Workshops: Dance Without Walls (the nia love underground)

Dance Without Walls (the nia love underground)

co-facilitators:

Nia Love, Jesse Phillips-Fein and Benin Ford

Nia Love
(photo: Nia Love)

Gestures are atoms that make up the sheets of our memory...tissue that travel with us from light years away...traveling on our trajectory biding us both greetings and farewells! 

-- Nia Love

Jesse Phillips-Fein
(photo: Jeca Rodriguez)

Benin Ford
(photo: Nia Love)

This movement-based, multimedia living art workshop creates space where “we the people” can study ways to perform meaningfully, powerfully and truthfully through improvisations at the intersections of dance, nature, and urban structures. With movement, discourse, journaling, drawing, and building small ecological sculptures, we manifest new ideas about about ourselves from which communal and global solidarity can radiate. This work is built on foundation of deep support and trust; we help each other to fertilize our thoughts clearly and to use our bodies as both a landscape and a tool that excavates our power as a people, activates our well-being, and engenders collectivism. Our aim is to create malleable networks that bond and aid us in on-going practices of liberating and reclaiming what lies dormant in our mind-bodies. 

Friday July 17, 6-9pm

Saturday, July 18, 10am-1pm

Sunday July 19, 10am-1pm

$50/1 day

$95/2 days 

$135/3 days

Sliding scale for parents available

Sign up a friend and receive a 25% discount!

We are especially interested in “non-dancers.”

Multiple outdoor locations throughout New York City:

Day 1: River Bank State Park, 145th and Riverside (Manhattan)

Day 2: 98 4th Street between Hoyt and Bond (Brooklyn)

Day 3: Ball Field at 214 Street (The Bronx)

To register, email: undergroundstudiesnyc@gmail.com

Note: the underground is a seasonal event.
there will be a Fall Edition, dates TBD.

Candace Pert, 67

Candace Pert, 67, Explorer of the Brain, Dies
by John Schwartz, The New York Times, September 19, 2013

Wicca as somatic healing with dance artist iele paloumpis

New York Live Arts

presents

Shared Practice 

with 

iele paloumpis

Witchcraft – A Corporeal Practice

March 16 (1:30-3:30pm)

Third Floor Studios 

In Shared Practice workshops, Live Arts season artists share the physical and creative practices behind their work. Each process-focused session provides participants an opportunity to recharge their own artistry by experiencing different approaches to making and moving with similarly-motivated professionals. All classes are held on Saturdays throughout the season at New York Live Arts.

Witchcraft -- A Corporeal Practice

Over the past several months, changes in my health and body have shifted the ways I approach dance and daily life. Without concrete answers from doctors and various bodyworkers, I’ve been looking to Wiccan ritual as a somatic practice of integration, acceptance and healing. I’ve also been thinking a lot about how all bodies - whether elderly, disabled, or otherwise "different" - can enter into dance. For this Shared Practice, we will look to magical herbs, astrology and the lunar calendar, as well as our own unique and defiant bodies, to generate restorative movement. Come with an awareness of something you might like to shed, heal and/or embrace.

--iele paloumpis 

$15/class. Class size is limited. Advance purchase is recommended to guarantee a spot. Click here.

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Jones and Sacks have big ideas for New York Live Arts

New York Live Arts Introduces Arts and Ideas Festival
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Live Arts, January 31, 2013

Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Gibney Dance takes action

Gibney Dance to lead community action

for Domestic Violence Awareness Month 

All through October, Gibney Dance will host events designed to provide information and increase awareness around the issue of domestic violence. These events, held at Gibney Dance Center will be free and open to the public. This initiative includes:

-- "I Am Against Violence" photo campaign, in which members of the public can volunteer to be featured.

--  Community Action (CA), a first-of-its-kind program centered on dancer-led workshops using the power of movement and creativity to empower domestic violence survivors living in shelters in New York City and beyond.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month is a time not only to recognize the significant efforts that have been made to reduce domestic violence but also to recommit ourselves to serving the critical needs of survivors and their families. Through our Community Action work, we have learned that there is a powerful synergy between domestic violence and dance that helps survivors take their whole self forward—both body and mind. We look forward to sharing with the broader community the knowledge and expertise we have gained through 12 years of work around the issue of domestic violence.

--Gina Gibney, Artistic and Executive Director of Gibney Dance

--  a discussion with Beth Silverman-Yam, Clinical Director of Sanctuary for Families

--  free yoga classes

--  coaching opportunities on work/life balance

--  a CA Open Studio featuring Gibney Dance Company

All activities will take place at Gibney Dance Center, 890 Broadway, Fifth Floor.

Participants can register for and learn more about October’s events by emailing community@gibneydance.org.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month Schedule of Events

Domestic Violence Informational Session
Wednesday, October 3, 2:30–3:30pm (Studio 3)

Dr. Beth Silverman-Yam, Clinical Director of Sanctuary for Families, will lead a discussion on domestic violence and healthy versus unhealthy relationships.


Community Action Open Studio
Wednesday, October 10, 6:30–8:30pm (Studio 5–2)

Artistic and Executive Director Gina Gibney presents an overview of the Community Action model while the Company demonstrates workshop content and performs an excerpt from its repertory.


Body and Wellness Week
October 15–19, 8-10am (Studio 2)

A week of free wellness events

    Monday/Wednesday: Mind Body Dancer
    Led by Liz Montgomery

    90-minute Yoga class followed by 30 minutes of optional guided meditation


    Tuesday/Thursday: Tools for Managing Stress
    Led by Jennifer Edwards, jened.com

    The coaching sessions will guide participants through practical approaches to (1) creating a holistic model for how to manage life, work and their personal brands; and (2) using tools for sleeping better, reducing anxiety and managing stress symptoms.


    Friday: Chi Kung/Qi Gong
    Led by Laura Shapiro

    Chi Kung/Qi Gong is often translated as “life force energy practice.” With roots in Chinese medicine, martial arts, and philosophy, its gentle movements over time restore balance and harmony to body, mind, and spirit.


“I am Against Violence” Campaign Open Photo Shoot
Tuesday, October 23, 12:00 – 4:00 pm / Studio 5

Members of the public are invited to join the Gibney Dance community in taking a stand against domestic violence by having their photos taken for our online and Center-wide advocacy campaign.

Keely Garfield's he(art)

The He(art) of Healing with Keely Garfield

A workshop for everyone!

Saturday, March 27 (2:30pm to 4:30pm)

Laughing Lotus Yoga Center
59 West 19th Street, 3rd Floor, at 6th Avenue, Manhattan

Fee: $20

Join Keely Garfield for a transformative afternoon! As an integrative therapist and yoga instructor, Keely will take you through an exploration in ways to enhance your optimal wellbeing and become empowered with the knowledge and confidence to improve your life through therapeutic yoga, breath awareness, meditation, reiki and essential oils.

"The land of healing lies within, radiant with the happiness that is blindly sought in a thousand outer directions." Swami Vivekananda

Contact Laughing Lotus

Dancing on the Ceiling: Music and the Brain

THE PHILOCTETES CENTER
FOR THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF IMAGINATION
at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute
(EDWARD NERSESSIAN AND FRANCIS LEVY, DIRECTORS)

invites you to a Roundtable
Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 2:30pm
at
The Philoctetes Center
247 East 82nd Street
(Phone: 646-422-0544; email: info@philoctetes.org)

Dancing on the Ceiling:
Music and the Brain

"Music is among the defining features of human culture, playing a central role in every society known to Western scholars. However, from the standpoint of evolution, music is also one of the most mysterious of human behaviors, as it serves no obvious function that might have driven its evolution." -Josh McDermott, M. Hauser

Advances in neuroscientific techniques, such as fMRI, have enabled researchers to better understand the parts of the brain that are involved in thought processes, in particular those related to the emotions released by creative and esthetic acitivities. This roundtable will explore music in relation to brain function in an effort to understand the evolution of music and its possible role as a precursor to language. The panel will address a number of related questions: how music communicates feeling and why the emotions it generates make us feel so good; why we like some music and not other music; why some music is inextricably connected to physical body movement; how music can induce meditative states of consciousness; what relationships exist between the perception of music and language in the mind; and what musicians can tell us about their state of mind when they perform, compose, or improvise. Five professionals from different disciplines—a neuroscientist, a psychoanalyst, an Arabic musician and scholar, a sound engineer, and a jazz saxophonist/composer—come together to talk about these questions and more.

Jim Anderson is an internationally recognized recording engineer and producer of acoustic music for the recording, radio, television, and film industries. His recordings have received nine Grammy awards and 25 Grammy nominations. His radio recordings have received two George Foster Peabody Awards and he has received two Emmy nominations for television programs. A graduate of the Duquesne University School of Music in Pittsburgh PA, Jim studied audio engineering at the Eastman School of Music and Sender Freies Berlin. In the 1970s, he was employed by National Public Radio and engineered and produced many award-winning classical, jazz, documentary, and news programs. Since 1980 Jim has had a career as an independent audio engineer and producer. He has been a lecturer and master-class guest faculty member at the Berklee College of Music, The New England Institute of Art, McGill University, The Banff Centre, Universite de Kunst in Berlin, University of Luleå in Sweden, the New School University, University of Georgia, and Penn State University. He is a professor and former chair of the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He is the President of the Audio Engineering Society, 2008-2009.

Taoufiq Ben Amor was born in Tunis to a Sufi Family of the Qadiri order. With a musician father, he learned percussion and singing at a young age. Two decades ago, he started learning the Oud and the Arabic Maqam system with Mohammed Labbad, Jamal Aslan, Simon Shaheen and the Rashidiyya School of Andalusian music. He is an active music performer, educator and producer. Taoufiq Ben Amor is currently Senior lecturer in Arabic Studies at Columbia University. Some of his topics of research include, "Beur Rap in Paris: Language and Identity among young French-Maghrebian musicians;" "The Making of Tradition: Standardization of the Lyrics of the Tunisian Andalusian Malouf;" "The Politics of Language: Formalization of the Iraqi Maqam 1960-Present;" "Code-switching in Rai Music;" "Turning Point: Tarab as a Doorway to the Sufi Experience of the Divine;" and “Standardization and Colloquialization in Andalusian and Maghrebian Music Genres.”

Jane Ira Bloom is a soprano saxophonist, composer, and a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz. She is the winner of the 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition, the 2007 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award for lifetime service to jazz, the Jazz Journalists Association Award and the Downbeat International Critics Poll for soprano saxophone, and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for jazz innovation. Bloom was the first musician commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union. She has received numerous commissions and has composed for the American Composers Orchestra, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, the Pilobolus Dance Theater integrating jazz performers in new settings. She has recorded and produced 13 albums of her music and holds degrees from Yale University and the Yale School of Music. Bloom is currently on the faculty of the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC. Her latest release is the award-winning CD, Mental Weather.

Josh McDermott recently joined the Center for Neural Science at NYU as a postdoctoral researcher. He studies sound and hearing, conducting experiments on humans and designing computational audio algorithms. He has longstanding research interests in music perception and cognition. Earlier in life he spent his free time DJing in clubs and on the radio, and to this day remains an avid collector of vinyl records. His scientific interests in music focus on understanding how musical structures are represented in the auditory system, and on what this can reveal about the origins of music.

Alexander Stein conducts a polymodal career as psychoanalyst, business consultant, author, journalist, teacher, and scholar. He is a member, training analyst, and supervisor of NPAP, and maintains clinical and business consulting practices in New York. A Principal of the Boswell Group LLC, a psychoanalytic consulting partnership, he advises business leaders and entrepreneurs. He also writes a monthly column for Fortune Small Business on the psychological dimensions of business and entrepreneurship. Drawing on his pre-psychoanalytic life as a conservatory-trained pianist, Stein writes and lectures extensively on the conjoined study of music and psychoanalysis. He is the author of numerous scholarly works that have been published in many of the leading peer-reviewed psychoanalytic journals, and is the author, most recently, of The Sound of Memory, which explores the formative influences of the early sound environment on psychological development. He recently delivered the Aaron Esman/Richardson History of Psychiatry Research Seminar Lecture on Music at Weill Cornell Medical College, and is organizing a weekend conference entitled “Singing (and Writing) with Tongues of Wood” for New Directions in Psychoanalytic Thinking in Washington DC.

______________________

Events at Philoctetes are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first come basis.

The Center would like to thank you again for your generous response to our appeal for support as we negotiate our future in light of the disappearance of our operating funds—the result of the mismanagement of assets by Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC. For more information about how you can help to sponsor the Philoctetes Center, please visit our Support page.

The mission of the Philoctetes Center is to foster the study of imagination — funding research, organizing roundtable discussions, offering courses and programs open to the public. The Center publishes a newsletter, Dialog, and is developing a web-based clearing house on work related to imagination. The Center also publishes a journal, Philoctetes. Visit www.philoctetes.org for more information.