A 12-day workshop on a Body-Mind Centering® Approach to Dance
with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Hosted by Pomona Dance
Movement is our first language. Dance is the poetry of that language. To be fluent, dancers need to move with ease, flexibility, strength, and expression. Although we often think of dance or other movement as being muscle based, all of the body systems play important roles in the support and articulation of our body and are expressed as a wide range of movement qualities and consciousness.
Integrating organs and glands into our movement and voice provides an inner authenticity, three-dimensional essence, and organic substance. Embodying our organs can increase flexibility and strength for better technique, offer vast choices for improvisation and expression for improved creativity, refine stylistic preferences wider choreographic choices, and establish a vocabulary to articulate differences and cross-references for clearer analysis. Embodying the endocrine glands brings us to internal stillness, surges of chaos/balance, the crystallization of energy into archetypal experiences, and the ground that underlies intuition and the perceiving and understanding of Universal Mind.
Our psychophysical geography (anatomy) and history (embryological development) help us discover where we are in this body and how we got here. Exploring these processes through embodied movement opens a path to natural, effortless fluency. Revisiting the process of our creation—re-membering ourselves—brings us into the presence of the ongoing dance of existence. This is the essence of our dancing.
In this workshop, we will explore opening our awareness to the expressive foundation of our organs and glands. Explorations will also draw from other body systems and from developmental movement and their applications to dance.
Participants should have previous experience in dance or other movement disciplines.
No prior experience with the Body-Mind Centering® approach is necessary. Come and share with curiosity and a sense of inquiry about movement, voice, the body, and consciousness.
There will be live music performed by John Sprague during this workshop. John is an improvisational musician and composer with more than 30 years experience accompanying dance classes, including those of Bonnie’s in the 80s. Bonnie is excited to have him join us this summer and to renew their collaboration.