Yo-Yo Lin & Lara Marcin
- What is dance and how can we access it with the bodies we own?
- How does illness, cultural identity, and personal narrative generate unique movement?
- Can we create ownership over our bodies and minds on our own terms?
- How does ableism affect all of us (and not just people with disability?)
This movement workshop is designed to create space to discuss our relationship to illness, trauma, and care through the art-form of dance. From writing, to group sharing, to personalized movement exploration, this workshop aims to equip our bodies and minds with initial tools for deeper self-awareness and artistic expression. Driven by the ideas of intersectional disability artistry, this workshop is particularly interested in allowing participants to create movement informed by their unique relationships to illness, personal narrative, and cultural identity. This beginner-friendly class is specifically built for those who have not worked with movement/dance before.
Age range: 15 and up. Everyone who is curious about movement.
Number of total hours the unit will take in a typical workshop session(s). Please try to take into account transition time between instruction and hands on exercises if any prep is necessary.
Break down of the class schedule:
- 10:30-12:00 SECTION 1
- 0:12 Access points, introductions, overview
- 0:08 Meditation
- 0:30 Workshop purpose, vocabulary, experience sharing
- 1:10 Warm-up, Movement Share, Movement Exercises
- 12:00- 1:30 PM Lunch
- 1:30-3:30 SECTION 2
- 0:15 Disability dance introduction
- 0:10 Resilience Journal introduction
- 0:50 Journaling + active-listening exercise (Holding space for others)
- 0:35 Generative Movement (Holding space for ourselves)
- 0:10 Wrap-up reflection and next steps
- Paper + pencils
- Yoga mats
- Pillows to sit on
- Projector + dongle
- Speakers for music + dongle to iPhone
- Chairs for those who want to sit and do movement
- Lots of empty space to move around
- Non-concrete, non-tile flooring
OPTIONAL: If students are familiar with any dance styles or moves, they can come prepared with one of the following to share with the class:
- A) 1 or 2 moves from a dance style. Students should prepare the title of a song or a little background of what that the dance style is connected to. They should have a method of how they’ll teach the rest of the class about the dance style and how to perform the dance move.
- Or
- B) A dance move that isn’t a part of a particular dance style but is or has been popular at some point and is recognizable as a unique dance move. The title of a song or background info on what the dance move is connected to. A method of how they’ll teach the rest of the class about the dance move’s origin and how to perform it.
- Generative movement: a type of movement that is uniquely generated, or created, from the bodymind in which it came from. As opposed to adapted or translated movements created from other bodyminds.
- Bodymind: an approach to understand the relationship between the human body and mind in which they are seen as a single integrated unit. It attempts to address the mind–body problem and resists the Western traditions of mind–body dualism. The term bodymind is also typically seen and encountered in disability studies, referring to the intricate and often times inseparable relationship between the body and the mind, and how these two units might act as one.
- Holding space: a conscious act of being present, open, allowing, and unconditionally supportive of what (you or) someone needs in each moment without judging or trying to fix them.
- Trauma: Trauma is an unprocessed emotional experience. It affects the mind and the body and can physically change our brains and nervous system response. Trauma is a fact of being alive and manifests differently and at different intensities with each person. Trauma exists at a personal level but also often can be traced back generationally and is linked to race, class, gender identity among other social identities.
- Care: the process of providing for the needs of someone or something; or serious attention, especially to the details of a situation or a piece of work.
- Soft Data: data as human intelligence full of opinions, suggestions, interpretations, contradictions and uncertainties; qualitative data.
- Hard Data: data that relies on numbers or facts that can be proved; quantifiable data.
- Ableism: Ableism is an anti-black system that assigns value based on the ability to produce profit, excel, and behave and enforces a false sense of normalcy (as defined by Dustin Gibson, Harriet Tubman Collective); can also be a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or the other. Ableism can be experienced by anyone, not just disabled, and is often interconnected with racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and homophobia.
- Disabled: (of a person) having a physical or mental condition that limits movements, senses, or activities- a political and social identification.
- Nondisabled: (of a person) not disabled- a political and social identification.
- Chronically Ill: (of a person) having a chronic illness, similar to disabled but uses impairment as a means of identification, can fall under the umbrella of ‘Disabled.’
- Impairment: any abnormality of a body part, organ, or system- a term derived from the medical system.
- SECTION 1 10:00- 12:00 pm
- :12 Entry
One-sentence overview of the class. Access check-in of voice volume, bathroom location, opportunity for pauses and leaving for the bathroom at any time, and asking for an opt-in for touch help during dance exercises.
- :8 Meditation
5-minute guided meditation.
- :30 Introduction + Creating the safer space
Share in more detail the workshop’s purpose and relevant vocabulary.
Teachers share their experiences related to disability and dance.
We go around the room and share: Intro- Name, Pronouns, What is your relationship to movement? What is top of mind for you today?
- 1:10 Movement Exercises
Warm up the body with various guided exercises. Students learn a handful of moves from different styles, first understanding their traditional technique then exploring ways to evolve them. *Here, students could present moves from different dance styles themselves, if they chose to do the “before class” work or are prepared to teach on the spot.
Breaking down what is commonly known of ‘dance’, considering how styles come about.
Students create miniature pieces of choreography using the dance moves they just learned and evolving them to whatever degree they want to.
Option to explore other choreography approaches, e.g. making a story or having choreography come through channeling music through your body organically.
- LUNCH BREAK
- SECTION 2 1:30- 3:30 pm
- 0:15 Looking at dance through a disability lens
Show video and photo examples of disabled dancers and how they explore dance. Jerron Herman, Keke Brown, Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson.
- 0:10 Resilience Journal
Introduce the journal’s structure and qualitative way of looking at data.
- 0:50 Holding space for each other
Students take some time to journal what they think are the qualitative aspects that make up their lived experience. These can be things students are proud of or are struggling with– students are encouraged to be honest and write down things that are typically overlooked and often not considered.
Students share what they wrote in partners in an active listening exercise.
Recap of Journal’s purpose.
- 0:35 Holding space for ourselves through dance (Generative movement exercises).
Introduce Movement Ritual into Journaling. Students reflect on how their daily posture and movement are affected by their personal narratives.
Students are led through a generative movement exercise series in which they use what they wrote to create movement. When you are proud of yourself, what kinds of movements can you do? When you are struggling with something, what kinds of movements can you do to heal or cope? What does movement for something in-between look like?
- :10 Wrap-up reflection and next steps
Ask students what they learned about themselves, disability and/or dance during the class.]
[Ask students one way in which they were challenged, one thing they accomplished, and one thing they’ll bring with them into the disability and/or dance space in the future.
- Students will each receive:
- Resilience Journals
- Movement Ritual Insert
- Students are encouraged to keep writing/ journaling and exploring movement with their bodyminds as a form of creative expression, self-healing, and self-discovery.
Vocabulary words are defined by online dictionary sources and individual research.