Peony Somatic Dance Columbus Intensive: Butoh, Haiku, & Origami

This will be a journey into the self and community via movement, writing, and art. No dance or movement experience of any kind is needed. Come as you are. This will be my second intensive offering at my home studio here in Columbus, Ohio at Heartfelt Yoga. (And we’re in the heart of all things arts and food and there are so many options for places to stay if you’re coming from out of town.)

The Basics

Dates: Friday, August 1st through Sunday August 3rd

Times:
Friday: 6 PM to 8 PM
Saturday: 10 AM to 6 PM (with one hour for you to get some lunch)
Sunday: 10 AM to 2 PM (with just a snack break)

And don’t worry: You won’t be sweating your butt off for all of those hours. There will be a good blend of moving and not moving based explorations.

Cost: $299

GO HERE TO REGISTER

What you should bring

Your beautiful self
Comfortable clothing for moving and layering
A favorite blanket (or use one of the studio’s)
You do NOT need a yoga mat
Pen and journal
Water bottle
Snacks
Anything like a favorite crystal, plushie, mala, statue that will support your time with us

What is this all about?

Butoh is one of the fundamental pillars of Peony Somatic Dance, and during this intensive, we’ll be diving into it much more deeply than we can during a once a week class. We’ll also be playing with and blending in the principles of haiku and origami to explore a more expansive vocabulary to support the body and its expressions.

Butoh

Butoh is as vast as the universe in terms of approaches, and for every practitioner and for every choreographer of Butoh, there is a unique Butoh. (It’s almost impossible not to sound like some koan spewing zen monk when you speak of Butoh.)

For a little taste, here are some quotes:

“Butoh belongs both to life and death. It is a realization of the distance between a human being and the unknown. It also represents man’s struggle to overcome the distance between himself and the material world. Butoh dancers bodies are like a cup filled to overflowing, one which cannot take one more drop of liquid- the body enters into a perfect state of balance.” (Ushio Amagatsu)

“Movement alone does not become dance — the requirement for the dance is that one feeds such things as one’s own dreams, memories, and desire into the movement.” (Masaki Iwana)

"Butoh was conceived as an art that would continue to rebel, even to rebel against itself… it was conceived as an art that would not become an institutionalized form, but rather remain alive and vital, continuously reinvented by innovators inspired by it." (Maureen Fleming) (She is my main mentor in Butoh)

HAIKU

A lot of what is presented as haiku in the world is just short poetry. There are some aspects of haiku that many are missing and that are crucial.

Side story: for many seasons, I kept a haiku journal, writing every single day, and it was one of the key components for me of recovering from life threatening depression.

We will be using haiku to create movement, to feed ideas and dreams into our bodies, and we will be creating some original haiku.

Origami

We will play with origami in order to understand the idea of folding and refolding and unfolding in our own bodies. We’ll apply that individually in our movement but also in pairs and in the larger group.

If you have any questions about the workshop, please get in touch with me!

I don't remember the last time...

… I was interviewed for a podcast. (A side note: I would LOVE to do more of this… so if you know anyone looking for guests, please let me know.)

Brandi and I have been connected for a long time so it made this interview feel like two good friends getting together for coffee (or a Hello Kitty bottle full of water as was my case). And when I say a long time, I mean a long time… like well over the 15 year mark.

We were both part of the early blogging community (and I miss those days, for sure).

Brandi is starting this podcast specifically to talk to other women about being artists/creators in mid life. I was 100% on board the second she said that.

You can find more about her and her own art on her website.

And here’s our time together. Remember that you can speed up playback so you cut the time down quite a bit.

A little teaser:

Little bits of somatic magic to help with rage, anxiety, and fear

I’ve not been writing as much. I got a stupid virus, but that was really just a small part of it all. The world right now makes me so sad and angry that I lose words. And I know I’m not alone.

(A quick aside: if you are having issues with dissociation and/or you are really in need of community right now, we’re starting a new four week session next week (the week of June 23rd). If you’ve not been in a class in a while, maybe now is the time to do one? Registration for both Peony Somatic Dance and Quickie)

Back to the current situation… I wrote this in the Circle of Trees but thought it was worth sharing elsewhere:

I was an RA at Penn State when Bush Sr. started a significant chunk of what we're still basically mired in in the middle east (which goes back further, of course, but I just mean the current clusterfuck).

We had to call all the students together so a counselor could speak to them. Some of them had siblings, parents, boy/girlfriends who were being sent over. It was intense. There was a lot of crying.

I remember the feelings of that time. The constant pit in my stomach. The constant anger. The frustration that we could be dragged through things with no agency of our own.

And then the utter surreality of walking around that big beautiful (safe) campus and going to classes and talking about literature from another time.

And so here we are.

Again.

Waiting. With no real agency. We can protest and call our senators but there's a madman in the White House and what he does in the next 24 to 48 hours... for right now, he has power over all of us...

I just watched a video of him saying he wouldn't call Walz because why would I (he said), Walz, you know, appointed that guy to a ... why would I call, what would I say? (And some disparaging things about Walz himself, of course, but NOTHING BAD ABOUT THE GUNMAN.)

HE IS NOT HUMAN. And he only sees some of us as human. (As in only the sycophants around him.)

Today I'm freaking out. I have work to do and I feel like I'm walking and typing through molasses. And I keep thinking about people who voted for this and thinking all of this is what?!?! GOOD????

If you're freaking out today or if you're anxiously checking in with things... I am too.

Hold a cat. Drink some coffee/tea. Eat a piece of chocolate. Check on your flowers. Listen to something beautiful.

Or do one or more of the somatic methods in that image I shared.

And don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything.

Save the date: another in-person intensive this August

Last fall, I did my first in person workshop in far too long, and it was wonderful. I got to meet in 3D some beautiful humans I’ve only known through zoom classes. We got to dive deeply into Peony Somatic Dance. And we were able to instantly build safe community where each person’s unique movement art could emerge and be witnessed. Again, it was wonderful.

And of course, it left me wanting more. This time we’ll be focusing specifically on the foundational practices of Peony Somatic Dance that come from my study of Butoh. But we’ll also be adding in other Japanese arts to compliment that, including Haiku and Origami? Why these?

Haiku has been a vital part of my mental health practices over the last couple of decades. It actually came into my life before I started to dance again! I used to write haiku every single day to help me focus on the world outside myself. (And I take this seriously. We’ll be talking about why, for example, haiku are not traditionally supposed to have any sense of I/me in them.)

Origami is another of the Japanese arts that can teach us something about movement, space, and simplicity. It feels like a perfect match for our work.

So, yeah… save the date. If you’re coming from out of town, maybe start looking for places to stay. There are a lot of wonderful spots within walking distance of the studio, which is here. And if you’ve never done so, read about Peony Somatic Dance (and feel free to send me any questions you might have.)

When early chronic dieting has broken your eating intuition

Intuitive eating is great if you can actually feel when you’re hungry and feel when you’ve had enough. But those mechanisms aren’t always that clear cut or working for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we’re all different. Our brains are all different. Our reactions to food are all different.

And our eating backgrounds are all different.

If you were a girl growing up in the 1980s, you were likely constantly being put on diets. And that very much damages your relationship to food and your body.

Even when I was a size zero I was not small enough.

Only when I started to dance again in my 40s did my relationship to food and body finally become neutral, which I think is actually the healthiest relationship you can have to those things.

But over the last few years, as depression has eaten away at my healthy mindsets, it has also brought up old patterns around food and body.

And because I can’t simply intuit about food, I end up eating things that do not feel good in my body and I end up eating too much — to the point of discomfort.

Something had to change. Body and mind are one and I know from experience that to get my body back to more comfortable and more active is to then heal my mind.

So I’ve started to track my food again because of that lack of intuition.

And whoa… it’s freaking surprising.

First, I don’t ever think of myself as an emotional eater. As a matter of fact, if I’m super stressed I don’t eat.

But… I am a bored eater. I am a depressed eater.

I am constantly thinking about what food I could be putting into my mouth.

Second, the amount of food that I thought was necessary to make me feel full was way off. I knew this, as I said, because I was uncomfortable, but the amount I needed to feel full and comfortable was a lot different than I anticipated.

(I’m using this macro counter and a food scale. TO BE CLEAR: NOT to deprive myself but to recalibrate my understanding of food.)

So this is part of my journey right now. And if you need to talk about it, you can always email me or ask to be added to my group on Facebook.

And if you need to move more, I start a new 4 week session of Stim Yoga and Peony Somatic Dance online classes next week.

You have to move to feel

This is not a metaphor.

Think about it this way first:

Lay a hand on a cat and it's soft, but keep it lying there and you stop feeling the soft. Or at least, not with the same intensity as when you pet the cat.

Same with water... Get into the Lake (if you’re in Erie or near any lake) and walk through the water, feeling the softness of the water. Stand still. Less input, less sensation.

Go another step and realize that you only really feel wet relative to dry. Or relative to your wet swim suit as you try to peel it off.

(Before we go any further, as always, there are different levels of and ways of moving, but there is always movement of one kind or another, even just the breath and how it moves the chest and back. Or the movement of the eyes. Or the the tongue as it tastes.)

Stand still. Less input, less sensation.

We know that to be still in the body during and/or right after a traumatic event is to get stuck in that moment. (Here for more on that.) The feelings of that moment are then not moved through… or we do not move through them.

This is not a one time thing, of course, and that’s why somatic movement — movement married to intention and awareness and breath — is needed every day in one way or another, because every day brings us more to move through.

This is even obvious in our language. We say we are “stuck,” meaning we can’t seem to “get over” something or move forward in our lives.

Move. More input, more sensation.

Go back to the cat and the water. We experience the world through external sensation entering our nervous systems via our senses.

Same for our emotional lives.

For example, we think we are “intuiting” something about someone else or a situation, but it’s just our senses capturing information so quickly that we don’t notice.

This is also related to your “gut feelings.” That’s your vagus nerve relaying information to you that you might not have noticed consciously.

Move to feel to move.

We take in the world, our lives, the traumas, and then what? We can lock them up and let them gather dust and mold or we can move to feel them fully so that we might move more.

And here is the beauty of somatic dance: we can do all of this with joy in community. (You can check out the basic parts of a Peony Somatic Dance class here.) And over time, we can build our capacity to go through the cycles quicker. This is not so we can develop a method of bypassing. Not at all.

This is a spiritual practice of the most real variety: we honestly look at ourselves and our experiences and we digest them and use that digested material to build the life we really want — rather than the life that just happens to us.

The problem of dissociation when "listening to the body"

When the body doesn’t feel safe

The ground of Peony Somatic Dance is breathe and wait. We focus on the breath first to drop into the now and center, and then we patiently listen for or pay attention to the messages of the body. Following that, honest expression can emerge.

But what if when we breathe and attempt to pay attention to the body, we simply can’t?

What if we have a history of dissociation and that is still triggered?

What if it just feels scary to enter the body in this way?

All of these things can drive us away from something like a somatic dance practice. It can keep us from simple exercise. It can prevent us from truly enjoying the sensual aspects of life, because the body does not feel like a safe space.

How do we develop the body as safe space without creating more shutdown and numbness?

How to deal with dissociatioN during movement

There are a bunch of ways to deal with this issue that are more gentle. Over time you can progress through them, but remember, it’s not a ladder. It’s a spiral.

It’s not a simple ladder because if we’ve had a lifetime of dissociative disorder, I don’t think it’s ever just gone. Extreme stress or vile political administrations can certainly bring it back. It’s so deeply embedded in our neurobiology and our body/mind revert to the oldest coping mechanisms because they’re the most “practiced.”

So these new somatic practices are never one and done.

All of this is also why it’s important to work with someone with deep experience. I can tell when a student is distressed even if they aren’t obviously freaking out, for example, and I have a tool box the size of a castle that I can pull from until we find the thing that helps or soothes, whatever is needed.

Peony Somatic Dance methods of the gentle variety

This is just s small example of the tools I would pull from, but it might give you an idea of where to start. (You could also take a class with me, of course, online if you’re not local to Columbus, OH, or you can contact me about possible one on one work if you don’t feel like you’re ready for a class.)

So here are some possible ways of approaching a body that is not feeling safe:

Put all of your attention on your environment. Externalize your awareness. You could put on some music and start to identify items in your space. If you’re alone, you could do this out loud. “Chair, photo, clock” etc. You could add lots of detail if that felt good. As you’re doing this, allow movement to happen but keep your attention outside of the body and the movement.

Touch and name your bodyparts as you move. This is exactly what it sounds like. Moving your right hand? Touch it with your left and say to yourself, this is my right hand.

Attention to body boundaries. Just notice where your body begins and the space outside of you starts. This could be as simple as focusing your movement in your feet and feeling the floor. Or you could get on the floor and move around gently, feeling the feedback from the floor into your body parts. There are a lot of other ways to get this same feedback but moving on…

Place your attention on another body. This is best done led in a class or you can do it with a loved one at home. You can try mirror movement: each of you taking a turn to lead. Keep things really simple. Another option is to start with super simple contact improv like you see in the photo above or as seen here.

Again, there are so many ways to deal with dissociation even when it can feel a bit scary. (And again, experienced guides are so very necessary.)

Let me know if you have any questions or insights!

Creating softness to do the challenging things

If you’ve been in class with me, you know we end with a “show me.” I observe as you allow your body to express what needs to be expressed. The whole class leads to this moment of deep honesty, and it can be revealing in unexpected ways. Truths can be felt and seen by both the movers and the observer.

Sometimes it’s just a bit of relief in beginning to access some larger truths that will take longer to allow. But sometimes these moments are full of big ideas and revelations that lead all of us to say AH-HA!

These moments can be profoundly impactful. They can be those sorts of “turn on a dime” life changing, mind changing eurekas.

This week during one of my online Peony classes, something of that big sort was revealed.

I was watching Linda Soto move. She started with soft, water like movement that felt soothing even just to observe. The energy was safe and felt healing.

This went on for a few minutes until suddenly she broke into childlike playful movement that was full of joy and strength.

AH-HA! Right?

It struck me how much we want to go right for that latter sort of movement — whether on the dance floor or in our lives — without first taking care of ourselves.

It struck me how childlike wonder, awe, curiosity, playfulness, and joy really need safety in order to emerge. That childlike part of you needs to know it’s okay to come out, that there will be no judgment, that there will be no harshness of any kind.

But often, even when we’re doing these somatic dance practices that are meant to bring us to our own original totality, we go at them so hard. We try so hard. We work so hard.

If we’re not trying and working hard, we might even feel like we’re “lazy” or “not deserving.” Old stories overcome our original loving intentions.

The reality is that we deserve to be safe. We deserve to feel safe. We deserve communities that are safe for this work.

The child in us who might not have gotten enough of that safety deserves it from us now.

So let’s practice — in all things — first creating softness and offering a soothing environment — and then like I always say, breathing and waiting and allowing.

What part of you life can you imagine playing with this idea in? Where will you take it first?