Photo Credit: Fabio Flecha, Dancers: Lizz Roman and Maica Folch | |
Hello Nita,
This is a BIG month for me and I am excited!
I am heading to Europe!
And – I am starting a NEW – 6 Month Composing Emergence Mentorship – please check it out! We will meet every 3rd Monday for a 3 hour online voyage which will include break time. Only 6 places remain, so if you are interested, please act swiftly.
| Photo Credit: Katie Hofius | |
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Composing Emergence - 6 Month Mentorship
Limited capacity, register today!
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On a personal note...
I return to touring in Europe through the spring and into summer. I will initially be in Bristol, where I have a home base with darling friends who welcome me as family. Silvia Carderelli Gronau is the director of the Bristol ISSC, (Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication) which has paused due to the pandemic. I met Silvia in Brazil at a Contact Festival and she saved my life after I contracted Dengue Fever. I just needed someplace safe to go – it turned out to be her gorgeous pousada on Ilhabela.
I will teach 3 days at Spazio Nu in Tuscany, Italy early in May (we will be hosted by dear friends Flo and Massimo) – good food, good dancing and lots of time to get to know one another. Later, I will find my way down to Devon, UK for a robust workshop (hosted by amazing dancer friends Malaika and Richard Sarco-Thomas and Minou Polleros). Also, just developing now is a Contact Improv lecture/possible class in London, hosted by my buddy Colleen Bartley (London Contact Improvisation Group). Please stand by for actual dates to all these gigs. I end May with an important weekend workshop on Somatic Communication for Ensemble Dancing at Independent Dance in London! At ID we will dig deep into what this work all means practically speaking! It is already filling so jump on it now!
June will find me heading north to meet Charlie Morrissey in Yorkshire at Wainsgate Dance (which looks amazing) and give a 2 day workshop. Then, I will find my way to Berlin, June 6-8 for a 3 day workshop on Touch, Communication and Contact at Akademie Somatische (Rosalind Holgate Smith is our contact) and also I will give classes and a lecture for Movement Artisans with Kira Kirsch and Antoine Ragot in their Axis Syllabus training program – the Lecture will be public!
Lastly, I will be giving a keynote lecture and masterclass at the Sentient Performativities conference sponsored by art.earth at Dartington College on June 26 and 27. It will be called “DEAD or ALIVE: An Argument for Embodied Imagination and why it matters)”. I am writing it now and (oh, my!) it’s “no holds barred"! Very exciting. There will be a workshop following that I simply call, “How.” Stuff is moving around still, so please keep track of my schedule on my website. July I will be back in the USA but still touring!
Online, I continue with RelatIonal Intelligence, teach in Poland and also for the Jacksonville University (Florida) Masters Program. I teach and give a panel live at Critical Mass: CI50, Oberlin College. Whew!
| Relational Intelligence - A digital course offering | |
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This e-course offers access to 12 classes with Nita Little guiding investigations through movement scores that organize attention and articulate our physical presence, featuring live accompaniment by Neil Alexander. The participant can access each session asynchronously and based on their own schedule & timezone.
This course comes with a follow-along booklet that supports the depth of your understanding within each section of the course – be sure to read it. After joining, you are invited into a monthly UnPack class where you can meet with Nita and bring your questions, insights and engage in discussion.
Available for pre-sale May 1st - Stay Tuned!
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Renowned psychologist James Hillman celebrates his colleague, Henry Corbin, in his text, The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World, by saying that because of Corbin we know “that the thought of the heart is the thought of images, that the heart is the seat of imagination, that imagination is the authentic voice of the heart, so that if we speak from the heart we maginatively.” He describes how, “In him [Corbin], imagination was utterly presence. One was in the presence of imagination itself, that imagination in which and by which the spirit moves from the heart toward all origination.” This voice is the means by which the heart engages its thinking.
In Relational Intelligence we dance to invoke this heart language which arises in the tonal feelings of our relations, bodily composed through movement. Dancing, it is there in the physicality of our conceiving, as well as in our visual, tactile and auditory imaginary. Our hearts in motion are so much more than mere action or exercise. To merely think about moving sets the heart activating the imagination*(see the next Aside). And so, aware of this voice, we practice it, we become stronger, we speak from hearts that carry us deep into the very soul of our relations. Relational Intelligence begins in the heart which frees the imagination to form our relations. Doing this, we feel the vitality of living, together touched by the very soul of being.
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Relational Intelligence
Note: I will continue to teach Relational Intelligence online through much of the tour, although there will need to be breaks. Right now, I will not teach on these dates: April 20, May 4, June 8, 15 or 29. I like to be as consistent as possible in keeping it going but travel and other gigs intervene. I will try to keep you informed as far in the future as possible about any changes.
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The imagination we are speaking of is not something additive to our experience, but rather something that is already embedded in it. It is a voice that we can choose to hear or not because it most often speaks softly and with such immediacy that it has already spoken if you are not already present.
When the heart is the size of our bodymind, this voice allows our physical form to speak clearly through the images that unfurl as feelings, tones, shapes, qualities, textures, rhythms, pressure, weight, pain, heat, mass and more. This voice is not a result of the heart moving, it is the heart moving. Is there movement that happens after the fact, as a response? Yes, when you are not living in this presence, then everything is in delay, and the voice of the heart is easily not heard but rather overridden by thinking that is in the head. How important it is for us to know our hearts, to have wisdom that begins there, where all relations are born!
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Before You Go...
I am a COACH! I offer one-on-one mentoring for your pursuits of all types; artistic, performance, professional, general, and more! I'd love to have a conversation with you to learn if coaching could be a good thing for you! Please follow the link below to start the conversation.
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