Bay Area Axis Syllabus Exchange 2020
JUNE 22-28 @ Berkeley, CA
FEATURING
Kevin O’Connor, Belinda He, Daniel Davis, Kristen Greco and Phoenicia Pettyjohn.
Performance Night - June 26, 7-9pm
@ The Finnish Hall, 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley, CA 94702
Francesca Pedulla
Class Descriptions and Teacher Bio's
Dancing Between: Engaging with Fascial Worlds
Led By: Belinda He, Kevin O'Connor
This workshop will move between emerging science studies on fascia, Feldenkrais and the Axis Syllabus practices to explore the ways movement and imagery intersect in diverse and dynamic ways, shaping how bodies move and what they can do. We all have metaphors that we live and move with. This apparent stability of a metaphor or concept is an effect of the bubble we live in and a normalizing world. It can be thought of as “history turned into nature” so that a metaphoric landscape that emerges from a training become sensible, reasonable or thought of as natural. In this class we ask, how might exploring new images, felt sense, and metaphors allow us to dance along the edge of our habits into hesitations, playing with new ways of moving and being moved. What might dancing with metaphors in relation to new science studies on fascia do? What kind of felt sense might emerge in the practice? How might we play with the ability to respond and commit to multiple future vectors without knowing?
Belinda He is a dance artist and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner who received her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. She incorporates her studies of the Feldenkrais Method® and certain aspects of functional anatomy and biomechanics into an ever-evolving personal physical practice in order to synthesize her physical, intellectual and creative energies. Since relocating to the Bay Area from New York City, where she was on faculty at the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, she maintains a private Feldenkrais practice in San Francisco, where she works with humans of all stripes. In addition to her teaching practices, Belinda is in the process of developing a solo work and is also a member of Hope Mohr Dance. www.belindahe.com
Kevin O’Connor is a multidisciplinary artist working as a choreographer, dancer, improviser, circus artist and installation artist from Ontario, Canada and now based in the Bay area. He is involved in a decade-long artistic collective exploring participatory de-colonizing performances within polluted watersheds in Ontario. Over the last few years, he has worked with NAKA dance in Oakland, Shakiri and Skywatchers in the Bay Area, Oncogrrrls feminist art collective in Spain, and collaborated with Inuit hunter and designer Paulette Metuq on a project in Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. He has been learning with the Axis Syllabus community for over a decade and is a biodynamic Craniosacral practitioner. He completed an MFA in choreography and is currently finishing a Ph.D. in performance studies at UC Davis. He is working at the intersection of arts, sciences, practice-as-research and improvisation theory and practice. His research examines anatomies, body performance capacities, interventions and imaginations in relation to science studies, including the material-bio-cultural tissue called fascia.
Learning Curves: AS and the Autonomic Nervous System
Led By: Daniel Bear Davis, Kristen Greco
How do we create coherence as we learn? What happens in the nervous system when we dance? There is a wealth of information in the Axis Syllabus (AS) learning community that aligns with current research about supporting resilience and choice in the autonomic nervous system (ANS). There is also vast unarticulated terrain around how autonomic reflexes and patterns shape our physical learning and movement integration. In this workshop we will explore how understandings from Polyvagal theory and other current ANS research play into our movement practice. What is our animal body doing when we’re doing what we’re doing? How do fight, flight, and freeze responses support and impede our musculo-skeletal coordination? How can we increase our capacity to feel safe and curious in unknown physical experiences? We’ll explore the terrain from orientation to disorientation and back again, expanding our range and deepening our capacity as we go.
We’ll enter through explorations of overcurves & undercurves, intrinsic & global muscles, myofascial holding patterns and tone - cycling through periods of activity and periods of self reflection, integration, and rest.
Daniel Bear Davis (MFA) is an interdisciplinary performance maker, movement educator, and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner dedicated to support humans to step into greater aliveness and resilience so we can more fully inhabit the details of our lived experience. He has taught Axis Syllabus, Contact Improvisation, Composition, and Acrobatic Stilts in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and throughout North America. Daniel was certified as an Axis Syllabus teacher in 2013.
Daniel has brought understandings from Somatic Experiencing® into consistent dialogue with his performance work. He worked with veterans and non-veterans in collaboration with Krista DeNio and EchoTheaterSuitcase project, and with men and women in jails and prisons creating performance work based in their unique experiences. His evening-length work, On Contentious Grounds, explored intersections between the experiences of students at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the experiences of oppression expressed in interviews he conducted with Palestinians in the West Bank. danielbeardavis.com
Kristen Greco’s artistic and somatic work centers around unwinding the impact of personal and collective trauma, orienting towards a felt sense of embodiment, choice, and aliveness. Kristen teaches at the Luminous Awareness Institute integrating her experiential research in neurophysiology, somatics, and trauma resolution into the curriculum. She is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner ® & Advanced Luminous Practitioner, both practices which bring us into contact with the unique aspects of our true nature. She has a background in OrthoBionomy ®, CranioSacral Therapy, and Neuromuscular Reprogramming. Kristen has worked extensively as a director and touring performing artist teaching contact improvisation, physical theater, acrobatic stiltwork, and somatics. She has been deeply engaged with the Axis Syllabus learning community for the last decade. In partnership with Daniel Bear Davis, she researched applications of AS Docking Zones to acrobatic stilts. As an interdisciplinary artist Kristen has performed with The Carpetbag Brigade, Avy K Productions, Sara Shelton Mann, and Syzygy Butoh among others, and loves creating work in both urban and rural spaces. Her private practice is based in Oakland, CA.
Phoenicia Pettyjohn's class description and bio forthcoming...
Led By: Belinda He, Kevin O'Connor
This workshop will move between emerging science studies on fascia, Feldenkrais and the Axis Syllabus practices to explore the ways movement and imagery intersect in diverse and dynamic ways, shaping how bodies move and what they can do. We all have metaphors that we live and move with. This apparent stability of a metaphor or concept is an effect of the bubble we live in and a normalizing world. It can be thought of as “history turned into nature” so that a metaphoric landscape that emerges from a training become sensible, reasonable or thought of as natural. In this class we ask, how might exploring new images, felt sense, and metaphors allow us to dance along the edge of our habits into hesitations, playing with new ways of moving and being moved. What might dancing with metaphors in relation to new science studies on fascia do? What kind of felt sense might emerge in the practice? How might we play with the ability to respond and commit to multiple future vectors without knowing?
Belinda He is a dance artist and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner who received her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. She incorporates her studies of the Feldenkrais Method® and certain aspects of functional anatomy and biomechanics into an ever-evolving personal physical practice in order to synthesize her physical, intellectual and creative energies. Since relocating to the Bay Area from New York City, where she was on faculty at the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, she maintains a private Feldenkrais practice in San Francisco, where she works with humans of all stripes. In addition to her teaching practices, Belinda is in the process of developing a solo work and is also a member of Hope Mohr Dance. www.belindahe.com
Kevin O’Connor is a multidisciplinary artist working as a choreographer, dancer, improviser, circus artist and installation artist from Ontario, Canada and now based in the Bay area. He is involved in a decade-long artistic collective exploring participatory de-colonizing performances within polluted watersheds in Ontario. Over the last few years, he has worked with NAKA dance in Oakland, Shakiri and Skywatchers in the Bay Area, Oncogrrrls feminist art collective in Spain, and collaborated with Inuit hunter and designer Paulette Metuq on a project in Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. He has been learning with the Axis Syllabus community for over a decade and is a biodynamic Craniosacral practitioner. He completed an MFA in choreography and is currently finishing a Ph.D. in performance studies at UC Davis. He is working at the intersection of arts, sciences, practice-as-research and improvisation theory and practice. His research examines anatomies, body performance capacities, interventions and imaginations in relation to science studies, including the material-bio-cultural tissue called fascia.
Learning Curves: AS and the Autonomic Nervous System
Led By: Daniel Bear Davis, Kristen Greco
How do we create coherence as we learn? What happens in the nervous system when we dance? There is a wealth of information in the Axis Syllabus (AS) learning community that aligns with current research about supporting resilience and choice in the autonomic nervous system (ANS). There is also vast unarticulated terrain around how autonomic reflexes and patterns shape our physical learning and movement integration. In this workshop we will explore how understandings from Polyvagal theory and other current ANS research play into our movement practice. What is our animal body doing when we’re doing what we’re doing? How do fight, flight, and freeze responses support and impede our musculo-skeletal coordination? How can we increase our capacity to feel safe and curious in unknown physical experiences? We’ll explore the terrain from orientation to disorientation and back again, expanding our range and deepening our capacity as we go.
We’ll enter through explorations of overcurves & undercurves, intrinsic & global muscles, myofascial holding patterns and tone - cycling through periods of activity and periods of self reflection, integration, and rest.
Daniel Bear Davis (MFA) is an interdisciplinary performance maker, movement educator, and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner dedicated to support humans to step into greater aliveness and resilience so we can more fully inhabit the details of our lived experience. He has taught Axis Syllabus, Contact Improvisation, Composition, and Acrobatic Stilts in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and throughout North America. Daniel was certified as an Axis Syllabus teacher in 2013.
Daniel has brought understandings from Somatic Experiencing® into consistent dialogue with his performance work. He worked with veterans and non-veterans in collaboration with Krista DeNio and EchoTheaterSuitcase project, and with men and women in jails and prisons creating performance work based in their unique experiences. His evening-length work, On Contentious Grounds, explored intersections between the experiences of students at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the experiences of oppression expressed in interviews he conducted with Palestinians in the West Bank. danielbeardavis.com
Kristen Greco’s artistic and somatic work centers around unwinding the impact of personal and collective trauma, orienting towards a felt sense of embodiment, choice, and aliveness. Kristen teaches at the Luminous Awareness Institute integrating her experiential research in neurophysiology, somatics, and trauma resolution into the curriculum. She is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner ® & Advanced Luminous Practitioner, both practices which bring us into contact with the unique aspects of our true nature. She has a background in OrthoBionomy ®, CranioSacral Therapy, and Neuromuscular Reprogramming. Kristen has worked extensively as a director and touring performing artist teaching contact improvisation, physical theater, acrobatic stiltwork, and somatics. She has been deeply engaged with the Axis Syllabus learning community for the last decade. In partnership with Daniel Bear Davis, she researched applications of AS Docking Zones to acrobatic stilts. As an interdisciplinary artist Kristen has performed with The Carpetbag Brigade, Avy K Productions, Sara Shelton Mann, and Syzygy Butoh among others, and loves creating work in both urban and rural spaces. Her private practice is based in Oakland, CA.
Phoenicia Pettyjohn's class description and bio forthcoming...
Belinda He
Kevin O'Connor
Daniel Bear Davis
Kristen Greco
Phoenicia Pettyjohn