SENSATIONAL MOVES : Feldenkrais & Creative Dance Practice

'SENSATIONAL MOVES – FELDENKRAIS & CREATIVE DANCE PRACTICE’ Workshop with Simonetta Alessandri (IT/UK) & Thomas Kampe (D/UK) 10.30am -16.30pm (1 hour lunch break) @ Goldsmiths, University of London Venue TBC Info and booking through: https://bookwhen.com/cigoldsmiths/e/ev-sjpa-20250413000000 In this four-day workshop, we combine the transformative principles of the Feldenkrais Method® with creative dance practice to cultivate awareness, freedom and spontaneity in movement. Through guided explorations, participants will rediscover and develop their innate curiosity and potential for change, creativity, and authentic expression. Using ‘Awareness Through Movement’® lessons and touch-based explorations, we will connect with our core and imagination, deepen our felt sense of gravity and grounding, and enhance our ability to interact and communicate expressively with ease and clarity. Dance and improvisational practice, compositional tasks and performance situations will provide space to integrate our embodied discoveries, fostering creative risk-taking and playfulness in a supportive environment. The workshop offers an opportunity to identify and break habitual movement patterns, expand our individual movement vocabulary, and uncover new pathways for expression and connection in dialogue with others. This process emphasizes improved movement ranged and function, while nurturing authenticity and presence in action. Each day we will take time to discuss or write reflectively about our personal and somatic discoveries. The Feldenkrais Method®, developed by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984) is a gentle, embodied process focused on self-discovery, embodied critical thinking, wellbeing, somatic agency and functional improvement. It invites participants to slow down, listen to internal sensations, and create new neural pathways that transcend habitual capacities towards creative choice making. This workshop is open to anyone interested in deepening their dance or movement practice and performance, enhancing their awareness, and exploring movement as a pathway to connection, creativity, and self-expression. Thomas Kampe (PhD) (he/him) has worked as a performer, artist, researcher and somatic educator across the globe for 40 years and was ‘Professor of Somatic Performance and Education’ at Bath Spa University (UK) between 2012 and 2022. Thomas initially trained in visual art and dance and is a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method ® which forms a rich foundation for his teaching, arts practice and research. He is interested in critical somatic arts legacies and his writings and performance works have been published internationally. He was editor of the Feldenkrais Research Journal Vol. 6 ‘Practices of Freedom: The Feldenkrais Method & Creativity’ in 2019, and recently co-edited JDSP Vol. 13.1 & 2 (2022): ‘Embodying Eco-Consciousness: Somatics, Aesthetic Practice and Social Action’. Simonetta Alessandri is an Italian dance artist & somatic educator based in London. She applies the Feldenkrais Method in dance & movement training and in performance making. She teaches at Trinity Laban, Goldsmiths University and London Contemporary Dance School. Her work is informed by more than 30 years of dancing, teaching and choreographing. Her choreography has been for dance companies, student pieces, large scale opera, improvised performance, site specific and movement direction for theatre. She was one of the few dance practitioners in Italy who began working with CI in the 90’s. She has been a guest teacher in Germany, Colombia, UK, Norway, Israel, France, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Spain and Taiwan. She obtained the Post Graduated Diploma at London Contemporary Dance School; she is qualified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method and she holds the Teacher Certificate of the Royal Academy of Dance. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is one of the founders of CI@Goldsmiths London.