Movement workshop following the Feldenkrais method
My meeting with the Feldenkrais method has profoundly affected the way I dance, create and teach. In 2013 I started specializing at the Istituto per la Formazione Feldenkrais in Milan, founded by Mara Della Pergola, a direct student of Moshe Feldenkrais, and for many years I have been researching with different groups, from professionals to amateurs, the impact body study has on our personalities and on our way of being.
What is movement?
The Feldenkrais method starts by questioning the body.
It considers the movement as a powerful instrument of knowledge, a part of a complex phenomenon that encompasses emotions and thinking.
Changing the way we normally move actually means changing our thinking and emotional patterns.
How can we become more aware of ourselves through movement?
Each of us has a unique way of moving and holds an infinite potential of actions. Just that, in lack of constant exploration and body awareness, these possibilities of action never materialize.
We feel before we understand.
This method teaches us that creativity, movement and sensibility in what we do changes the way we think and behave.
For Feldenkrais thought, perception and emotion are all present while we act.
The workshop
The method relies on organic learning and addresses any person who wants to get to know themselves better: from young mothers, to fathers and grandparents, from dancers to psychologists and physiotherapists, from professionals of various specialties to athletes. Through a series of lessons that eviscerate the infinite combinations and components of action, we get to reinvent neuromotor habitual schemes through playful and creative exploration. In this deconstruction of action schemes, agonist and antagonist muscles find balance and once tensions disappear, emotions, images, ideas and other associations start to manifest themselves. In this context, everyone gets to free themselves from patterns, anxiety, conflicting emotional states, while accessing their own potential and a harmonious and positive way of being.
Objectives
The entire workshop will be as if we would learn, for a second time, in infinite ways, beyond our habits and the blockages we identify with. Without exterior models and through our sensations, we will become capable to free ourselves from unnecessary tensions, disorganized breathing, hurry, or the need to satisfy someone. Feldenkrais says:
“We don’t know ourselves. Actually, and you will realize this in a few minutes, the way we know ourselves doesn’t allow us to have real control upon ourselves. (…) You are not the ones who act out, but your pains, your illness, your inabilities, old learned habits, that you can’t even remember: these dictate your actions.”
Valentina de Piante Niculae is a choreographer and dancer, with a PhD in Performance Arts. She is Assistant Professor at the Choreography section of UNATC I.L. Caragiale in Bucharest. As a choreographer, she studies the co-present of different types of body intelligences, a route from the biological to the imaginary, that integrates different levels of consciousness: emotional, sensory, cognitive.
She participated in courses and workshops held by Lola Keraly, Yasuko Yokoshi, D.D. Dorvillier, Miguel Gutierrez, Ori Flomin, Gwen Welliver, Serenella Fonzar, Laura Aris, Odette Guimond, Mark Tompkins, Lisa Nelson, David Zambrano, Inge Kaindlstorfer, Yvan Wolf, Joseph Nadj, Anouk Van Dijk, Abbondanza-Bertoni, Roberto Galvan, among others.
She is a visiting professor at various universities and research institutes. In 2009 she participated in the TTT – Teaching The Teachers – Bucharest seminar, along Jan Ritsema, Bojana Cvejic, Jan Kopp and Jennifer Lacey. Starting the autumn of 2013, she began training in the Feldenkrais method at the Feldenkrais-Milan 8 Institute to become a practitioner of the method.
Useful information:
This module consists of 4 classes.
Enrollment tax: 200 LEI.
Enrollment tax for students: 150 LEI
Payment will be made in the first day of class.
It is possible for payments to be done in two installments: 50% in the first day of class, 50% in the 4th day of class.
Dates: November 17, 24 and December 8, 15, 2014, between 19:00 – 20:30.
Participants are required to bring along a thin mattress or a blanket.
The number of participants is limited.
Registration: contact@waspmagazine.com, with e-mail subject: SOFT INSIDEOUT Workshop Registration.
Deadline: November 14, 2014.