UNDERBELLY - The Art of Slowing Down by Amy Rogg (5th Weds)

Please note: This particular offering is a **closed container**, meaning that everyone must arrive before 6:15pm in order to participate. You can leave when you want. On 5th Wednesdays of the month, Sebastopol Contact Improv features special offerings, such as Underscore - and this month, Amy Rogg is bringing her movement container, called Underbelly. -- WHAT IS UNDERBELLY? -- Underbelly is a non-verbal somatic practice (embodied meditation) where we reclaim our slow in a fast and overwhelming world. Our dominant culture survives on speed, which keeps problematic and oppressive structures in place at the devastating cost of our well-being and planetary health. Underbelly is a somatic response to the loss of slowness in an increasingly urgent world drowning in climate collapse, AI threat, technological addiction, diseased capitalism and polarization, as well as historical nervous system trauma from continuing racism, colonialism, and patriarchy. It's time to acknowledge that we are standing at a terrifying precipice. Instead of pushing through injury or confusion, we cultivate a willingness to know things as they stand. It's time to surrender the rush and instead, show up with our heartbreak to encounter what is becoming. It's time to dismantle the hurry and have a conversation with the present moment. This practice helps us explore the art of slowing down with ourselves, each other, and our current environment. There is space to metabolize our emotions, strengthen empathy and intuition, and develop an intimate relationship with our bodies and the world around us. We practice being in the questions themselves- listening and yielding to the intelligence of life without pushing, controlling, or fixing. Room is made for nuance, complexity and paradox. Our individuation and togetherness are felt in a group field—deepening our presence and attunement with one another, co-regulating our nervous systems, being held, witnessed, considered, and noticed exactly as we are. We meet ourselves AS IS, without grasping for more, escaping, transcending, or resigning. We re-learn what it is to be relational instead of transactional. To commune instead of consume. To be of service instead of self-serving. To rest back into more vastness and organicity, releasing tight circuits of linearity, programming and conditioning we've inherited or been entrained to. Spend quality time with your body, breath, and being. Come back to the foundations. Sink back into reverence. Voyage beneath the surface of our fast culture, and dive into a slow sanctuary for unearthing what is alive, tender, and honest for you in every moment. ​ This experience is not a solution, method, workshop or teaching of tools. It is not a business, ceremony, or ecstatic dance/contact improv jam/cuddle party. It is a somatically driven experimental space that supports bodily intelligence, nervous system co-regulation, ample rest, and radical self/community care. We incrementally and progressively nourish the foundational fabric of how we relate, strengthen the connective tissue of our humanity, and allow ourselves to remember what we have forgotten. This work is not done through grand gestures or patterns of immediacy, but rather, subtle...steady...patient...little steps. Every Underbelly experience varies depending on what is alive in the group field at that given time. All movement forms are welcome (authentic/personal movement, sensory/somatic movement, contact (improv) inspired movement etc). So is resting, pausing, meditating, stillness, witnessing etc. Participants may explore being solo, in negative space (proximity without touch) or discovering connection with others through consensual energy and/or touch. No prior experience necessary, just an open mind/heart. Music: emotional, slow, deep, meditative, experimental, film scores, nature sounds, ambient, soulful, silent, and live. -- WHAT TO EXPECT -- 1) Arrival (container will CLOSE 15 min after start time, please show up on time! Leaving early is permitted): This is a time to unwind on your own and find your way into your body. 2) 40 minute facilitated opening (guided somatic meditation, helping the body have a conversation with the present moment) 3) Deep dive (a time for your own body to guide you while immersed in music) 4) Facilitated closing (closing meditation and simply being with one another in the quiet) -- ABOUT THE FACILITATOR -- Amy Rogg (she/her) is an activator and nurturer of the human spirit. She is half Taiwanese/half Jewish, born in Denver Colorado and raised mostly in the Bay Area. She is the conduit, creator, and facilitator of Underbelly: The Art of Slowing Down. Amy has a B.A. in television/film production, studied acting/improv in Los Angeles, and is currently training to become a clinical herbalist. She has taught yoga (E-RYT 500), meditation, and somatic/relational movement for over a decade. Some of her inspirations: nature, Hakomi, Continuum, The Artist's Way, Movement Liberation, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Stephen Jenkinson, Gabor Maté, Paul Bergner, Heather Luna, Anna Halprin, Resmaa Menakem, Sarah Blondin, Bill Plotkin, Marc-André Leclerc, Jeong Kwan, Yat Malmgren, David Whyte, Qi Gong, Yoga, GAGA, Contact Improvisation/Underscore, Fusion/Microfusion, Open Floor, Soul Motion, Dancing Freedom, 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance, romantic relationships, and her mama (in spirit). Instagram: @amyrogg Facebook page: facebook.com/underbellytheartofslowingdown -- PRICING -- The entrance fee is $20 -- We have an Accessibility discount of 50% for marginalized peoples, such as BIPOC and LGTBQIA+ folx and those who are experiencing financial hardship..... or pay what you can; NOTA (No One Turned Away for lack of funds). -- COVID PROTOCOL -- ~Please do not attend if you have been exposed or have symptoms. ~Rapid/antigen testing always encouraged. ~Mask as needed. -- GUIDELINES FOR SEBASTOPOL C.I -- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G3zbWQuhbQWw14EUUqBYO1atPEBywD2NvLqQf6uqU3o -- ACCESSIBILITY -- Being in the upstairs dance loft at Soft Medicine, we want to let folks know there is also an elevator at the back of the building, for anyone who needs that to get to the 2nd floor (though it involves considerably more walking). This is an indoor venue. Masks are optional. Anyone under age 18 is asked to attend with a guardian, and/or email us first to discuss. -- STAY IN THE LOOP -- -sign up for our email list: bit.ly/sebastopolcontactimprov -like the "Sebastopol Contact Improv" Facebook page -help us spread the word; invite your friends! -- ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? -- Contact us through facebook, or email: [email protected] See you on the dance floor, Eric, Rose, João, and Kandace