasing, Shin Somatics and Chi Kung for me are
pure somatics modalities because they are philosophically about the “felt”
sense. Yoga and Butoh, like anything else “can” be practiced in a somatic way –
but can also be practiced purely mechanically, or with an aesthetic in mind.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">In Skinner
Releasing for example – you move from your felt sense. That is the key to the
work. This way you can find new pathways of moving that aesthetically are not
what you would choose, but come from a creative source that is deeper than
aesthetic.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">It could
be said that somatics maybe a longing for individual authenticity, because it
has become more and more clear to me that our bodies are a key to a more
authentic reality. Authenticity is a function of embodiment.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;"><b>Felicity:
Why somatics in NZ tertiary dance – what has the study brought to tertiary
dance? can include other avenues where your somatic practices have surfaced -
e.g drama/ bodywork?</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Wilhemeena:
In my mind somatics is essential in the training of dancers, as it cultivates
creative impulse and a freedom and variety of movement. There is nothing sadder
to watch than a beautiful dancer who can kick their leg high but lacks an
essential spark – once they have done one or two high kicks, I am bored.
However, a dancer with a somatics based training may be able to be engaged in
the most inane task on stage and for some reason draws you into their world –
how do they do this? Somatics! It is through their felt experience. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">It is
essential in dance training to cultivate this felt experience in our dancers.
As a choreographer I want to work with dancers who know and can experience
themselves as moving, as opposed to a dancer who is good at picking up movement
taught to them. I want them to be able to think and move for themselves.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;"><b>Felicity:
What has this got to do with yoga and Pilates? – or Alexander and Feldenkrais?
If you think of significant differences between the modalities that make them
more or less "somatic" can you add.. </b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Wilhemeena:
Yoga and Pilates fall into the same camp for me. They can be approached through
a somatics lens and practiced somatically. However there are plenty of people
with a strong yoga practice who have never actually explored how an asana feels
to them – they are simply putting their body in a position. It is aesthetically
based.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Alexander
and particularly Feldenkrais where onto something by slowing down the movement
and asking the clients to become more aware of their movement pathways – this
is a beautiful introduction into working in a somatic way – it is about
awareness of self and I would say it is awareness of the moving self or the
self moving.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Of Ida
Rolfs work “Rolfing”, “If one tries to apply “the line” in Rolfing as an
external standard, it is indeed an imposition, a coercion. But if one looks for
the line internally, kinesthetically, then it is a powerful concept, leading to
an inherently recognizable reality.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;"><b>Felicity:
Who has been integral to the practices developing in NZ? </b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Wilhemeena:
My first experience of somatics was a class with Raewyn Thorburn – Skinner
Releasing Technique at the then Auckland Performing Arts School in Hargreaves
street – this was an innovative dance school run by Ali East. This is where I
discovered dance – in a whole new way, a way that fostered creativity and
uniqueness and the whole person moving through space. It was a haven. I studied
SRT with Raewyn, Contact Improvisation with Catherine Chappell and contemporary
dance with whoever was the hottest teacher at the time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">As I
became ready for full-time dance training, the Performing Arts School was
bought out by UNITEC and the school was shifted there, the teachers remained
the same and Ali East and her contemporaries created an innovative program
which stood up to the then global phenomenon of “new” dance development – a
much more somatic approach to training dancers. Among the tutors there was
Felicity Molloy who was my first “somatics” teacher, she has and still does
hold a leading presence in the somatics industry in NZ as a dancer, educator
and therapist.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">She paved
the way for me to think about dance therapeutics and the marriage of dance and
therapy as a valid career option – although there was nothing of that kind here
at that time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Charles
Koroneho, although he may not think of himself as a somatic teacher, developed
a strong sense of holistic creative process and introduced me to butoh, which
become another main practice for me, which I developed through a somatics lens
later in my creative process. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">As I
finished UNITEC, I segued into teaching SRT and choreography there until they
slowly began filtering somatic practices out of the program. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Of those
golden years of new dance, there are still some dancers who have held the flag
for somatic practice here in NZ, among them Val Smith – who has kept Contact
Improvisation alive, Brent Harris, Sarah Campas, Felicity Molloy and myself but
there still wasn’t really anywhere to fully immerse yourself in it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">As a
lifestyle I wanted to “Live” somatics and so with no where to go – I decided to
create somewhere. A hub for somatics practice here on the outskirts of
Auckland.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">Since conception 8 years ago, SOUL – Centre of the Body and Mind has been creating and
hosting workshops and classes with some of the worlds great somatics
practitioners and dancers, including Al Wunder,(AUST) Stephanie Skura(USA), Nate Dryden(USA), Ged Sumner (UK) - to name a few and also fostered and
hosted Sondra Fraleigh of Shin Somatics to come to NZ for the last 4 years to
teach her butoh inspired somatics work here. This provided a host of NZ dancers
and practitioners being trained in Shin Somatics methodology. And resulted last
year in the first international somatics symposium in NZ in Dunedin, hosted by
Ali East, and Otago University. Sublime.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13pt;">SOUL now
runs an annual somatics summer school where you can taste test a host of somatics
dance and wellness practices, including Contact Improvisation, Skinner
Releasing (Release Me), Butoh, Authentic Movement, Halprin Life/Art process,
Embodied Massage, among others. It is glorious!!!!</span></div>
Soul Centrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08960919247340666927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966377582673764617.post-56846251076285728012013-03-21T14:27:00.001-07:002013-03-21T14:28:01.278-07:00Notes on Becoming Whole<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">When we are concerned about
being dancers, we are really concerned about being human. About being whole,
how to dance with our whole selves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">We have all had the
experience of witnessing an amazing technician whose skill is highly developed
but whose performance just doesn’t pull our souls. Then there are dancers who
are not really doing anything at all, but whose movements seem to come from our
own souls – they draw us into their world as if it were our own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">What is at play? They are
connected. They are dancing with their whole being, they are whole enough to be
empty, empty enough to let the universal spirit of grace move them in a dance
that moves us all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">What is it to be a whole
human being? What is it to be a human being in alignment?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Joan Skinner talks about
natural primal grace that everyone is born with – this is the tri brain
process. Where our primal animal nature is working in alignment with the cortex
– which controls our body movements and functions and our limbic brain, which
connects us to grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">It is a mystical process as
well as a logical, anatomical alignment that happen s in the structures, fluids
and spaces that form the being that is us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“Us” as our individual selves
and as a community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Akira Kasai suggests that we
can’t grow apart from our community body. And I believe this to be true. We are
collectively moving towards wholeness or destruction in every moment, it
depends where our focus is, in the same way that our individual selves are with
the very choices we make on a daily basis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">As we transform ourselves,
the collective is also transformed – we do the work for each other – as we move
towards wholeness we bring our collective towards a more whole being. This
includes our human community as well as the community of the earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">So what stands in the way of
us living in this “wholeness”, living our fullness?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Our unconscious belief
systems – that iceberg that looms underwater, a large and ominous unkown that
lurks under the surface of our selves threatening to sink the Titanic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The Titanic is our ego self,
what we show to the world. It also has its upper and lower decks. But what can
sink this beautiful vessel is not the sometimes unruly lower deck inhabitants,
or the upper deck decadence – but the unseen iceberg out there in the dark sea
of our limbic systems. Our unconscious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Imagery and movement, I have
found, is one of the most profound ways to assess and transform this icy
unknown. Skinner’s work, as well as some forms of butoh and movement theatre including
Al Wunder’s Theatre of the Ordinary can, through surpassing our “control
centre” re-configure subconscious patterning through allowing the body
kinesthesia to experience a new way of “being” or “experiencing” the world,
re-patterning our soma and re-integrating the nervous system and muscular
system in the new configuration. Loosing tension in our musculature, our
thoughts and our “being”. Tension that have sometimes been there for a lifetime
of experiencing. We are in that moment transformed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">This transformation requires
preparation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Who makes the choice who
heals and who doesn’t? this is the mystical question, but in the long-term we
do need to be willing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Willing to trust, willing to
dive into that icy sea, wiling to be in the dark, cold stillness of the deep
sea and to wait…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“Wait without thought, for
you are not ready for thought…….and the darkness shall be the light and the
stillness the dancing” (T.S Elliot)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">What is willingness?
Willingness is giving permission, saying yes to something outside yourself,
perhaps the rhythms and fluctuations of the universal dance, the deep sea tidal
flow, and allow your being to soften enough to allow grace to slip in between
our cells and occupy our deep spaces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">And what are we waiting for?
Not for some cosmic explosion of cells – although this does happen. But most
often it is something soft, something childlike, like the flutter of a
butterflys eyelid, the foot fall of a wolves paw as it pads out from the
shadows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">This is surrender. It is
surrender to the nothing without the nothing having to “be” something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">It is cold here, and the moon
is dark, the rocks whisper to each other in secret sign language. You are alone
and the stillness begins to ….move….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Wilhemeena Isabella Monroe,
Melbourne Workshop 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Soul Centrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08960919247340666927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966377582673764617.post-20625502851159009652012-07-23T00:08:00.001-07:002012-07-23T00:08:18.306-07:00A day at SoulAs a participant at the workstudy-program at Soul I get an experience of working at the centre in exchange for attending any Yoga and ChiKung-classes throughout the week. Today I get to do some admin work, arrange new flowers, tidy up the office, while Willa sees clients in the clinic, and later prepares for the evening Yoga class. What a peaceful environment to work and move in, what a privilege to be part of a community, created with an intention to offer a space for people to relax, release, nourish, be and learn more about the body, mind, spirit connection, in the midst of the frantic world we live in. <br />
<br />
with love and gratitude<br />
IngridSoul Centrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08960919247340666927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966377582673764617.post-49917030972350743672012-06-11T20:52:00.001-07:002012-06-11T20:52:30.405-07:00Every Day Lie RestingEvery day<div>
lie resting</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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what is needed</div>
<div>
to be more comfortable</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
let go of the past and future</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
open the room of yourself</div>
<div>
to the day of this breath</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
open the skin to the air</div>
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to the light</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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let the undersurfaces of the body</div>
<div>
open into shadows</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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let the whole body fill</div>
<div>
and open to the breath</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
stretch roll yawn dream</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
let the thoughts dissolve and spread themselves</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
each day find a new question</div>Soul Centrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08960919247340666927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966377582673764617.post-3703124874336179282012-04-10T17:38:00.001-07:002012-04-10T17:38:13.191-07:00Soul is aliveHello Soul family,<br />
<br />
This is our first blog. We invite you to send in your ideas, experiences, wishes, love, anything you feel like to add to the family blog site.<br />
<br />
Tell us about your experiences of Soul, or of your day. Maybe something happened today you might like to share with us.<br />
<br />
We are always open<br />
<br />
Love Soul CentreSoul Centrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08960919247340666927noreply@blogger.com0