LEAF ENCOUNTERS

find a leaf that attracts you….. take it for a walk…. let it take you for a walk….

bring your favourite 10 leaves back to the studio and put them in order of change

lead a partner through the woods blind folded….take your time and lead them gently….think about what you would want to sense of the surrounding and lead your partner to those places…. find how you can encourage them to experience with out sight… play with touch, smell, taste and sound to allow them to experience a holistic multi sensory walk

often this gives the blindfolded person a heightened awareness of their external surroundings take at least 15 minute each on this task as it takes a while to adjust to an open state of reciprocity
did the blindfolded person feel like time slowed down or sped up?





find a quiet place in the wood… sit and take the time to really study the veins of a leaf… allow the intricate detail to consume you…
create a response to the leaf, think of it colour, size….

is it anonymous?

can you see the tree it fell from?

this response can be in any form written, movement, spoken, visual… if its specific to that site come and find someone and share your experience with them….after looking, reading, watching your material they can feedback by devising their own engagement…

a dialogue begins…..

in the woods select three natural objects and create a map of their relation to each other and the journey you took between them
explain how to read this map to someone else... can find your three objects

your way of mapping could be visual, literal, word based, pictorial, emotional, following the contours of the land, expressed by the key things you noticed on your journey etc…
use your map as stimulus for movement

can you dance your map?

the buzz of collaboration....

pure communal enthusiasm and a passion for brighter futures

all this rich experience confirms and reconfirms my love for collaborative socially engaged making and performance

i have more than a desire or a hope – but a deeply ingrained need.... a yearning to work and fully immerse myself in creative process that changes lives

whether its a fleeting glimpse of intricate detail, a word or exchange, a moment of magic or a intriguing question answered by a bursting ephemeral image expressing more than a thousand words and will stay with you forever......

collated together, learning and exchanging together, making together, rediscovering practically and metaphorically.

i think this concept of performance and art making becomes a way of life.... a true exchange of value, not through money but live with ideas, enriching debate, taste of cultures, active desires, shared understanding and magic connecting moments

its all "Life and Art" as Bill says, how true!

SOMA * TERRA * PARA workshop

on the 21st and 22nd of

November, myself and Angus Balbernie (internationaly aclaimed Choreographer) will be exploing his concept of Soma Terra Para in the Aller Park studios at Dartington College of Arts. If you have an interest in taking somatics into landscape and using landscape as stimulus for performance then we invite you to come and explore with us... inspiring insight from Angus into his holistic concept Soma - Terra - Para will guide our perception from the micro to macro in space both inside and out.