Medicine Dance: The Journey

PREPARATION: Please bring a journal/paper, a pen, and water.

Cost: $40 advanced registration | $45 day of

We begin with Soul Dance dance and then move into a guided process created by Allison called Emotion in Motion- where the individual and the collective meet. We move and dance our ancestral and our now, our epigenetic inheritance, the ones we want to keep and the ones we want to unhook from. We move and dance our grief and our joy, our uncertainty and what we know in our bones.

The Dance is a path back into the wisdom of our bodies. It is a movement language and framework that recognizes the body holds memories, emotions, and experiences that can be accessed and processed through body awareness, movement, expression and communal connection in a trauma-informed container.

Through the dance we can move into concealed spaces, honoring and acknowledging all of our parts- to know and befriend them all. To welcome our parts out of exile and into new patterns and forms of expression and relating, that allow us to become the humans made for these times.

A guided improvisational movement practice that engages somatic awareness to facilitate personal growth, emotional well-being, and collective healing. Welcoming participants of all experience levels, bodies and identities. We dance to release stored tension, emotions and patterns. We dance to integrate our experiences and we dance to remember who we really are.

We enter in a cycle of movement that begins slow, builds in intensity, peaks, lightens, and then settles. Through verbal instructions, participants are invited to explore, in their own bodies way – a variety of movement patterns, physical inquiries, and focal points. The journey is curated to an intentional and eclectic world music soundscape. It is a journey where you might sweat (though you are always in control of your rhythm and pace)

We will engage in somatic practices to slow down, regulate our emotional, physical and mental landscapes and welcome balance, calm and deeper knowing. The Journey is a tool to help us navigate stress, anxiety, uncertainty and fear, while also celebrating life. It is an experience to come back HOME again and again to that which is real, that which is now and that which is eternal.

We will land and anchor with meditation and visualization, followed by our closing circle.

What is the legacy of the genre/form/style you are teaching?

Soul Dance and Emotion in Motion will be the primary movement part of the process. We will engage somatic practices and meditation to slow down, land and anchor.

What background, training, and or relationship do you have with this style/technique/class subject?

At the confluence of decades immersed in study, training, professional and personal experience, Allison developed Emotion-in-Motion as a process for creating her work. Allison is deeply influenced by early artistic years working at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Double Edge Theatre, dozens of theatre and dance artists in NYC and encountering the work of Pina Bausch. The work is visceral, raw and moves between the highly artistic to the simple and profound. With over 26 years as a theatre director, collaborative choreographer, somatic therapist and Historical trauma specialist, Allison aims to assist artists, creatives and all humans- in landing in their fullest most authentic expression. Allison is a somatic therapist and the creator of Soul Dance and Emotion in Motion, out of twenty-five years of study, training, and practice in the performing and healing arts. In her role as the National Healing & Wellness Practitioner for the Joyful Heart Foundation, she developed and led programs, workshops, and therapeutic retreats for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse—as well as for the healers working on the frontlines of trauma. She was the Founder of Creative Seeds, a non-profit organization, which focused on working with communities through creative arts immersion projects and initiatives in both South Africa and the United States.

Certifications include Trauma Resiliency Model, Yoga for Trauma, Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapist, Historical Trauma Specialist. She holds a Master’s Degree in Theatre with a focus on addressing Historical Trauma and Collective Healing.

Allison was named one of the 2015 United States Presidential Scholars’ most influential teachers by the United States Secretary Department of Education. She served as the Department Head of Movement, Dance, and Devising, where she also taught movement at the Professional Performing Arts School of New York City. She is a Theater Director and has directed at numerous theaters in New York City, regionally, and internationally. She received mentorship as an Assistant Director at the Steppenwolf Theatre. She was an ongoing Resident Director with New York University’s First Look Theatre Company, a member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors’ Lab, and a 2004 SSDC Traube Fellowship nominee. Allison has studied, trained, certified, practiced, and walked many paths and methodologies in the creative arts, mental health, and spiritual realms.

Finish this statement: I am passionate about teaching this style because…

…It is one of the most life-giving, life-affirming, connective practices I have ever engaged in!

How can students learn more about this offering?
Website: allisontalis.com

Contact Information
Contact:
allisontalis@gmail.com