A Constellation of Elemental Bodies with Tahni Holt
Saturday 10am-1pm // A series of 4 workshops
November 7: Water
December 5: Earth
January 2: Air
February 6: Fire
Series: $100 // Individually: $35
We work with practices from It’s a Fucking Miracle class (imagine movement prompts and ways to organize as one moves) and organize around the principles of The Alexander Technique through the four elements: Water, Earth, Air, Fire.
We dance, we move, we talk, we drink tea together, we might even lightly touch each other. You come because you might have been inside of It’s a Fucking Miracle (it is not a prerequisite though) and you get that there is a universe behind each practice, there is a forever depth that you can touch and keep touching. In this series you get a clearer idea of how The Alexander Technique is in the room with us, what are the principles and how I am tethering our practices with it. Perhaps you get more understanding on how to take these practices off the dance floor (but please don’t leave for too long) and into your everyday living of life (but please know I am including dance as part of your everydayness). The practices are organized around four elements: Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Each class focuses on one element. How do we work with these elements as energy, as metaphor, as imagination and how do they reside in our physiology? In this series we understand that words are just one way we are communicating. There are so many ways we are communicating and learning from each other: repetition of doing and transmission of being are two more examples that are here with us. To be in our sensing bodies is adding complexity of this moment, right now allowing for the layers that are here to be felt and to deepen into the moment. It is not a skimming across or skating on, it is a landing in, a constant becoming. We practice together because how else is there to practice how to be in this world where our nervous systems are entangling with other bodies (animal bodies, water bodies, land bodies, plant bodies, rock bodies, machine bodies), with thoughts, with environments, with beliefs, with whatever is happening around us. How else is there to practice if not with others. Expect dissemination of collective experiences and personal next steps or edges.
Every teacher I have ever had is in the room with us.
photo credit: Morgan Bell courtesy of PICA (HORIZON)
October 6th, 13th + 27th
FLOCK TUESDAYS // 6:30pm-7:45pm
Since December of 2022 we have been giving 10% of the proceeds from class to NAYA Native American Youth and Family Center. Together we have donated over $4000 and counting.
You must pre-register.
This class comes out of many years of movement study, curiosity, and play. Somatic leanings, movement improvisational scores, contact improv, authentic movement, contemplative dance, dance boot camp, and a fierce dance-your-ass-off-in-the-club shows up. Original music compositions, pop-culture songs, and abstract sound weaves through each class. it is a mash-up encouraging entanglement. It moves you and the class is moved by you.
For this hour and 15 minutes, your body is the guide as prompts are given, your body translates all that is into this moment of a miracle, of you being here right now. We dance our weird, sweaty, we can’t stop fucking shaking our bodies, we are alive, we are exhausted, we are feeling into our individual and collective grief, we are ecstatically moving our bodies in the SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME dance. Say it again: in the SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME! This is us being nimble and flexible and pushing up through the cracks because we lean into resource and our nervous systems need this in ways that are not possible to say or feel in words, and that is exactly why we move our bodies and dance. Help. Spread. The. Word.
It’s a fucking miracle we are here right now under and held by this sky. It’s a fucking miracle we breathe, we move, we sweat, we love, we anger, we feel anything at all, it’s a fucking miracle. It’s a fucking miracle we dance, we prance, we shake, we jazz finger it up sometimes. This is a dance party, an exercise class, a somatic lesson, a play date, it’s a fucking miracle. We are collective action and we are individual desire.
After much consideration masks are optional. Please do not come to class if you are not feeling well for whatever reason.
Photo credit: Ada Matusiewicz
It’s a Fucking Miracle with Tahni Holt + Luke Wyland
October 20th
Tuesday // 6:30-8pm
10% of class proceeds go to Portland Immigration Rights Coalition (PIRC)
Earth/Sky focuses on sensitivity practices through somatic inquiry, improvisational movement scores, and Contemporary Alexander technique principles. A companion workshop to Holt and Wyland’s It’s a Fucking Miracle class, Earth/Sky goes deep into inquiries of grounding and gravitational support in one’s being. In Earth/Sky we swim into practices of embodiment where we sensitize into places we may be holding ourselves up, back, and/or in, and ask can we find movement through the cracks, can we rest into presence? Can we listen in on the dark recesses of our unconscious patterns? Can we integrate these practices in our everyday lives? Expect waves of rigorous movement exploration alongside slowed-down sensorial capacity-building practices. Prompts offer a starting point for exploration to facilitate new ways of moving and being. All are welcome, no prior movement experience needed.
photo credit: Ada Matusiewicz
After much consideration masks are optional. Please do not come to class if you are not feeling well for whatever reason.