In this series of classes we will be researching the moving body through a couple of topics thoroughly

• our dynamic spine as a structure made of arcs and round forms
• integrating limbs and torso
• the interplay of spine, organs, limbs and floor support

I will propose a research territory that relates a dynamic spine to legs, arms, and head supporting the free flow of the spine. The organs will be the linking structure between the limbs and the spine.

Organs offer a great support for moving through their buoyant, supple quality. They fill up the torso from the top of the lungs at the first ribs to the bottom of the pelvic floor. They form a flexible and elastic environment for the spine living in front and at the sides of the vertebrae bodies. Organs change their form, becoming less or more dense, less or more wide. They allow force to pass through them.

We will be looking at biomechanical principles of the body responding to gravity using anatomical images. This will inform our imagination about specific relationships within our bodily structure. Hands-on-work and visualization will guide us into a moving experience. We will be addressing the organs supporting a soft and multidimensional torso. Emphasis will be given to a working process embodying the physical fact that any of our body structures is round, curved, and organized in spirals and arcs.

We will approach floor work through a process of moment-to-moment-rooting integrating limbs and organs. Allowing our surfaces of hands and feet to reach through the floor beyond its surface will in turn energize the organs. This may allow the spine and the head to move out into space. I consider this rooting activity as a powerful source for locomotion and spherical moving such as swinging, falling, turning, spiraling and sequencing.

Human developmental patterning from prevertebral to contralateral patterns will be our referential system for reading and organizing movement. We will be playing with proximal and peripheral initiation of movement sequencing through the volume of the organs.

Through the process of the class we will be accumulating complexity. We will take time to allow energy and force to pass through the middle area with the diaphragm and keep practicing moving all parts in relation to each other and to space without fixing positions.

Complementing the spaciousness within our bodies we will be playing with relationships to space and the other dancers in different ways.

The final part of class will guide the participants to create individual short dances and teach them to each other.

This release related series of classes fuse alignment/release aspects, Ideokinesis in the lineage of Mabel Todd, human developmental patterns and the supportive potential of organs. This work has been evolving as part of my personal synthesis of many years of dancing and teaching.

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Some reasons to get in touch with your organ world

• Organs are a major part of our very elastic inner world able to assimilate pressure and force and to pass it on
• Organs contribute vitally to our tridimensional perception of body and space
• Organs give us a sense of weight in the torso and thus support moving with momentum
• Organ perception connects us to our deep sensibility
• Organs support sensing our flow of breath
• Activating organs has the potential to activate and balance all muscle layers                                                                                                       

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Looking at the attached image of an octopus I like to use the process of kinaesthetic transfer from the softness of the organ middle to the softness of the arms and legs – playing with the image as if we had no bones in the limbs and thus being able to move them fluidly.