 
Workshops |
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Keywords:
Caregiver support, Communication, Education, Family, Humanities
& arts
In the
creative research project Heal Thyself - Caring Through Chaos,
caregivers frustrated by stuck family systems used artistic process to
test their assumptions and practices. They asked: Can families rendered
desperate by sickness create healthy homes? Can the creative spirit
survive the chaos of caregiving? For two years, they invaded each
other’s family lives to rigorously examine and play with the
care-giver-receiver relationship. It was a journey of vulnerability and
transparency. It transformed burden into blessing, and caregiving into
carepartnering. They found caregiving can be exhilarating, healing, a
creative workout - the greatest education. The process
produced: 1.
a stage production with explosive drama, surprising humour, and
breathtaking dance; 2. a documentary showing the transformation of
their homes; and 3. a series of workshops to help people in their own
journey of transformation. The project is
raising
public awareness of both the overwhelming chaos of caregiving and the
exquisite fun of caregiving - it raises awareness of the economic wisdom of
supporting caregivers, and elevates caregiving so people choose to be
caregivers and identify as caregivers in all they do. This
presentation about the project can serve as an introduction to the
workshops.
Caregiving as Theatre - Advancing Your Play Caregivers often find themselves playing a role they don’t like in a script nobody likes.
As
directors of improv theatre, Imagiscape Theatre helps actors be aware of the possibilities and potential of the drama they are in. This
workshop is designed as
a model support group for caregivers who want to play their role with more confidence when ‘the curtain opens’ - every day. Experience home as a play you create with your family about your family. Become aware of the assumptions that drive your family systems - the stories you tell yourselves about yourselves, the models and metaphors that frame your thinking. Play with paradigms. Immerse in imagination – and put new possibilities to the test. This process creates the context for collaborative
exploration. We ask: What needs to happen for there to be real change in these 'characters' lives?
From Creatures of Habit to Creators of Habits To change habits, welcome each day with the actor’s workout. Beyond going through motions, work the imagination and let imagination inspire movement – part routine, part improvisation. Playfully change the unconscious – grow in freedom from ‘automatic pilot’ through observing thought and speech and movement patterns, and trying on new identities.
Contact
Improv is a dance form for all abilities, in which partners share
weight and a dance emerges from the movement of the shared centre of
gravity. It reveals where we avoid, where we are stuck, where we
hold–– how our psyche is embodied–– “If I
don’t hold my self up, I’ll fall apart”. We learn to
trust new organizing principles. Participants practice mutually leading
and following, bearing weight and giving weight, organizing momentum,
‘managing collisions’, committing to actions yet letting go
of outcomes… Although the dance can fill a room with popping
aerials and rolling falls, it can be soft, slow and small. Injured
people come because it makes them feel complete. We may impose
constraints to induce discoveries, and destabilize to learn to
‘ground’ in any position. The dance elicits the spontaneous
expression of the body responding to touch, to destabilization, and to
feelings. Rather than clenching or rushing to get through discomfort,
we relax in the present, expanding our attention, dynamically moving
through fear. We expand into the point of contact, releasing tight
muscles. Discovering movement pathways, we develop neural pathways, and clarify
the somatosensory 'map'. We move through issues of intimacy,
power, dependency, boundaries, trust… We ask: Are our
'conversations' collective creations or stuck systems? Awkward moments
of vulnerability and powerful moments of virtuosity are equally rich.
Being meaningful and fun, participants are eager to practice. Contact
dance is both a movement therapy and a narrative therapy––
we rewrite what we know in our bodies – the stories we
tell ourselves about ourselves.
Keywords:
Education, Exercise, Neuroplasticity,
Physical therapy, Rehabilitation For all
abilities. To escape the burden of caregiving, enter it more deeply.
Imagiscape Theatre introduces a workshop for caregivers who wish to
discover meaning in the small acts of caregiving - to experience an
intimacy and microscopic beauty which much of the world cannot fathom.
The phenomenon of carepartnering creates the opportunity. Participants
are introduced to the fundamentals of a dance form called contact
improv, in which partners share weight flowing through a moving point
of contact and through each person's gravity centre, and create a dance
which emerges out of mutual listening. The dance reveals where we
avoid, where we are stuck, where we hold. The dance moves us through
our fears gracefully. As we move in new ways, we think in new ways. We
explore how our psyche is embodied - "If I don't hold my self together,
I'll fall apart" - and how we can trust new organizing principles. Participants practice
organizing momentum,
mutual leading and following, bearing weight and giving weight,
‘managing collisions’, committing to actions yet
letting go of the outcome, being in-the-moment ... ‘Being
present’ is the most difficult challenge. How can we converse
with a carepartner who can't speak? Are our 'conversations' collective
creations or stuck systems? Are we comfortable not knowing what will
happen next? How can we move from surface contact to soul contact?
Participants will take home an experience of a dance form that
transforms the way we build any relationship. It transforms caregiving
into carepartnering.
Keywords:
Active
living, Communication, Exercise,
Humour, Physical therapy If
your
family is a band, what kind of music does it play? If your home was set
to music, what would it sound like? Perhaps it is a set piece, with
relentlessly repeating patterns. Improvising musicians create change
together – establishing new rhythms, identifying and changing
keys, changing patterns, playing with staccato and legato, dissonance
and harmony, tension and resolution. This presentation introduces a workshop
that explores the questions: Can carepartnering be like
improvising music? Can home be experienced as a band - playing
together, in both freedom and unity? What if only one person wants to
play in the band? Playing in a variety of musical styles - from simple
3-chord rocking fun tunes to sophisticated syncopated or stately
compositions, as well as non-traditional sound - workshop participants learn musical games that can be
played in the home - games which can reframe the entire day.
Keywords:
Caregiver support, Interdisciplinary
education, Music therapy, Personal support worker, Recreation
The "technologies" of humour and imagination can liberate – from constraints and from global conflicts. Humour refuses to suffer the slings and arrows of reality. Can those of us not naturally gifted with humour grow it? Can you be in-the-moment when you’re in pain, or when you don’t know where or when or who you are? Humour is not wit – we create the conditions for humour by love. The Catastrophe Theory of Humour is this: we are set up to expect X, then Y upsets our constructs, and in the moment of insight, seeing the perspective from which Y makes sense, trapped energy is released into laughter. Humour is found in the gaps in our official stories: the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories culture teaches. Deconstructing our stories can be both catastrophic and liberating. Humour does not set up a new rule, but keeps life in play. Humour plays with our mental blocks. We know humour is important - but how can we find it in our chaos? The human species as a whole seems disabled. War games seem our only option. We can be Cain and Abel - together at last.
Keywords:
Disability, Education, Humour, For
therapists, clients and families: induce nerve sprouting and
integrate/streamline cognitive processes. Can 'mind'
integrate
while 'brain' disintegrates?
Metaphors integrate categories. Experience home as a play / a garden / a business / music / a dance you create with your family about your family. The different streams appeal to different people. Each layer adds richness to home life. Ultimately, all layers merge into one. Frustrated with repeat patterns, carepartners can be in the same room but not present - both retreat into internal monologues. So the self decays. A 're-minding workout', with integrated words and movement, rehearses the self, and integrates constellations of experience. Like performers seeing how many plates they can spin, see how many synapses you can fire in simultaneous networks. The 'workout' can also rewrite the self. Painful experiences, left without meaning, leave emotional wounds that may manifest in health problems. Move from constraining monologues to liberating dialogues. Play enables comprehensive stimulation, and brings a person into the fount of healing - "When I am wholly present, she is wholly present.” Alzheimer’s Canada’s Dr Diamond writes (see source) "with stimulation, surviving brain cells will be induced to sprout and restore lost connections".
Coming Soon.
Many of the
questions that dog caregivers are parallel to the questions
that tend to paralyze conscientious gardeners. Experience your home as
an ecosystem. Immerse in the surround
sound entertainment system of the garden."Mom, we're going into business. We could outsource our caregiving, but I think it can be profitable in-house." Business can make life artful. Playing business can make carepartnering fun. Can you manage? Performance exists; Workshop description coming soon. Human interaction can't be beat
for engaging hearts and minds. On the other hand, pets can bring
playfulness and love in a way that might not happen with people.
When caregivers are engaged in activities that their carepartner can't
participate in, a high-quality digital library can deeply engage a person,
guiding an imaginative and emotional workout. Jonathon designed a
system where someone with arthritis and poor vision and memory can choose
items from a library (audio/video/other), or use playlists pre-set for a
progressive journey. The system uses a remote control mouse, and
displays on a TV screen.
These workshops will be
offered in 2007. Details to
follow.
 Or contact us if you would like a specific date or location. Other event dates: calendar |
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An
opportunity to Study and
Practice Intention: $5
per session
Contact Improv Dance
Next: March 24, 2007
Presented by REAson d'être productions and Imagiscape Theatre
Imagiscape also hosts ongoing theatre study groups, building our company and our community through collaborative learning: see Workshop Follow-Opp. |
