Awareness Perception Presence - Somatic Movement Practice as "Invisible Technique"

I like to describe the application of somatic movement practices (in this case, the Feldenkrais Method and Experiential Anatomy) to the performing arts as a kind of "invisible technique" - what I mean by that is that while they do not necessarily teach any material that you could perform, they can have a huge effect on how you perform (performance presence), your ability to learn new skills and on compositional choice making.

Experiential Anatomy: We all have enough basic knowledge to get by most of the time, but often some elements of this basic knowledge are inaccurate. At best that limits what we can do, at worst it can cause us harm. Even a little extra accurate knowledge of how our physical structure is put together can radically change how we perceive ourselves, how we move, and both our susceptibility to injuries and our ability to recover from them.

The Feldenkrais Method®: offers to improve not only the way you move, but the way you learn to improve any skill. In Awareness Through Movement (ATM) classes, you are guided verbally through precisely-structured movement patterns using the feedback of your own sensations to improve what you do. The movements are often small and you are encouraged to carry them out in a relaxed comfortable way, paying attention only to yourself so that you can sense clearly for yourself what you are doing. The more you know about how you are moving, the more efficient your movement becomes. Improvements that you discover in class will become spontaneously available in your life.

Awareness Perception Presence: While Experiential Anatomy and the Feldenkrais Method can both have dramatic effects on how people sense themselves and their movement, I am particularly interested in how this seemingly internal changes are also mirrored in the way we perceive the world around us, and how the world perceives us, which is particularly important for performers and performance makers. In this workshop I also offer some of my own material, which aims to highlight how the heightened self-awareness and perception that emerges from practicing experiential anatomy and the feldenkrais method can support our performance presence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Education
• Approach to Teaching
• Performing Arts
• Applied somatics