Movement as a Metaphor in Life and Art

Everything I have experienced in my life, I take into my art. —Anna Halprin 

What if everything you’ve experienced in your life could be danced? What if an image drawn carried a message for healing? What if a dance inspired a drawing that sparks words for a poem and the poem transforms a difficult story that needs to be told into beauty?

Grounded in the Halprin Life Art Process™, this workshop’s approach enlivens dialogues between body and imagination, life experience and art making, and creativity and healing. With creative explorations of the expressive arts — movement, drawing, and poetic writing — participants will be guided in creative encounters with the symbolic and metaphoric life of the body.  

Each day begins with somatic awareness and movement to awaken and attune the physical body. From there, you’ll navigate your personal material through a model that interweaves movement/dance, visual art, poetic narrative, performative ritual, and witnessing.

Together, we’ll work with Body Part Mapping and the Self Portrait Process: visual and narrative maps to lead us into the themes, memories, and dreams that inform our lives. Individual and collective life narratives will provide material to generate encounters and inspire embodied models for change.

 Participants can expect to explore:

• Models of a practice to facilitate embodied art-making for individuals and groups.
• Examples of movement and art making as a healing force.
• A communication tool that supports giving and receiving feedback.

 Please make sure to bring a writer’s journal and a box of varied and well-supplied Craypas pastels.

Somatic warm-ups will be guided by guest faculty Natan Dascal, with live music provided throughout the workshop by guest musician Miles Lassi.

Recommended reading: The Expressive Body in Life, Art & Therapy by Daria Halprin