MOVING STORIES GROUPS in AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT

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Authentic Movement is a contemplative movement practice founded in the 1950s by Mary Starks Whitehouse, a modern dancer and pioneering dance therapist. Aspects of this work were then further developed by her students Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow, and by subsequent generations of facilitators and practitioners.  The practice investigates how, rather than moving our bodies in habitual ways, or those dictated from outside of us, we can be led by our bodies into movement.

 

Eyes-closed movers, heeding impulses in response to sensations, feelings, images, and emotions, are witnessed by one another, regarding each other with compassion, care, and curiosity.

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We can experience the practice as an artistic exploration, a physical laboratory, a moving meditation, and an opportunity for interpersonal connection and personal insight.​

 

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AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT PEER GROUPS 

*For those with prior experience in the practice

Held on Mondays, 6:30-8:30pm and Fridays, 9:30-11:30am, in Ann Arbor,

& Tuesdays, 11am-1pm, in Detroit

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Facilitated groups for artists, educators, helping professionals, and healing artists, connecting us to our bodies, our creative impulses, and to our own vulnerability and empowerment.

These somatic explorations -- an interplay of embodiment, contemplation, creativity, and mystery -- support us to consider how best we can listen and be in service to our bodies, art, students, communities, families, patients, and clients, and how to access the resources we need to do so.  

 

We explore the range of our bodies' impulses, listening to the feelings, sensations, images, and memories that our bodies store for us. We spend time reflecting upon our movement explorations, extending them creatively through drawing, writing, clay, and/or using postcard images.

The practice supports us to tend our bodies, engage in contemplation, inform our creative projects, and meaningfully connect with others.

Group sessions include:

• check-in & co-creation of the session's structure

• a moving & witnessing circle

• opportunities for exploration with art materials

• sharing & response, and closure

*Please, contact Stefanie directly with questions regarding prior experience or ways to acquire it, and with requests to join in.

Membership rate: $140/$115/$90 per month tiered economic justice rates  

with consecutive six-month minimum commitment.

Each member agrees to attend a minimum of two sessions/month, as well as to the other group guidelines, in order to support an intimate container for all.

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For folks who are newer to the practice and/or are considering joining the group longer term, I allow a one month trial to try it out prior to making a commitment.

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I am so grateful to have discovered this practice. Stefanie has created a rare space to safely dive into the body's own messages and inner guidance, to allow movement itself to reveal, release, create and be. If your body is craving to move in complete creative freedom, unencumbered by right or wrong, or judgement; if you are curious what your body itself might reveal to you, I highly recommend this practice and Stefanie's work– she is a brilliant facilitator!

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- K. Singer, Educator, and Spiritual Practitioner,

 Ann Arbor, MI

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Authentic Movement is my favorite contemplative practice.  It's a way to attend to and come home to myself — a time to remember what I already know.  What my body knows.  It is a time to set aside my stories and listen for the deeper truths.  The practice allows me to not have the pressure or expectation that there will be meaning, but to trust that if I pay attention to my felt senses enough, as I develop that "muscle" of awareness, things shift in me naturally without my needing to figure anything out.  Stefanie provides a safe and courageous space to explore...she gives participants the tools needed to meet and grow from whatever shows up.  I am deeply grateful for this practice and for Stefanie's gentle strength, holding the highest intentions for all.

- S., Masters student, Ypsilanti, MI

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