Strata 2024

Strata - Autobiographical Movement

Strata: The Process Lens

22nd - 27th June, 2024 - Stonebarrow & Wootton Fitzpaine, Dorset

For anyone wanting a sustained period of time to attend to their own movement practice as a resource for professional and personal development.

Select a theme or narrative that is present in your life, move with it and explore it in different surroundings.

Stimulated by the beautiful Jurassic Coast (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and the geological and historical strata of the area around Golden Cap and Stonebarrow Hill with its hilltop, woods, valleys, clifftop ledges and rocky shoreline, this workshop offers the chance to slow down, move, breathe and become aware of the particular song, resonances and echoes of your inner life as you move in different environments.

At the end of the workshop, you will be invited to create and share a short movement piece of your choice to help you to crystallise your experience and to be witnessed by the others. By attending to your process in this way and through the support of witnesses, congruent creativity emerges and changes are affirmed.

Strata is an opportunity, through the art and practice of movement, to get a new perspective on the stories you tell yourself about yourself.

Take six days to be curious about your ever-changing self, to interrupt habits, to receive feedback, to appreciate the sheer joy of movement, to embrace the unknown and to allow creativity to emerge from your life experiences.

Through movement scores and simple activities you will:

Stop. Feel your position. Relax. Move following the sensations of your body.
Experiment with different lines, angles and points of view.
Play with proportion and perspective.
Learn to commit to a movement for as long as it takes.
Receive impressions and initiate actions through movement: movement reading.
Practise noticing what you notice and giving it value -- the particular qualities, textures, landscapes and movements that hold meaning for you.
Play with balance and off-balance.
Find the ever-shifting threshold between spontaneity and awareness.
Become aware of yourself as part of your composition in movement. You are a part of life’s movements.
Experiment with new rhythms and sounds in movement.
Exercise somatic awareness .
Become aware of the muscle of atmosphere.
Be in a condition of witnessing, feeling, listening and moving.
Becoming your own guide/an involved witness through this creative process.

The workshop (nearly all outdoors) is open to adults of all ages. You don’t need any experience of Move into Life work to attend this workshop. The landscape we work in does call for a certain degree of mobility - contact me if you have any questions about this.

"The degree of stimulus and the depth of reflective-ness I am left with after the completion of the workshop is testimony to the exquisite quality and richness of the work. I can sincerely say I find this work transformational."

Charmouth Beach

Stonebarrow and Golden Cap

Participant feedback

"Moving in nature seems to awaken my senses in a way I rarely experience indoors. My sense of sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing are involved. As are my body sensations and movement and my emotions and thoughts. All are congruous, alive, open and responsive to the moment by moment changes that are occurring in me and in the environment. I feel a deep sense of inter-being with my environment."

Costs and Booking

Cost: £390 (excluding accommodation)
To keep costs down, I have provisionally booked 2 cottages for this course. If you are interested in securing a place, both on the course and in a shared or single room in a cottage, you must let me know before 23rd October, 2023. After that I need to let go of the cottages and you will be responsible for your own accommodation. A shared room in a shared cottage will reduce your expenses considerably.

Other Accommodation: See the Charmouth village website or TripAdvisor.

Book your place and pay a £50 deposit.
Click 'Buy Now' to pay by credit/debit card or Paypal.

Your booking is secured with a £50 deposit (non-refundable if you cancel).
If the workshop is cancelled for any reason, any payment you have made will be refunded in full.
You will be asked to pay the balance by bank transfer or in cash at the workshop.