Pre-Congress Workshop 3 11 October (10:00 – 13:30 and 15:00 – 18:30)
Touch & Connectivity: Tools of somatic awareness that enhance empathy, sensibility and flow to the Body Psychotherapist through movement. Open to all levels.
Authentic Movement-Somatics-Contact Improvisation
Body-mind is one structure that contains our emotions. Emotions are physical events and life is a somatic experience.
An experiential 7hour lab where we practice physical-emotional awareness in relationships. We discover tools to develop listening skills to our body impulses, feelings and the other. We explore our primary connection with the earth, that is, with the force of gravity to find our support and inner strength. Then we expand in space. The communication of our boundaries becomes more clear and permeable. We contain ourselves and offer satisfaction to our being when we live in contact with our physical experience.
First we practice physical awareness activating our attention to our body-mind through contemplative movement (Authentic Movement) and hands-on work. Awakening our body, we study listening to our inner impulses first on our own and then in relation to the other and space. We emphasise how to find support primarily relating to gravity and our experience of weight.
As we start expanding in space, we explore how to be receptive, as well as how to differentiate proposition versus manipulation. We practice intentional touch to suggest physical impulses to our partner to awaken our body consciousness. While moving in a duet through contact, we offer signals to each other, “reading” each other’s body; giving directions through moving touch and the play of pressure or weight, we experience changes in our muscular tonality. We create physical dialogue that embrace and express sensations, as well as, emotions. How can we communicate in a more active way on the basis of sensing and feeling what is happening to our body; how to find our place, our being in following as well as in leading. We focus on connectivity and flow in stillness and in movement. We learn how to respect our boundaries and create a permeable relationship with space to understand and perhaps bring change to the way we perceive and experience the world, life.
A lot of emphasis will be given on sharing and feedback with the group.
Beginners in movement are welcome. Please bring loose clothes for movement practice.
Christina Klissiouni is an international dance teacher, performer, choreographer as well as body-psychotherapist and shiatsu practitioner. Her work is a 30 year-long exploration of movement/dance study based on Somatics & Contact Improvisation. She studied dance/somatic practices in NYC (1986-90). As a psychotherapist she connects the art of body awareness with the art of therapy to support presence, connection to one’s authenticity, trust, acceptance, change. She is trained at EINA center and her main teachers were Barry Simmons (Gestalt) and Alberto Torre. She runs her studio Present Body in the center of Athens, teaches and performs in numerous festivals in Europe, USA, Asia.
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