Metaphors & Images:

Cell – 70 % water – liquid body – Ketchup bottle shake – floating, pouring, letting go – Cellular Breathing (Oxygen to lungs, heart, cells) – Water Drops uniting being moved, rising and falling – Puppeteer - letting go of the arms (partner work help) – Water Bottle rolling on the ground (heaviness onto the ground, lightness towards the sky) – 3 water bags along the spine (head, torso, pelvis) – Free Dancing in 3D (improvising with all the images available and bodies available in the space)

Cell layers – Introduction to layers: Endoderm, Mesoderm, Ectoderm – Working with Ectoderm (nervous system & skin) – Feet & Hand touch, layers of the feet (skin, muscle, bone) – Dance to integrate both sides & feeling the skin of all the body (as if skin pores are all eyes – seeing with all the eyes as we dance) – Looking at images of  C curve of the spine and the brain – Warming up, curving the spine in 3 planes (front,back/side bendings/rotations)– Breathing exercise to feel all chambers of the Lungs (breathing exercise image attached) and 360 degrees of our body – C-star dance – Partner work : holding the head and feeling the cranial rhythm of the nervous system into a head-tail dance as the partner keeps holding the two ends of the spine – Free spine dance with the partner and the whole room

Cell layers – Working with Mesoderm (muscle and bones) – Back massage with a partner (relaxing muscles next to the spine) – Spine meditation sitting on a clock (Ondulations between 12-6, 1-7, 2-8, 3-9… opening more space in between vertebras) – Dancing with the ondulations adding the arms and legs (imagining that the arms and legs branch out like tree branches out from the spine) – Partner work : Fingers – Shoulder correspondances (from Alexander Technique) – Hand dance into the space (Hands/fingers informing the shoulder/scapula, shoulder informing the spine and the whole torso and the body and vice versa + puppeteer image to help loosen the joints) – Watching the bone biology video (soft alive bones) – Playing with pencils as tactile metaphor for bones – Bone massage dance on and off the floor – Shaking of the clasped hands and jaw – Pam pam beat for the bones

Cell layers – Working with Endoderm (organs) – Muscle movements review with Visible Body – Watching the Connective Tissue video – Warm-up : Meridian stretches for the organ pairs – Laying in Constructive Rest to do Organ relaxation and choosing of an organ to dance from – Dancing of the chosen Organ – Eyes closed/Eyes open – 3 different focuses (inner focus, one pointed focus, peripheral focus) – Being born (shouting and jumping and running out of the door) – Transitioning with drawing and writing & sharing – Developmental Movement Patterns (sucking, hearing, seeing – movements of the spine and turning this search into a baby dance on the floor) – Watching “baby roll” film

Whole body experience – Baby movements into Walking – Watching “baby crowl” – Warm-up dance on the floor copying/remembering the baby moves (support from the ground, freeing one limb as others ground to the floor, triangles of the knees, support of forearms, raising the center off the floor + images of water fluidity, rolling soft bones, connective tissue stretching…) – Partner work : pulling and rotating limbs to turn the partner over (movement in 3 planes, vertical pull, horizontal shift and rotation to the side you are shifting) – Spiral rolls alone along the floor – Integrating spirals into the dance on and off the floor (remembering hand shoulder connections, finding feet rotations into the space) – Parnter work : copying walking of each other – Looking at the dynamics of walking : 1- push with toes (head moves up and down) 2- legs close to each other (hip distance apart – heels below sitting bones) 3- steps not to large not to small (touching the gluteal muscles and feeling their contraction/activation) 4-moving shoulders (cross arm-leg : left hand reaching right knee) 5- focus on horizon (no constriction at the back of the head neither looking down : remember rabit ears : image attached) – Walking with these 5 dynamics – Using these 5 dynamics as we dance (turning on the toe roots, looking at the horizon as if you are a deer in the forest, shoulders and hips + knees dancing to each other…) – Partner work : Skinner Release Partner Graphics (brushing the back of the knees, skull strings pulling up to the sky, tapping below the clavicule bone to the sides, tapping down the shoulder blade to the sacrum, brushing down the ribs, reminding the 3 spheres : head- down from forehead, up from the back, ribs- down from the sternum, up from the back, pelvis- up from the front along the ilium bone, down from the back) – Dancing with these graphics for your partner –  Final dance with Everybody Knows… 

See you next year! Flowers, chocolates and farewell photo :-) 

Music:

Daler Mehndi – Tunak Tunak Tun : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTIIMJ9tUc8

Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Vrioon : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYeP8a_Y_0A

René Aubry – Dolce vita : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw4rXDz-O40

René Aubry – La grande cascade : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqh1wmU_bqk 

Koop – Koop Island Blues : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W3MpOU3OUU

The Necks – Sex : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaTyHFo3kns

Nagwa – Kites : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_WlEzOh2pA

Nagwa – Cariocala : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pbqXOzV4PM&list=PLGBI6Q1lK253M62xKH_PDFzeFbivr6vRF

Nagwa – Nava : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDK79KTECrQ

Bill Evans – Explorations - Beautiful love 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ublElNAvD1Q 

Rush – Roll the bones : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tNLvNOu9Mw

Anouar Brahem Trio – Astrakan Café : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNJUBnUQylE

Anouar Brahem – Qaws : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwtKMaBpTGA

Anouar Brahem – Ashen Sky : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNJUBnUQylE

Miles Davis – Tune up – When lights are low : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqnXl7wMINo

Bill Evans – Explorations  - whole album : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJwQv0gMTjo 

Leonard Cohen – Everybody knows : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IfmiKnZi3E

References:

Books:

- The Muscle Book by Paul Blakey, Himalayan Institute Press

- Body Stories - A Guide to Experiential Anatomy by Andrea Olsen, Station Hill Press

- Sensing Feeling and Action - The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Contact Editions

- Wisdom of the Body Moving: An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering by Linda Hartley, North Atlantic Books

- Anatomy coloring Book by Wynn Kapit & Lawrence M. Elson 

- The Axis Syllabus – Lexicon of Human Movement Principles by Frey Faust

- Human Anatomy and Physiology, Schaum's Easy Outlines by Kent Van De Graff & R.Ward Rhees.

- The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio, Vintage

Websites:

Malcolm Manning’s website & booklist: http://movetolearn.com/wordpress_2016/index.php/booklist

Constructive Rest: http://alexandertechnique.com/constructiverest

Organ times: http://naturopathicbynature.com/traditional-chinese-medicine-organ-times

Organ food: http://www.celestialhealing.net/internalhealth/foods_look_like_body_parts.htm 

Meridian Organ Stretches from Anja Gallagher:

WHAT IS A MERIDIAN - and why does it matter for dance class?

The human body does not only have a complex net of blood vessels, but also a set of pathways along which the vital energy is said to flow. We call them Meridians, they exist in 6 pairs and we can look at them as energy highways through which  our vital essence Qi (Vital energy) blood and body fluids are transported around the body. It can be seen as a network through which the body and its organs communicate and are connected. Each meridian has many acupuncture points along its path.

Each meridian is connected to an organ, which is the physical manifestation of the meridian. The stomach meridian for instance, is connected to the stomach and holds / distributes its energy into the entire body and mind. It works in partnership with another meridian, the Spleen. So the 6 meridian stretches are designed to access all 12 meridians (or hence 6 meridian pairs).

Stretch 1: lung and large intestine – standing forward bend – thumbs interlaced

Stretch 2: stomach and spleen – camel pose like back bend

Stretch 3: heart and small intestine – butterfly pose like elbows up

Stretch 4: kidney and bladder – straight legs sitting forward bend

Stretch 5: heart governor and triple heater – right leg over left leg, right arm over left arm sitting forward bend, cross over 

Stretch 6: liver and gallbladder – sitting open legs side and forward bends

Makes sure you do them in this order - the sequence represents the flow of energy in the meridians.

(For a demonstration by Anja Gallagher you can check http://www.idocde.net/tutors/1716)

Films:

Living Fascia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSXpX4wyoY8

Introduction to Bone Biology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inqWoakkiTc

Baby rolling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ko7U1pLlg

Baby crawling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14gWirURq6I

Leg muscles during walking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ObNnCTV6MY