Category Archives: wellbeing

Shoulders & hips & shaking off ‘shoulds’

@heart&hands, free sessions, video, wellbeing

This Thursday’s Dancing for Wellbeing* focus is on moving shoulders & hips, shaking off the ‘shoulds’ we demand of ourselves, and playing with switching between different speeds.

Butoh dance theatre artist Michael Sakamoto and Thai dancer Waewdao Sirisook performed a delightful show yesterday at the Phoenix Theatre. Here’s a video of Michael’s work-in-progress duet “Flash” with hip hop choreographer-dancer Rennie Harris. If you’re short on time, you could start the video at 2:21 for a fun word-associations section, 3:45 for changing speeds into hardcore punk song; 8:23 for ending duet.

*This week’s Intro to Dancing for Wellbeing workshop is free if it’s your first time. Thurs. March 27 at 7:30pm at 851 Cormorant Street, drop-ins welcome.

March themes

@heart&hands, dance games, improv, wellbeing

Upcoming Dancing for Wellbeing classes at Heart & Hands Health Collective:

Dance as Self-Care / Mutual-Care: Monday March 3 & Thursday March 6

Intersecting Movements & Sound: Thurs. March 13

Spring Dance Games: Thurs. March 20 *By donation

Intro to Dancing for Wellbeing: Thurs. March 27 *Free if it’s your first time

For details about sessions at Heart & Hands see creativemoment.im/dancing/heart/.

Also, there is an Art Invite this month: the top gift is a 12-month free pass to Dancing for Wellbeing sessions!

A bit of flocking

@heart&hands, improv, video, wellbeing
Photo of flock of birds flying through rainbow
Image borrowed from Israel Weiss

There is a common dance improvisation activity called Flocking, where people take turns leading the group’s movement. We’ll be doing a bit of flocking this Thursday.

There is a fun example in this video here (skip half-way through to witness an intergenerational flock, where the youngest member is followed as the leader for quite some time – usually in the activity there’s a new leader each time the group faces a different direction. Also, on Thursday our flocking won’t be for as long!)

103 years and dancing

community program, older adults, video, wellbeing

An 103-year-old person joined my dance class this morning & rocked it. (-:

…which made me realize the age range I have been mentioning is a bit young; so I have changed the About page to mention Creative Momentum offers dancing, not for “ages 4 to 94+”, but for “ages 4 to 104+.”

And from a video search for “103-year-old dancing” (altho not the same person as this morning): Mary does the Electric Slide.

Dancing Gift Cards!

@heart&hands, wellbeing

Please be in touch if you would like to gift classes to yourself or someone else.

There is a 4-class winter gift card for $50, or gift certificates are available for however many classes you would like. The 4-class winter gift card means 6 hours of Dancing for Wellbeing (Thursdays) / Dancing Creatively (Mondays) at Heart & Hands Health Collective. (A friend suggested, for comparison, that $50 is equivalent to one visit to a chiropractor, or to less than an hour of massage or counseling).

Dance Games Night!

@heart&hands, dance games, wellbeing

The next Dance Games session is Thursday November 21 at 7:30pm!

Participants have mentioned finding the games fun, exhilarating and playful, with the side-effect of being a great work-out.

There are a whole bunch of possible movement games we can play, and we take turns picking the next game out of a container. Photo of Scrabble game letters spelling: Dance Games Night. Improvize. Community.Games are adapted for the people present. A few examples: a dancing version of Go, go, go, Stop, Movement Bingo, slow-motion dance tag, and embodied rock-paper-scissors. We might also use letters from Scrabble to come up with words to include in our dancing. People are welcome to suggest games, too!

Click here for details about the location, how to register, accessibility details, and other Thursday Dance for Wellbeing sessions.

Recent Dance Games sessions: Thursdays Sept. 19, May 30, April 25 and March 28 at Heart & Hands Health Collective; Monday April 8 in the park by Fernwood Community Centre. Dance Games sessions work well both indoors and outdoors at wheelchair- and mobility-accessible spaces.

Log-off and Dance

@heart&hands, wellbeing

Log-off & Dance is the theme of the Thursday November 7 Dance for Wellbeing session at Heart & Hands, 7:30pm.

Spending time on computers, social media, and mobile gadgets can encourage us to disconnect from our bodies and our selves; sitting tense and fixated for hours upon hours can really impact our lives.

The 'Esc' (Escape) key running away from a keyboard.
The Escape key fleeing the computer… Image borrowed from http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/he-finally-did-it/

In this session we’ll use terms from common technology as spurs for dance improvisation – playing with humour, games, and reflection. (A few examples: giving an elaborate thumbs-up to ‘Like’ an activity; ‘tagging’; ‘status updates’ charades; improvising to the rhythm of texting; and creating a few variations of ‘It’s time for me to log-off’ dances.)

…If we invite techno-words to filter into our dancing, perhaps we’ll find that dancing and movement become part of how we use gadgets!

Click here for details about the Thursday Dance for Wellbeing sessions, the location, how to register, and accessibility details.