​
 

​

Facilitated by Kelly Keenan and Kevin O'Connor and in tandem with morning workshops this year's topic is FASCIA: concepts to be moved by. Bewildering in its nature, the fascial system cannot be assumed as one thing but rather as concepts of multiple relations. Each of the invited practitioners will offer an innovative way to think about and to be moved by fascia.


INFINITE ACTION WITH AMANDA ACORN
Choreographer Amanda Acorn, shares the movement practice that is the nucleus of her works, multiform and multiform(s). The two works explore a system of repeating movements in a continuous and unrelenting cycle of vibrating, undulating, circular loops, where the body moves in and out of defined form and perceptive navigation for the dancer. Using the biomechanical systems at play, the session will use this choreographic device to explore the fascia system’s ability to navigate and transcend the exhaustive task of perpetual motion.

Amanda Acorn is an award winning dance artist based in Toronto. As a dancer she collaborated as a company artist with Dancemakers from 2011-2015. Other engagements include work with Dana Michel, Susie Burpee, Brenden Fernandes, Helen Husak, Lady Janitor, Benjamin Kamino, Isabel Lewis, Lemi Ponifasio and Heidi Strauss. Her works are intimate sensorial encounters for both the stage and unconventional spaces that engage with questions surrounding watching and building environments using a choreographic frame. Her work has been presented in Montréal, Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa. Her first group work, multiform(s) was awarded the Canadian Stage Award for direction at SummerWorks Performance Festival (2015) and was recently presented at Festival TransAmériques in Montréal. She is the emerging artist in residence at Dancemakers (2016 – 2018).


VESTIBULAR ORIENTATION AND INNER BOWING WITH LAUREE JOY WISE
The vestibular mechanism, within the inner ear, perceives movement and continually informs how we balance, move and interact within gravity-bound space. Inside, special receptors register where we are in relationship to the earth and gravity, as well as changes in time, and how our body is moving through space.
In this workshop, participants engage in a process of embodying their own vestibular mechanism, through guided movement explorations and hands-on support. By releasing ‘outer seeing’ and yielding to proprioception, we initiate moving from here. Self-orientation underlies how we learn, rest, align, and integrate all the senses. The question where am I is also explored from this context. In addition, we may discuss examples of individuals who have problems with vestibular processing and approaches for helping.

Lauree Joy Wise , MS in Occupational Therapy, Practitioner and teacher of Body-Mind Centering®, Developmental movement educator (IDME) and Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA); A a dancer/mover, she has been engaged in the realm of body mind integration for over 30 years. In New York City Ms. Wise maintains a private practice in pediatric occupational therapy with a specialty in sensory processing. She has taught on the faculties for BMC/KLC, the Center for Kinesthetic Education and Spanda® Yoga Teacher Training and also presents at interdisciplinary conferences for educators, somatic therapists and parents. Lauree was born and raised in Montreal.


SERGE GRACOVETSKY
In the last three decades or so, the collagenous fascia’s imposed themselves as being an integrated and indivisible part of the tissues continuum that makes us move. Fascias make us energy efficient as we evolve in our planet gravitational field by protecting our joints and many other structures. This presentation will highlight how we use our musculo-skeletal system both in flexion extension and during gait.

Serge Gracovetsky graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1968 in nuclear physics and earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia (Canada) in 1970. He went on a tenured faculty at Concordia University in Montreal (Canada) for 27 years. His main interests varied from the control of paper machines, the analysis of the injury process experienced by military jet pilots during emergency ejection, the study of the human spine, the study of the reasoning process of physicians making a diagnosis for lower back pain and various other related (and unrelated) topics. In addition, he founded and controlled four technological companies developing products in the field of measurement and the function of the spine. These companies exploited the concept of the spine as being the primary engine driving the pelvis during gait. The technique has been used on over 500,000 patients in many countries.
Serge holds 22 patents, has written a few dozen papers and some books and has presented at a few hundred conferences. Upon retiring as emeritus professor, he went on to buy a clarinet and registered as a music student at his University in Jazz Studies. But his best achievement was to marry his teenage sweetheart and stay with her for 52 years and counting.

MADELAINE SHEN
Walking is a basic form of human locomotion, and we use it to travel through the world every day. Locomotion in dance can be re-framed as different ways of walking – transferring weight, using the spine to motor our bodies through space, flexing, extending, reaching the fascial system. Together we will explore different kinds of walking, to embody our new understanding of fascia and to incorporate what we learn from Serge and his work. We will also be bringing awareness to our own individual experience in walking. It’s sort of like Ministry of Silly Walks meets Fascia.

Madeleine Shen spent her adolescence training and performing with the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre Company. In 2009, she completed a degree in Biomedical Engineering Science at the University of Toronto, feeding her love for science and math. She began one of her current passions of tutoring and teaching high school students. She continued training in dance at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and The Limón Institute, in NYC. She joined forces with the ladies at the Toronto Dance Community Love-In (2010-2015) to organize and curate much needed alternative dance training to the city. She has been studying with the Axis Syllabus International Research Community since 2012, investigating and practicing bio-mechanically profound movement, combining her love for science and movement. She is a candidate teacher for the Axis Syllabus. In 2015 she began a new chapter studying at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, with a dream of one day combining her chiropractic health care practice with movement education.

CONTINUUM: EXPLORE THE UNEXPLORED WITHIN WITH LINDA RABIN
Continuum is an inquiry into the movement of life. Like the nature of water, at the most intrinsic level of our being, we undulate, pulsate, arc and spiral. What can we experience when we slow down and pay attention to these biological movements? Through different breaths and vocalized sounds we will stimulate our fluid nature, and with our attentive presence tune into the sensations and movements that emerge. Joining with our organism in this manner we experience the movement we are and how that informs the movement we do in dance and in everyday life.

Linda Rabin brings to Continuum 50 years of experience in the field movement. A choreographer and dance teacher in her earlier professional life, co-founder of LADMMI (now called École de danse contemporaine de Montréal) she turned to somatic education in the 1990’s to become a certified practitioner of Body-Mind Centering® and an authorized teacher of Continuum, by founder Emilie Conrad. As an international Continuum workshop leader, Linda teaches in her native Montreal, in Canada and Europe. She shares her life’s passion with people from all walks of life: movement both as art and healing, as a way of life knowledge and spiritual practice. For fuller bio:www.lindarabin.com


DANCING FRANKLIN WITH KATIE WARD
By working from the idea that our brains are plastic – able to transform – the Franklin Method uses mental imagery to transform the body and improve it’s function. It can be applied to improve any physical practice. The Franklin Method teaches dynamic alignment and how to move your body with maximum efficiency. Katie will lead a one hour class heightening our proprioceptive awareness in preparation for “Snails and potential for more”.

Katie Ward lives in Montreal and works in the field of choreography and movement education. Her work is currently driven by her curiosity around how we perceive various worldly phenomena and how we can test these perceptions through speculative sophisticated and naïve surveying techniques. This method applies to her choreography as well as to her movement teaching. Katie teaches Pilates and the Franklin Method to a variety of students throughout Montreal.