Mindful Movement
The Mindful Movement sessions aim to provide a space for Disabled Leaders in the Arts and Leaders of D/deaf and Disabled Organisations to release some of the tensions they carry, and allow themselves to ground, centre, and to explore gentle guided movement exercises led by Candoco’s Co-Artistic Directors and disabled artists, Raquel Meseguer Zafe and Dominic Mitchell.
“At the end of a Candoco day, I can find myself holding tension in my body in all kinds of ways that I find hard to put down. I recognise these holding patterns affect my thinking, how I meet the world and how I approach the complex problems that it is my job to wrestle with: I can get stuck in particular ways of thinking and being. This session is imagined as a space to attend to some of that tension and those holding patterns, to recalibrate our nervous systems, to reconnect with our bodies and to listen to what we need to continue doing the work we do. I firmly believe our bodies are sites of knowledge, and that if we can explore different ways of moving, we make different ways of thinking, and being, available to us.” – Raquel Meseguer Zafe
The sessions will explore how contemporary dance practices can facilitate somatic opening, underscored by dance as a freedom practice. Dance as a freedom practice is a principle we are exploring in Candoco’s new commission ‘Over and Over (and Over again)’ by Dan Daw Creative Projects.
Each online session will be 1 hour long and include 3 parts:
– Part 1
Allowing the world to be as it is.
This part will include breathwork, grounding and centring.
We are invited to put down the weight we carry for the next hour (as best we can).
– Part 2
Guided Mindful Movement Exercises based on Contemporary Dance and Somatic practices.
Visualisation and rest are as valuable as movement (we practice no hierarchy).
– Part 3
Listening to our bodies and to what we need.
Respecting our bodies as sites of knowledge and engaging deeply with what we need.
Ambitions for the space:
– Soft start,
– Rest friendly,
– Movement exercises can be done sitting, standing or lying down,
– Visualisation is just as powerful as movement and just as welcome,
– We make a virtue of practising in our own homes,
– We practice coming and going as we need to.
Upcoming Dates:
Thursday 27 March, 6.15-7.15pm
Thursday 24 April, 6.15-7.15pm
Thursday 29 May, 6.15-7.15pm
We will run 4 sessions in Spring 2025 and then gather feedback to allow us to design a truly supportive space for Deaf Leaders in the Arts and D/deaf and Disabled Lead Organisations.
These sessions are a pilot funded by the Disability Justice Fund, a Trust for London Project.
How to join?
● These sessions are free of charge.
● Sessions will be limited to 12 people.
● To book your place sign up via BookWhen, entering the password
mindfulmovement2025
● You will be invited to share your access requirements when you book.
References:
Some of the references that inspired this work are Adrienne Marie Brown’s ‘Pleasure Activism’ and Staci K Haines ‘The Politics of Trauma’. They have been extremely informative, as we planned and imagined these sessions.