Tag Archives: play

Mar7

diving deeper

Posted on by

I want to offer a bit more information about my eBook.

I developed Breaking into Blossom:  Moving into an Improvisational Life as an online class because I wanted to offer some fresh ideas on how to close that gap from my perspective as an improvisational movement artist.  It  is designed to inspire you to become more daring, more visionary, more playful and improvisational in all aspects of your life.

I am now offering the materials that I developed for that class in an eBook that contains ten carefully designed chapters integrating photographs, writing and movement prompts, guest artists and specific strategies to help you find a deeper creative engagement.  Here is what you will find:

  • Change:  Developing a vocabulary for making change from subtle to dramatic.
  • Underscore:  How to develop an intentional underscore for your day or for a project.
  • Segments:  How subtle shifts in activity and attention throughout the day can create greater focus and engagement.
  • Play: From meandering to galumphing, how to foster a playful attitude and practice, including specific strategies for play-making.
  • Practice:  Discovering your meta-practice and how it can support your work and goals.
  • Moving and Listening:  Delicious strategies for engaging the senses and the body.
  • Movement and Stillness:  The power of attention and recuperation.  How to develop a movement/stillness score in your work and play.
  • Letting Go:  Learning how to drop it (even if you are going to pick it up again).
  • Flow:  Observing and harnessing the interplay of improvisation and flow.  How to cultivate a consummate creative state.

The book is available at the end of this month.  You will receive the book as a pdf.

The cost is $15.  You can pre-order it here.

For those of you who are interested, I am also offering one-to-one creative jump-start sessions.  To learn more,  form.

SHARE & EMAIL
Jan31

play

Posted on by

Photo:  Pam White

I have been thinking and reading about a lot about play for the past few weeks.   As I write about it, I am aware of how diminished my own sense of play can become if I m not actively seeking and feeding it.  How the day can become turgid and dim if I don’t look for a genuine rhythm of exertion and recuperation.

Here are some conscious playful recuperations:

  • bouncing:  I have a mini trampoline in my study, so standing up once every 30 minutes to bounce for 3 minutes is a great way to move fluids, feel the dance between gravity and levity and change my p.o.v.
  • getting down:  I also have up to three dogs in my study.  Getting up from the desk and getting down on the floor with the dogs is also refreshing.  Another change of level and p.o.v.
  • Getting out:  step outside with or without dogs.  Look around, breathe, stretch your arms up and take in the sky.
  • Listen:  Stand up, close your eye  and listen. What is the softest sound you hear?  What is the sweetest sound you hear?   I highly recommend Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice by Pauline Oliveros as a way of cultivating a listening practice.
  • random moving:  take some time during the day to lie down in an open space (does not have to be large) and let your body move.  Don’t exercise or stretch.  Just get quiet and see what impulses for movement might be there.  Let your body move in any way for 5 minutes.  No judgement, no interpretation, no  thinking.  Just feeling, moving.

How do you recuperate?