The fundamental of my work is to counter the isolating and deadening effects of hyper techno-scientific politics and culture, which sees life and reality in non-animate and objectifying terms. This constructed world view, which arose in the West in the scientific and industrial revolutions, is recognized as the driving force behind the devastation of our social and ecological worlds.

I work with the deep, underlying experiences of being human that organize natural meaning and relationship. This work amplifies the fundamental of the body, feeling, and imaginative intelligences as original, and as necessary counters to the social and ecological devastation of out times. These intelligences are pre-human and non-verbal; they speak the common language of the world.

It is the body, feeling, and imaginative intelligences that are embodied in authentic art making, which has been shown, evolutionarily, to be a selected human behavior. We humans have been making art since Paleolithic times. This was a natural art making marked by playful, improvisational exploration. It is in this spirit that I work thru the arts—aesthetic intelligence—to deepen our experience of being human in an animate, vastly intelligent world.

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MOVEMENT/ARTS FOUNDATION FOR LEARNING, DEVELOPMENT, AND CURRICULUM
For Pre-School thru Elementary Teachers

This course looks at historic aspects of progressive education in relation to natural and creative learning processes. It focuses on the neuro-developmental foundations for movement, learning and art-making, as precursor to writing and reading and other abstract literacies and subject matter. Child development and relationship with Nature is explored along with place-based and project-based curriculum. Hands-on practice with Arts with Literacy Integration® is context for participation in creative teaching, which is at the root of creative learning and education. This is a 3-credit course. ©2014

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MOVEMENT, DEEP HUMAN MEANING-MAKING, AESTHETICS, AND THE NATURAL WORLD
For Educators, Child Developmentalists, Eco-Therapists, Creative-Arts Therapist, Dancers, Artists, Musicians

This is an interdisciplinary course that explores an understanding of the role of movement and sound in evolution, child development, languaging, art-making, and human relationship with Nature. Our first perception to develop in utero is movement/sound: movement is sound and sound is movement. This gestural qualitative foundation of the human psychobiology of meaning-making is basis for explorations in non-verbal communication, aesthetic intelligence, creative process, the art of movement improvisation, and related learning and educational issues/curriculum. The course includes readings, lecture/discussion, hands-on practice in movement/dance communication, and excursions into and being with Nature as basis for the creation of a final informal dance piece, and individual project/paper. This is a 3-credit course. ©2015

 

WORKSHOPS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LANGUAGES OF NATURE LANGUAGES OF ART®
For Educators, Dancers, Musicians, Artists, Creative Arts and Eco-Therapists, Ecologists

Languages of Nature Languages of Art ® explores an understanding of the role of movement and sound in evolution, human development, languaging, art-making, and human relationship–kinship–with Nature. Our first perception to develop in utero is movement/sound: movement is sound and sound is movement. This gestural qualitative foundation of the human psychobiology of meaning-making is basis for explorations in non-verbal communication, aesthetic intelligence, creative process, and the art of movement improvisation. We explore these avenues of understanding though movement/dance experience and excursions into and being with Nature as basis for the creation of a final informal group dance piece with participating musicians. The time frame for this workshop is adaptable.  ©2010

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NATURE*MOVEMENT* LANGUAGE*DANCE IMPROVISATION*NATURE
For Educators, Dancers, Musicians, Artists, Creative-Arts and Eco-Therapists, Ecologists, Ecotheologians

This workshop provides vision into the profound and primary part that movement plays in human evolution and development. It includes experiential movement ‘exercises’ that lead participants through raw experiences of movement-sensing-perception, emotion-feeling-evaluation, and image-imagining-art. These three processes are referred to as the kinesthetic, empathic, and aesthetic ways of knowing and communicating.

The non-verbal nature of the kinesthetic-empathic-aesthetic intelligences is explored leading to the experience of the fundamentals of sound-language-communication. These experiential processes are connected directly to facets of human art-making, evolutionarily and developmentally.

Amplified and underlying this teaching/learning is the fundamental role that human relationship with Nature plays in these life processes.

My goal is to bring participants though these pathways to an in-depth appreciation and awe of these most elemental and pervasive underpinning of everyday life. I expect that participants will walk away with a deeper identification and appreciation for our human place in Nature and for the spiritual depth of consciousness imbued in the biological processes of movement, feeling-emotion and art-making. This workshop has a 1-7 day adaptable time frame. ©2013

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FLEET MOVEMENT EXPLORATIONS: EXPERIMENTAL DANCE WORKSHOP
For All Levels

Fleet Movement Explorations is a structured improvisational dance class. We start with warm-ups based in internal body awareness, such as developmental movement patterns or somatic explorations, often integrated with thematic material. Embodiment is evoked through sensing movement articulation, initiation, and alignment in space-weight-time, and the three dimensions.

Warm-up experiences are used as creative material for structuring dance scores. Each dancer becomes an artistic director of their score, danced by the whole group.

Weather permitting we hold class outside, working with the language immediacy of the Natural World.

We play spontaneously with forces, shapes, feelings, images, and ideas rather than specific dance technique. The class is basically informal, challenging, and fun, and a good movement workout. I teach this as a single or as a series of workshops. ©2012

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INTEGRATIVE MOVEMENT FOR
BODY & SELF AWARENESS, INTERACTIVE IMPROVISATION AND JUST PLAIN DANCING
For All Abilities/Parkinson’s

In this workshop we begin with movement for therapeutic body awareness, alignment, and core body support. Continuing we learn some primary rhythmic movements for organizing and soothing the brain and body, and movement sequences that support the repatterning of negative body feeling and emotions into positive intentions.

From this base we explore moment as a non-verbal language through our relationship with Nature. This understanding is extended to movement games and interactive improvisation with one another. Lastly we just plain dance to the sounds of good music.

The movement approach is designed to accommodate differing abilities and to open awareness to the many facets of the power of movement to awaken, transform and enliven. This is a 4 session program. ©2009

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GRAVITY, FEELINGS, IMAGINATION: MOVEMENT AND ART BASED LEARNING
For Pre-School & Elementary Teachers

This is a daylong workshop covering the evolutionary and developmental neurophysiology of the non-verbal intelligences supporting learning.
Morning Session/Theory and Practice: From theoretical underpinnings we explore the fundamentals of arts based learning though the non-verbal languages of movement and art. These learnings we apply to our afternoon projects.
Afternoon Session/Projects: Bring a folktale, story, book or curriculum idea to be translated into a movement and arts based project for Arts with Literacy Integration®. As a group we will explore the structuring and application of each participant’s project.
Participants are expected to gain insight into:
*the underlying non-verbal processes in development and learning
*the fundamental role that art/aesthetic intelligence plays in development
*a creative process of teaching for building curriculum that results in engaging students in a creative process of learning
*a hands-on prototype for creative and movement/arts based curriculum building
©2015

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THE MOVEMENT ORIGINS OF COMMUNICATION, IMAGINATION, ART AND LEARNING
For Middle & High School Teachers

This is a daylong workshop exploring the implicit and explicit of everyday human interactions through the psychobiology of movement and its relation to human expression, development and learning with associations for SPED applications.
Morning Session/From Movement to Art: We explore a movement initiated continuum from sensing to feeling to image to artistic expression—visual expression through simple painting, and then spoken word in poetic form. We play with the movement/sound duet in expressive/gestural language and the cross-modal nature of artistic process. We discuss this experience in context of early human language and art making.
Afternoon Session/Developmental Theory and Academic Learning: We look at the morning session’s experience in the context of current theory of movement, communication, and art in human development from utero to 21 years. We consider academic learning within this developmental context and movement/arts based educational approaches for SPED applications.
Participants are expected to:
*experience and gain insight into the movement basis for human intelligence and development
*experience and gain insight into the non-verbal processes supporting academic learning
*gain insight applicable to everyday interaction with students
*gain insight applicable to planning curriculum
©2015

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Photo Credit: Rebecca R Burrill, Jenny Burrill, Fleet Moves Respectively