Workshop with Mélanie Jolly
This workshop will introduce experiences from Eutony Gerda Alexander®. Indeed, when I discovered eutony, I found it shared many principles with Contact Improvisation : gravity, the skeleton, the relationship through touch… And above all, Gerda Alexander defined a principle “Contact” ! For her, contact is different from touch. Touch gives us information about ourselves and the surrounding environment. Contact is widening the attention from the sensations towards the outside. However, Contact Improvisation explores precisely this double direction of touch : to perceive oneself and the other through the encounter.
In my workshop, we will dance a lot with closed eyes. We will mainly explore the information received through touch and skin. At first, touch will allow us to strengthen our presence to our own body. Starting from this presence to ourselves, we will be ready to widen our attention towards our partners, and develop our ability to perceive their position, tone, movement. And then, beyond the encounter through touch, explorations with closed eyes will allow us to feel the whole space of the room and further. We will widen our attention to the maximum and feel the effects on ourselves, sensation-wise. Then, we will refine the perception of our partner through looking, in order to make proposals to support them in their movement : to read the other’s body, then propose but not impose.
Gerda Alexander® Eutony is a practice aimed at accompanying everyone in a relationship with themselves and their body, through an attention to body sensations, in relation to the environment and to the others. The word eutony means the search for a balanced tone, that is flexible and available in order to live as adequately as possible to all the experiences of everyday life. It is both a therapeutic practice and a tool for developing freedom of movement and creativity.
