Facilitation
I have worked in higher education for over twenty years, delivering contemporary-dance-related subjects on BA/MA programmes in universities and conservatoires in the UK. My approach to delivering studio practice is based in movement research, encouraging a holistic approach to practise accompanied by contextual study and critical reflection. More recently, my facilitation practice has become focused around the delivery of experiential anatomy, the mover-witness framework (or ‘Authentic Movement’) and contemporary dance improvisation within professional development settings.
Current teaching engagements include workshop delivery on the MA/MFA in Creative Practice at Independent Dance/Trinity Laban (London) and on postgraduate programmes at London Contemporary Dance School. I have delivered classes/workshops for Barrowland Ballet (Glascow), Dance North (Findhorn), Mobius Dance (Leeds), Cheshire Dance, 24 Hope St (Liverpool), Exitmap (London) and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. I am a core faculty member on Janet Kaylo’s Laban/Barteneiff Somatic Studies International.
I also work with artists as a creative mentor and postgraduate supervisor. To support these advisory practices, I participated in the Creative Articulations Process (CAP) catalyst training under the supervision of Professor Jane Bacon and Professor Vida Midgelow.
Below is information about two co-delivered workshop series taking place in 2023-2024.
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Qualities of Presence
With an increasing capacity to concentrate, to listen to inner impulse, the mover learns to recognise the channel within which the creative or authentic energy flows.
– Janet Adler (1987)*
Penny Collinson and Amy Voris are offering a series of seven professional development workshops for movement/dance practitioners to support the exploration of spontaneously emerging movement and inner-witnessing skills.
The series will have an overall focus on ‘tracking’ bodily experience. The explorations will draw on somatically-informed methods from Experiential Anatomy and the mover-witness framework (also known as ‘Authentic Movement’). Each workshop will offer an investigation of a different ‘channel’ or realm of perception. The series will follow an overall progression from working with sensation, and how sensation accompanies movement, into awareness of emotion, image, and story. Each channel will be explored with some guidance/definition in relation to what it may encompass, while also supporting participants to source the style and depth of descriptive language which resonates with their own experience. Movement explorations will seek to illuminate the richness that attending to these realms (both distinctly and in conjunction with each other) can bring to our subjective and collective realities. In this sense, we understand ‘tracking’ to be a process of attending which evolves from the moment of moving into the process of shared-reflection.
Within each workshop we will shift between somatically-informed solo movement and reflection, simple hands-on (or touch) work in pairs, and group moving and witnessing explorations. Each day aims to offer movement/reflective frameworks for participants to listen into and work with their individual inquiries and needs, while acknowledging the companionship of others. We hope that the activities offered will create space for attuning to your movement, energy and imagination and for cultivating internal resources.
Who is it for?
Movement practitioners who work within teaching, therapeutic as well as creative and performative contexts.
Please note that this series is suitable for those with prior experience of in-depth somatic movement processes.
Practicalities
The workshops will take place monthly between September 2023-March 2024 in Lancaster and Cheshire, with an introductory (or ‘taster’) session on Sunday 25 June 2023. Participants are encouraged to attend the introductory workshop and can sign up for the entire series or for stand-alone sessions. See below for the dates, location and theme of each workshop:
Sunday 25 June 2023, 09.30am arrival/10.00am-5.00pm (The River Room, Halton nr. Lancaster): Introduction (or ‘taster’) to the series which will weave principles underpinning the methods of moving and witnessing, touch and tracking our perception
Saturday 23 September 2023, 12.30pm arrival/1.00pm-7.00pm (The River Room, Halton nr. Lancaster): Proprioception and orientation – tracking movement
Saturday 28 October 2023, 09.30am arrival/10.00-5.00pm (Winsford Library, Cheshire):
Tracking sensation – the sensory organ of the skin and the special senses
Saturday 18 November 2023, 12.30pm arrival/1.00pm-7.00pm (The River Room, Halton nr. Lancaster): Tracking interoception and emotion – the presence and movement of mood and feeling
Saturday 6 January 2024, 09.30am arrival/10.00am-5.00pm (Winsford Library, Cheshire):
Tracking the emergence of image – the presence (and movement) of metaphor
Saturday 10 February 2024, 12.30pm arrival/1.00pm-7.00pm (The River Room, Halton nr. Lancaster): Story – the presence of personal and collective narratives
Saturday 9 March 2024, 09.30am arrival/10.00am-5.30pm (Winsford Library, Cheshire):
Qualities of presence revisited – a recap of the series
Locations
The River Room, Halton Mill, Mill Lane, Halton (near Lancaster) LA2 6ND
OR
Winsford Library, High Street, Winsford, Cheshire CW7 2AS
Payment
Full series cost: £385.00 waged / £315.00 unwaged
(payment in instalments is possible – contact the organisers to arrange)
Cost per workshop: £55.00 waged / £45.00 unwaged
For ENQUIRIES/BOOKING contact: info@amyvoris.com
Penny Collinson has worked in dance and somatic practices for thirty years. She lives in Morecambe, Lancashire where she teaches somatic-informed movement in the community, and also one-to-one therapy sessions. She is a registered Somatic Movement Educator & Therapist with the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA), and offers professional supervision, mentorship and consultancy to independent practitioners and organisations.
*Adler, J. (1987/1999) ‘Who is the Witness? A Description of Authentic Movement’. In Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. Edited by Pallaro, P. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 141-159
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Reflect, Re-align and Reframe: An online workshop-series with Natalie Garrett Brown and Amy Voris
Cycle 2 of Reflect, Re-align and Reframe will run between October 2023-July 2024 (dates below). The aim is to create space for artists, therapists and educators who are at a crossroads of their professional practice to reflect upon, re-align and reframe their work and career pathway from an embodied and creative perspective. Participants will be invited to move and reflect on their current work, drawing on somatic stimuli to do with orientation, alignment and transitions to generate reflections and insights. The workshops will involve some guided activities, as well as time for individual processing and sharing in small groups. Participants will have the option to engage with one-to-one coaching with Natalie and/or somatic movement sessions with Natalie or Amy.
The cost of this programme will be £150 (waged) or £100 (unwaged). There are two places offered at no cost for those experiencing financial hardship. Recordings of each session will be available for any sessions missed.
Saturday 21 October 2023 (12.00-4.00pm BST)
Saturday 2 December 2023 (12.00-4.00pm BST)
Saturday 3 February 2024 (12.00-4.00pm BST)
Saturday 23 March 2024 (12.00-4.00pm BST)
Saturday 11 May 2024 (12.00-4.00pm BST)
Saturday 6 July 2024 (12.00-4.00pm BST)
Please note that no prior experience of coaching practices is required to join this series, but some experience with your own in-depth processes as a mover is advantageous.
For ENQUIRIES/BOOKING contact: info@amyvoris.com
Natalie Garrett Brown is a dance practitioner, teacher, researcher and leader in higher education. She undertook her dance training and education at Trinity Laban and London Contemporary Dance School completing her doctoral studies at Roehampton University. She is also a trained executive Coach and Somatic Movement Educator. She is Dean of School for Arts and Creative Industries at London South Bank University. https://www.facebook.com/GarrettBrownCoachingandFacilitation/