breathdance
a Middendorf breathexperience program
breathexperience
Breathe without effort
Move without effort
Dance without effort
Ease through breathexperience
Expression of Self through breathexperience
A breathexperience workshop
Taught by Juerg Roffler
For Dancers, Performing Artists and Movement and Dance Therapists
October 6 + 7, 2007
At the
Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience
Berkeley, CA
830 Bancroft Way, #104
Times: 930 – 4:30 Saturday and Sunday
Price: $150 both days
$85 Saturday only
This workshop will present material, used in the one year program ÒbreathdanceÓ, starting January 2008 (see our special brochure) and will help people understand how the breathdance program can be a helpful training for their personal and professional growth.
In this workshop participants can also learn and experience how the practice of breathexperience can:
- bring more ease and flow into movements and expression
- help recognize the authentic Self in movement
- bring more Self expression
- let you understand how breath initiates, infuses and forms movements
- bring access to your own creative resources to avoid burnout and injury
- help balance vital forces and avoid exhaustion
- bring more joy and fulfillment into performing
- reduce performance anxiety without medication
- show the benefits of shifting from doing/controlling to allowing
- resolve stress and give more access to core/essence/center of yourself
- develop more self-responsibility
- help you respond to lifeÕs challenges rather than react.
More information and registration:
510 981 1710
MIDDENDORF INSTITUTE FOR BREATHEXPERIENCE
BERKELEY, CA 94107
ONE YEAR PROGRAM ÒbreathdanceÓ
Starting January 4, 2008
Ends with breathdance performance November/December 2008
Breathexperience is the primary focus in this program, but as you courageously experience its effects, you will find yourself involved in the dance that you were always longing for!
Breathexperience is a somatic healing practice and art of living based on the autonomic breath. It was introduced to the U.S. by Ilse Middendorf and Juerg Roffler and the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience in San Francisco and Berkeley in the1980Õs. The body mind spirit movement of the 1920Õs inspired people like Mary Wigman, Rudolph Laban and Ilse Middendorf, the originator of the breathexperience work. IlseÕs work is internationally recognized as one of the leading practices in the somatic healing arts.
Through the sensation of the movement of breath, created by inhalation, exhalation and in the pause, breathexperience connects us with an intelligence embodied within ourselves. This intelligence serves as a guide to healing and personal growth, showing us the path to ease and balance in our lives. This intelligence also expresses through movements. As we allow our breath to initiate these movements, we can express the truth of who we are and let that truth be seen by others. All of this and more can be seen in the breathdance piece ODEM (see our special paragraph).
Some Program Goals:
- More allowing, less controlling in movements and living our lives
- More ease and flow in movement and expression
- Extend the performers/dancers performing life
- Apply breathexperience principles in Movement and Dance Therapy
- The allowed breath initiates and develops all movements
- Easy access to own creative resources
- Strong sense of Self and centeredness
- How movements from breath lead through a performance
Program elements and principles include:
- Experiencing the connection between breath and movement, and learning to let the breath come and go on its own.
- The consolidating and expanding principles in breath and their beneficial effects on movement, expression and personal growth.
- Experiencing breath laws and principles as a source of our
- Training in sensory awareness as a base from which to sense breath movement.
- Sensing and experiencing the five breathing spaces and the central forces with their directions.
- The basic breath principle Presence – Sensation – Breath.
- The shift from controlling to allowing the breath and its effects on experience and expression of Self.
- Development of vital forces through breath movement
- Experiencing and understanding the breath cycle and rhythms as a tool to help direct and lead through a process of integration
- Connection to body centers as an orientation and integration of inner and outer.
- Experiencing breath as an indicator of direction for movement, transformation and personal growth
- Sensing breath movement as a medium to experience the substantial nature of the core Self.
- Understanding and experiencing the importance of the presence of Self in all breath movement processes
- Using breath as a way to connect with the essence of our being.
- Embodiment of Self through movements and gestures that are initiated by breath.
- The concept and experience of oneness in body, mind and spirit through breath.
- Understanding breath as a process oriented experience, allowing the balanced integration of the emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of our being.
- The principles of integrating conflicts through breathexperience.
- Breath
as a source to experience responsibility for ones own process.
Schedule and Times
Dates: January 4 – 7, 2008 (Friday through Monday)
April 18 – 21, 2008
July 4 -7, 2008
October 3 – 6, 2008
Date for breathdance performance in November/December to be announced.
Times: Friday: 3:30 – 5:30 and 7 – 9 pm
Saturday and Sunday 9:30 – 1 and 3 – 5 pm
Monday 9:30 – 11:30 and 1 – 3 pm
Tuition: $450.00, includes one private breath dialogue hands-on session
CEU’s: 76 units for the whole program. Available for LCSW’s and MFT’s.
Location: MIBE Berkeley, 830 Bancroft Way, # 104,
Berkeley, CA 94710
Teachers
Juerg
Roffler Founder
and director of the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience in San
Francisco, now in Berkeley, CA. Juerg has trained and worked with Ilse
Middendorf at her Institute in Berlin before he came to the U.S. in the late
1980. He is a regular presenter at international conferences for body
psychotherapy and somatic healing arts and teaches workshops and trainings all
over the world. He developed the Breathexperience in Relationship program and
also holds a private practice in Berkeley, CA. Juerg is passionate about
supporting the beauty and truth of an authentic movement initiated by breath
and considers this an artistic form of personal growth.
Teaching staff
Gerrie Glover has a B.S. in
Music & Dance - U of Utah & an M.A. in Dance –U of Wisconsin, She
was on the Dance Faculty of Brigham Young U., U of Wisconsin & U of New
Mexico 1953-Õ77. Gerrie studied with Joan Woodbury, Merce Cunningham, Alvin
Nicolais, Anna Halprin, Nora Reynolds, Bill Evans and others. She was on the
Touring Program for the National Endowment of the Arts and Artistic Director of
her own company for 28 years.
Faith
Hornbacher, is a certified practitioner of Middendorf Breathwork, member of the
teaching staff of the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience, and has a
private practice in Palo Alto. She began her training and development in the
somatic arts in 1971 with Aston-Patterning and has been in practice for
36 years. She is an artist and has illustrated books in the field of health
education and enjoys the inspiration of movement and breath in all forms of
expression.
Margot
Biestman
is a certified practitioner of Middendorf Breathwork, member of the teaching
staff of the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience. She has a private practice
in Sausalito and Sonoma, is also an author and artist, and
has extensive experience in education with people from ages 3-93.
Marty Barclay is a certified Middendorf breathexperienceª Practitioner.
She joined the Institute staff in February 2005. She has a private
practice in Berkeley, California. Her special interests include working
with asthma and maintaining body flexibilty, strength and resilience in
relation to demands of physical labor. Marty works with embodying through breathexperienceª
a new relationship to the earth, fostering ecological site design. She has
been a professional garden designer, involved in all aspects of
landscape installation and maintenance for 25 years.
Anne Smith, Program Coordinator, M.A., is a Certified Middendorf Practitioner and member of the staff of the Middendorf Institute for Breathexperience. She has a private breath practice in Berkeley.
Testimonials
ÒInstead of just beginning to move, I sense the movement of my breath. I am aware of the impulse of the inhale that initiates my bodily exression into form and motion. The surrendering to the inhale guides my movement, supports me in space. The exhale carries me to the next moment, and in the pauseÉ.I just am.Ó Gina Yoli, Movement and Dance Therapist and Middendorf breathexperience practitioner.
ÒWhen I decided to do the breathexerience training I had been a dancer for 60 years. My body had many injuries – my back, knees, ankles, hips and neck. I was at the point where I couldnÕt walk for more than a block without severe pain. My decision was based on my physical injuries and their accumulative effect. After several years my pain and limitations were essentially gone. I can skip, leap, run and jump again. I do these activities at a more limited range than I did forty years ago, but I do them. I hadnÕt expected that my balance would improve, but it has. An additional benefit is my sense of joy and peace that has come from this process.Ó Gerrie Glover, Dancer, Choreographer and Middendorf breathexperience practitioner.
Ò My experience and
study of natural breath has brought more clarity and natural direction in my
work as a movement therapist. With Breath as an underpinning, movement
and expression can feel safer, more grounded, and more rooted in SelfÓ. Gretchen
Vanderslice, Dancer, Movement and Dance
Theraapist and Middendorf breathexperience practitioner
ÒMiddendorf Breathwork, Breathexperience, has had a huge impact on my own creative life, as well as my work as a teacher and coach for actors. I've studied and explored many methods of movement, breathing and voice. This work is different. It can bring a person to the core of his or her essence in a way that can be embodied and expressed. One of the things I love most about this work is the way it assists each person in listening to his or her own truth that comes up from within themselves, through the experience of their own breath. Self consciousness and self criticism melt away .Ó Ease, presence, dynamic life are all made available through connecting and moving with the breath that comes and goes on its own. Jeff Crockett, Core Faculty, MFA program, The American Conservatory Theater and Middendorf Breathexperience Practitiioner.
ODEM
A breathdance experience and performance at U.C.Berkeley Art Museum
In the breathdance piece ODEM, practitioners of the Middendorf Breath Work, Breathexperience, presented the art of being moved by breath. As a group of Ònon-professionalÓ dancers of all ages and walks of life, they showed what happens, when breath, rather than the will, becomes the source for movement. ODEM was performed several times at the U.C. Berkeley Art Museum in April of 2007, was video-taped live, and can be viewed on DVD as an abstract or in its full length.
ODEM is Breath, More than just breath, it means breath as the movement in the body created by inhalation – exhalation – pause. Breath movement, or the wind of the human spirit, life itself, embodies the belief that our spirit, our soul, rides upon our breath.
When the body is moved by the breath – Odem - soul and spirit become visible. This is what the 18 breath-dancers between the ages of 36 and 91 have shown - their embodied soul and spirit.
In this is an inspiration to find the truth of expression of Self, unobstructed by imposing components.
Any movement that is initiated and defined by breath shows the truth. Any-body no matter how old or young can show the beauty of their truth through breath.
ODEM, the art of Breath moving, at the U.C. Berkeley Art Museum, was directed by Gerrie Glover and Juerg Roffler.
More information and registration:
www.breathexperience.com
510 981 1710
MIDDENDORF INSTITUTE FOR BREATHEXPERIENCE
BERKELEY, CA 94107