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Prototechnique at Ponderosa Stolzenhagen. Photo from Video by Andrea Keiz

Discovering The Fish Body

In the 3.5 billion year tale of human evolution, it is from our fish ancestors that we and our entire extended vertebrate family inherit our spinally organised head-tail structure.

Legs arrived much later, and in some sense their function is simply to get the earth out of the way so that our spines can move as they did in the oceans in which they first evolved. Our arms arrived later still.

From this evolutionary perspective, the “fish body” represents our vital core while our legs and arms are the parts of ourselves that mediate with and enable us to navigate through our terrestrial world.

This work supports a growing embodied understanding of the structure and movement potential of the head and torso, parts of ourselves that so often manifest aches and pains which seem to have no specific cause.

Attending to the “fish body” can create a feeling of core stability and spaciousness that enhances our sense of vitality in everything that we do.

I offer this workshop in two forms. For dancers in my Proto-technique class and for every body in BodySchool. The material is the same though the way it is presented is slightly different. Anyone is welcome at either.

In BodySchool the classes tend to be organised in a weekend workshop format, there is more time for dialogue and not all classes end in dancing. Dancers who know my work often attend the BodySchool workshops.

In the Proto-technique dance class version then they tend to be presented as a daily morning class series with less time for dialogue and more time given to exploring movement through dancing at the end. Because everyone works alone in the classes then they are suitable for anyone to join.

Upcoming BodySchool Workshops