Accessing the Unbounded Embrace

Accessing the Unbounded Embrace Cocréa : Mindful Partner Dance Weekend With Wren Lafeet & Chrissy Mehnert Exploring the Essence of Deep Connection that Underlies All Partner Dance. Join us for a full weekend immersion! We invite our attendees to join us for each day of the event, starting with an Intro Friday evening and progressing through the weekend with Saturday workshops building a foundation and Sunday workshops deepening the practice. Have you seen Wren's TedX Talk? You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/dciTrZxqbHE SCHEDULE Friday, November 8th FREE INTRO-- 8:00 pm Saturday, November 9th WORKSHOP, Day 1* --10:15am-4:30pm SOCIAL DANCE--8:00 pm Sunday, November 10th WORKSHOP, Day 2** -- 10:15am-4:30pm *Saturday Workshops - Open to Anyone, regardless of dance ability **Sunday Workshops - Open to Saturday participants only, or by permission of instructor All events at The Lab in Fairfield, Iowa Cocréa = Collaborative, Organic Communication, Revolutionizing Embodied Awareness. A continually evolving holistic movement modality, Cocréa blends the connected, fluidity of blues fusion dance, with the organic expression of authentic movement, concepts from contact improvisation and a contemplative approach to life. REGISTRATION Weekend Passes available in advance in four ticket types: Standard adult: $120 Visionary Supporter: $160 Limited income: $85 *(tickets will be $10 more at the door) Online registration: https://blitzstudio.regfox.com/accessing-the-unbounded-embrace FULL WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION Whether you’re completely new to partner dance, have been dancing fusion for awhile, or have a completely different embodiment practice, we’ll support you in taking your dance experience to the next level! This weekend includes a two-part offering: a core essence segment on Saturday, and a more intermediate level segment on Sunday to deepen and expand your partner dance & embodiment practice. Cocrea is as much a path of personal development as it is a training ground to become a better dancer. This weekend will be an exploration of embodiment, intimacy and refinement in listening - both with the self and with others. We will embrace form and structure... and deepen into a practice of presence with one another. Playing within the structure common to many of the world's social partner dances, dancers will learn tools to invite and allow an easeful flow to emerge through deep listening and responding in presence with the moment. Through meeting and joining energy, we emphasize connection, communication and creative expression between two humans within a community of others. Themes we’ll play through: • Polarity - the mutable energetics of lead and follow • Consent • Emergence • Change and Co-Creation • Pause • Patience • Stretching into discomfort and uncertainty • What energy best supports listening? These will be the pools in which we swim towards the “universality of dance” embedded in the phrase: Dance Your Life! Day 1: Foundations • Core Stability & Balance • Lead-Follow-Neutral Dynamics • Variable Frames of Connection • Accessing Intuitive Movement • Expanding Connection Points • Activating Your Spinaesthesia Day 2: Deepening the Practice • Kinetic Intimacy* • Increasing and Containing Energy* • Exploring CommuniYum* • Exploring Fundamental Moving Consciousness* • Discovering Your Essential Moving Body* ABOUT THE FACILITATORS: WREN LAFEET Wren is an acclaimed master in his craft of Fusion Partner Dance and has been named "the next voice in conscious dance" by Soul Motion™ core faculty member, Aletia Alvarez. A dancer in the Fusion social partner dance movement since it began, Wren’s dancing defines Fusion as an emergent dance form based in the spontaneous co-creation of new aesthetics. Fueled by his curiosity in spirituality, sexuality, global community, the natural world and relationships, and guided by his devotion to love and the idea of the Beloved, partner dance has served as the vehicle for his inquiry and understanding. He has inspired the formation of multiple fusion dance communities on the west coast of North America, and teaches partner dance internationally as a practice for mindful, authentic living, enlivening communities with his signature modality, Cocréa™. His facilitation encourages individuals to create themselves as safer spaces for the embodiment of the full range of human expression. Promoting dance as medicine-- a spiritual salve for our modern ailments of disconnection and alienation-- his practice insists we trust our bodies with the music and our partner to catalyze elevating our whole being into higher vibrational states. Wren empowers individuals and communities to dance with joy, helps free insights locked in the body, coaches people to more easily access their sensuality and even on privileged occasion supports the healing of chronic disease. Wren’s goal is to support people into right relationship with the moment; to listen and respond appropriately to what is being called for in service to the highest possible good. CREDENTIALS - BA in Drama and Dance, University of Washington - In 8th year of offering movement and embodiment facilitation professionally - Certified Danyasa Inspired Yoga Instructor, lead by Sofiah Thom - Author in the published work, “Reinhabiting the Village,” - TEDx speaker, "Pioneering the New Renaissance through Movement, TEDxBend - Pacific Performance Project (P3), Intensive Training Graduate with Robin Hunt, Steve Pearson and Peter Kyle - Actors Theater of Louisville Apprentice Program, 2003-2004 - Featured Presenter: Abundant Leadership Retreats, Body Intelligence Summit with Gay and Katie Hendricks, Conscious Dancer Podcast, Beloved Festival (4 years) CHRISSY MEHNERT Chrissy can’t remember when it began, but dance came as naturally as breathing to her body. From a young age she studied dance primarily in the form of solo movement for performance and competition. Her first dance company saw her through many early professional opportunities, and her love of choreography took her to organize Pulse Dance Project, NYU’s first student-produced dance performance group. Eventually, she found that in many ways, her professional training was limiting her growth by under-valuing the uniqueness of all bodies. This awakening led her to the yoga studio. Her first and most honest class startled her with its resonance, springing her awakened life forward into opening after opening. She trained in the summer of 2009 with Yoga to The People, dove right into teaching 10+ classes a week and gaining the YTTP studios in Berkeley and San Francisco a foothold. Until 2013, she was a prominent teacher for YTTP, when she moved out to the Northern California foothills. At the first night of Foothills Fusion Dance in 2015, Chrissy committed to a new dance form. Partner dance intimidated, allured and in time deeply transformed Chrissy’s being. No other practice has contributed so much to her unfolding as mindful partner dance. Now, her offerings are weaving through the overlapping layers of yoga and dance, inspiring each of her teachings with the other. ABOUT COCREA Building on the foundational elements of social partner dance technique as our common language, Cocréa teaches how to wield creative expression with consideration to another body and practice nuanced responsiveness to one another in improvisational, co-created dance. It is a gateway to accessing the body’s wisdom to deepening Self and relational attunement. Our intention is to explore form and play creatively from our heart, body and spirit, in full support and appreciation of ourselves and one another. To read more, visit our website: www.dancecocrea.com