LifeDance®
With Emily
Residencies
Moving Explorations into Processes of Creativity and Transformation
Dancing from the Inside Out
This workshop explores using movement to access each participant's unique artistic voice, through exploring how to access an ego free channel of inspiration and tap into inner guidance, drawing from the body's wisdom. The workshop will consist of a brief orienting lecture on the body's authentic ways of knowing and being from western and non western perspectives, and an over view of historical contexts of the artist as receiver of insight, wisdom and inspiration through embodiment. Experiential movement processes, emphasizing grounding, self-awareness, acceptance and openess to all thoughts, feelings and sensations, as well as calming breathing techniques and creative visualizations will be explored to support the shift from intellectual understanding to embodied experience. Participants will then create a piece of artistic work based on these self explorations and enter into a discussion with peer as to how to use these inner tools to facilitate their growth and development as dynamic creative artists in their chosen fields. In this workshop, openess to exploring and accessing emotional experience without judgement of self or others and confidentiality is essential.
"As she surrendered her physical pain and emotional vulnerability into the expressive fire of dance, she felt healing energies rise up in her body, and experienced an uplifted state of mind, and a return of strength and confidence. She realized that she had entered into a whole new relationship with performance – and that dance and movement had become for her the expression of wholeness and oneness, and a way to source the wellsprings of her unique creativity, rather than an intellectual or theoretical realm to choreograph, or a platform for judgment and criticism, both inner and outer. " Emily Nussdorfer
The Inner Space of Social Change
This course provides an overview and introduction to how to cultivate the inner qualities necessary to develop into an empowered, and effective social change agent. Drawing upon readings from Charles Eisenstein, Deepok Chopra, Carolyn Myss and Thich Naht Hahn, This course focuses upon the change agent looking within to find their connection to all, and to explore their strengths and fears on their journey of advocating and supporting social change issues they care about. Using the non verbal realms of movement, dyadic experiential processing as well as written narrative, participants will learn to explore and experience their unique ways of being, knowing and doing as social change visionaries. At the same time, they will be supported in expanding in multi-cultural and gender sensitivity and awareness to the diverse ways of knowing, being and doing of those people whose causes they serve, and how to best be an ally in service of the larger whole, without ego.
Participants will learn about various obstacles encountered in the social service field, i.e. burn out, vicarious traumatization, the savior complex, and explore personal stories of famous social change activists, as well as their own. They will be provided a safe space to identify and face without judgment any blind spots in themselves, while honoring the love and care that propells them on their journey. They will explore useful techniques in self care to overcome resistance and fear, manage projections, channel burn out and negative emotions, and stay grounded in body, mind and soul, in order to vitalize and support their unique mission, vision and purpose on the path of social service.
Connecting Body, Mind & Spirit Through Dance
This course will consist of an in-depth study of the body's unique healing abilities through dance - focusing on "energy" medicine. Drawing from the discoveries of Neuroscientists, Candice Pert and Bruce Lipton, Fractal Theorist Gregg Braden and medical intuitive Donna Reid, studies of indigenous shamanic dance and its effect on participants, and current longitudinal studies on the power of dance and meditation to increase cognition, strength and flexibility, the possibilities of dance as a means of increasing energy and insight - i.e. accessing the altered state of psycho-physical transformation, and how movement can be used to connect with and positively charge energy centers in the body will be explored.
Readings in and video clips of of ancient and modern practices of Yoga, Buddhist tantric dances, Native American and African healing dances, Indonesian mask dance theater, will be viewed and discussed in the light of energy medicine in general and embodied self-transformation through dance and movement. Participants will then engage in a number of experiential explorations into the healing power of dance, exploring access points to healing/revitalizing energy in the body, in order to explore, experience and observe the effect of these movement processes on their state of well being, physical, mental, and emotional energy....and overall perspective.
Embodied Education
This experiential workshop provides tools for shifting from a purely intellectual and verbal mode of understanding and processing information to exploring non verbal, kinesthetic and empathic modes of teaching and learning. Readings from Howard Gardner, Paolo Friere, Thich Naht Hanh, Anna Halperin, Pema Chodron, Rudolph Steiner, Malidoma Patrice Some and others will lend creative, multi-cultural and scientific support for experiential learning. Participants will learn to use movement and breath to explore and express processes of learning experientially and non verbally, expanding the teacher's tool box of techniques to include kinesthetic learning and kinesthetic empathy and mindfulness. This workshop challenges traditional mores of a classroom experience, and pushes participants out of an intellectual "comfort zone" into a world of non-verbal experience- joining intellectual reasoning with feeling, sensing and being as equal parts of the learning process. This course encourages participants to engage and open the mind to meet the heart's messages in the physical body, and experience the alchemy and wisdom that is produced by that union.
Spiritual Movements of the Hawaiian Islands
Introduction to indigenous Hawaiian movement healing principles from the Huna tradition and indigenous Hawaiian world view where dance plays a central part of cultural conciousness, creating a sense of connectedness to nature, community, self, culture and history. Didactic lecture with video clips will focus on holistic perspective in which dance and spiritual movements are used as a means of cultural expression of uniquely Hawaiian ways of being, knowing and doing. Direct experiential processes will support an embodied understanding of a uniquely Hawaiian philosophy of living life from a holistic state of conciousness that promotes awareness of one's place in the natural world, one's community and one's self - and has universal applications.
For more information about my residencies, or if you would like to to set up a time to discuss the applicability of one of the above residencies to your institution's mission or curricula, please contact me in the message box below. I look forward to hearing from you!