The Body Archive|Philosophy
Embody- to express, personify or exemplify in visible or tangible form, to provide with a body, to incarnate, to make corporeal; to embrace or compromise.
Embodiment- the state of being embodied. a state of embrace.
The body is a moving archive of our histories, our stories and our selves, and holds meaning and mystery for each person. Memory and experience is stored in each cell, through the muscles, tissues, and deep into the center of our bones. Through all of the teaching work that I do, whether dance, yoga, somatic practice or a synthesis of different forms, I help facilitate an environment where students can access their intuitive cellular memory and wisdom, from macro to micro, from dense to subtle body. Through this creative process, we have the opportunity to explore, express, create and transform, tapping into the underlying energies, archetypes, and mythologies that form the blueprint of our life stories, while in dialogue with nature, and the innate wisdom of the dancing body.
The Body Archive is the umbrella for my teaching work and movement investigations. Drawing from my studies of contemporary dance and improvisation, somatic practices, Yoga/Ayurveda, Vedic philosophy and Perennial Wisdom, my teaching is a synthesis of these bodies of knowledge. Classes are focused towards a specific movement discipline (Yoga, dance, somatic practice), but are always layered with information from the different movement modalities and teachings that I continue to study and practice. Touring and teaching regionally at various studios, institutions, festivals, and centers, I offer classes, workshops, and laboratories that bring together somatic practice, dance, nature and the environment with my interests in human history, ancient philosophy and wisdom in exploratory ways.
Dance, Yoga, Somatic practice and the movement and healing arts are lineages passed down from body to body, person to person, through time and space. In the spirit of this, I would like to acknowledge and honor my teachers, and all the great teachers through time and space, whose work has inspired and transformed me.
"Our whole knowledge of the world is, in one sense, self-knowledge. For knowing is a translation of external events into bodily processes, and especially into states of the nervous system and the brain: we know the world in terms of the body, and in accordance with its structure." - Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo against knowing Who You Are
“The energies that move the body are the energies that move the imagination. These energies, then, are the source of mythological imagery; in a mythological organization of symbols, the conflicts between the different organic impulses within the body are resolved and harmonized. You might say a mythology is a formula for the harmonization of the energies of life.” - Joseph Campbell, in an interview by Joan Marler
"The essence of all beings is Earth. The essence of Earth is Water. The essence of Water is plants. The essence of plants is the human being." - Chandogya Upanishad I.1.2