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Somatic Movement Retreat

with Mary Abrams & Penny Collinson

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Breathing through difficulties, moving with graces.

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About the Retreat:

When you experience difficulty, what happens in your body? What densities, intensities, textures, qualities come alive?
Does your breathing constrict... speed up... disappear?

 

Difficulty with life is experienced from all directions. Outside and inside our skin body, difficulty is felt and at times can seem relentless and impossible to penetrate.

 

Attending to our breath and giving ourselves time and space to feel awakens possibilities for more subtle, refined sensations, images, feelings and movements.

As we begin to experience shifts in the densities and intensities of difficulty, we become available to receive and move with grace through every level of our experience. Opening and receiving the grace of being alive, breathing and moving, what new insights can emerge in the face of personal and global difficulties?

During this retreat we will use a variety of somatic movement methods which support deep personal inquiry. This will include moving-witnessing in partners and as a group, touch, and exploration through writing, drawing, and speaking. There will be opportunity to move outdoors, and our days will be spaciously structured to support rest and replenishment.

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Biographies

 

Penny and Mary have known one another for 17 years, and taught together on the MA Dance & Somatic Wellbeing programmes, which ran in UCLan, Preston and in New York, until 2021. They look forward to reconnecting with graduates, colleagues and practitioners on this retreat, offering a depth of expertise in holding creative processes and supporting personal and collective inquiry with care and compassion.

Mary Abrams - www.movingbodyresource.com

Mary brings passion, skill, and an inquisitive spirit to her work with clients, group classes, and workshops and is founder/director of Moving Body Resources in New York City. Mary recently launched a 6-module program The Odyssey of Embodied Spiritual Learning; and teaches on the Continuum Teacher Training at the Somatic Academy of Berlin (Germany). From 2007-2020 Mary taught and was USA course leader on the Masters in Dance & Somatic Well-being course at the University of Central Lancashire (UK) and in the NYC.
She comes from a lifelong dance background and 20 years of Continuum with Emilie Conrad and Susan Harper, and ongoing work with epistemologist Gary David, Ph.D. 

Penny Collinson - www.pennycollinson.com

Penny is a movement artist and registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist in private therapeutic, community and educational settings. Penny also works extensively with professional movement practitioners, therapists and teachers as a collaborator, mentor, consultant and supervisor, and has recently co-created the Community Interest Company, Shoreline Health in Motion, CIC, which will collaboratively create dance for health initiatives in and around Morecambe Bay. Penny has studied with Linda Hartley (IBMT), and Miranda Tufnell for over 20 years.

 

Her publications on the application of somatic practice in health and wellbeing contexts can be found at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2869-7132

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Accommodation:

 

There are many Airbnb and holiday cottage options in and around Rowen and Conwy, as well as campsites, such as Cefn Cae Caravan & Camping Site, in Rowen village. Please note if there are sufficient bookings for the Rowen YHA (Youth Hostel Association) it will be possible to book the entire hostel at a reduced rate. If you are interested to do this, please contact Penny as quickly as possible. These include shared rooms and bunk beds only.

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Duration: Friday to Monday (over 4 days with 3 nights away)

Fee: £300 (includes lunch Saturday to Monday)

Location: Rowen Memorial Hall, Rowen, Conwy, N. Wales LL32 8YP

Dates:

This workshop has already taken place (May 2024) but keep checking back onto this page as I will post details on the next one as and when plans come to fruition.

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