On January 19, FEELed Labbers and friends were treated to a pop-up dance workshop convened by Hanna Sybille Mueller, who was in Kelowna as part of the Living Things festival.
Tuning into the liquid elements of our bodies, we rhymed our flesh-sacks to the trees, the smoking fire, the starlight. We imagined the movement of tree bark, of icy patches on the ground, of pine needles drying out on a fallen branch.
In her invitation to us, Sybille described the session to us: “This outside dance session will be based working with the fluid body. Understanding the body as an expressive entity/vessel the class will use simple movement principles and the knowledge of the body to find ways to cultivate awareness and trust for your dances. Through improvisation and short compositions, we’ll find multiple ways to create movements. Pleasure is an important ingredient. Being in movement with others and allowing yourself to sense will have a positive effect on your health and well-being.”
– Hanna Sybille Mueller
Pleasure is an important ingredient. Being in movement with others and allowing yourself to sense will have a positive effect on your health and well-being.
She further told us that “Sometimes finding words for what we see (in movement) or for what we have done (in movement) makes it possible to digest the information in another way, therefore we’ll also sometimes describe what we do and what we see. Working with non-judgmental language can feel liberating and is often much more precise and detailed.”
Formed through contemporary dance and specialized in Improvisation based on Laban Movement Analysis and deeply inspired by somatic practices especially Body Mind Centering and Continuum, Sybille’s classes draw from her ongoing choreographic processes.
This opportunity to move our bodies in creative and intuitive ways, while considering their relationship to the unceded syilx territories – these lands with their deep archives of bodies and movement – was a joyful and contemplative way to spend a cold January night. The lab feels different in the dark. Thank you, Sybille, for the opportunity to notice those feelings.
All photos courtesy of Craig Johnson.
The FEELed lab 