The Body EnSouled

[Intimacy of Place + Insight of Motion]

with Mia Pinheiro, Movement Artist + Choreographer

+  Jennifer Kerns, M.A. Depth Psychotherapist

Overview: Contemporary Depth psychology is fused with Movement/Dance studies in this course that combines: EIGHT group immersion workshops, TWO Jungian educational workshops, TWO DreamBody sessions, a cumulative performance + an independent project. We will use our bodies in motion and sensory settings/environments to replenish/reconstruct antiquated perceptions and trajectories, nurturing a freshness of intuitive insight. The curriculum provides concrete experiences in improvisational movement, choreographic development, the collaborative process, confidence in performative expression while learning to host+tend the DreamBody. Each student will finish the course with an independent project, supported by one-on-one mentorship sessions with the instructor.

Who this course is designed for: This course is designed for the artist, entrepreneur, teacher, health and wellness practitioner, or individual who desires to work with their own physicality as an instrument of inspiration, deepening into their own process of self-discovery and confidence through movement/dance, performance and Jungian thought. No experience necessary.  

Where: Sessions will occur in a secret location within Burlington, VT chosen by the instructor. 
When: Twice weekly immersive workshop sessions, on Tuesday's + Thursday's  from the week of July31st through the week of August 23rd 2017.  Dream work + reiki sessions occurring throughout August per individual schedules. 

What you will get from this course: 

• Eight Site-Specific (Place-based) Movement/Dance Immersive Workshops (secret location to be announced)

• Collaborative Performance

• Resources for further study +  creative exploration

• Dreaming the Body: 1 Dream Work Session with Jennifer Kerns
• Body as Resource: 1 Psychotherapeutic Reiki Session with Jennifer Kerns
• 2 two hour Educational Workshops in the Foundation of Jungian Thought, with an emphasis in the somatic practice of Embodied Active Imagination 

Each session is designed to feed you, to provide a feast for the archetypal muse.

A soul-centered exploration of Body as archetype: as a landscape, as  a site, as a surface, as Earth, and, the Home of the Soul.

Getting Deeper: Earthed in a fusion of Jungian thought movement/dance studies, this course offers a soul-centered investigation into the body as action and the places/environments which the action unfolds. Understanding that psyche (soul) and soma (body) are inseparable in function and nature, participants of this course will be invited to enter into the landscape of the soul with Body as anchor, witness, and primary tool for making conscious the unconscious through hosting the DreamBody and its myriad of archetypal images.

Through a series of body-centering exercises and choreographic rituals, we will challenge preconceptions of our bodies. We will challenge preconceptions of the environments which our bodies inhabit. We will gain fresh sensors into creative methods for living out our desire. We will create spaces for hosting psyche, the DreamBody.

The goal of these exercises is to unlock + invent pathways to creativity through movement and performance, as well as birthing methods of infusing the current politic/civility with a re-wilding solution. A profound result of this body work is an intuitive sense of your physical being, which blossoms directly into a widening breadth of self-confidence. Each student will work through creative collaborations as well as developing one’s own choreography.

Performance is a vehicle for this public body-dialogue or story-telling through somatic awareness. We will harness the wisdom of the individual body (your body) and the collective DreamBody (collaboration), as well as thickening self-esteem and belief in the necessity of your own story (what soul gift is coming into the world through you, with the landscape of the body as storyteller).

[body rituals and performance fold into each other as does the sour-dough]

Course Format + Outline: 

The course consists of eight 2.5 hour immersive movement/dance workshop's lead by Mia Pinheiro, with two 2-hour Jungian Educational workshops lead by Jennifer Kerns with an emphasis in Somatic Awareness Training + Embodied Active Imagination. It culminates with a collaborative performance and independent works-in-progress projects. 

Themes for Immersive Movement/Dance Workshops: 

FreshSense of myBody, Relationship with otherBody/Place, Chaos+Form, Wilding Action, Stillness/Sound, Weaving A Moving Cloth. 

Example of workshop day: 

1. Warmup: Body Discovery Improvisation: "Take a look at your hand. Suppose you'd never seen one before. Notice the slight hollow on the inside, the lines around the bumps. I wonder what it can do. Can it walk? fly? jamble? Come on hand, try to ripple, spurt, stiffen quiver, clench, point...Let it go; go on get rid of it. Throw it away, I mean really throw it away. You have lots of other parts. Get all your body parts talking to each other at once, babbling away, now STOP. Let your whole body speak as one. Make one simple statement and end. " -from the Intimate Act of Choreography. 
2. Focused Journaling: Movement Quality + Spatial Character. Listing all possible options, chopping out words and rearranging for unusual combinations, saving these 'poems' for future choreographic challenges.  
3. Meditation on Place: A slow, but moving exploration of the sensory richness of the secret workshop location. Ears, mouth, skin, breath, nasal passages open and receptive. Eyes soft as fireflies. 
4. Choreography Development: Maps as Code for Movement. Using the body insight gained in warmup and increased awareness of place,  work with a partner to create maps with symbol and code of each students body-pathway. Use these maps to create your own choreographic floor pattern and emotive key for the culminating performance. 

About the Instructors: 

Mia Pinheiro is a movement artist/choreographer/facilitator who is from the New Bedford MA and lived in Vermont for many years.  In 2017 she embarked on a  research sabbatical in Mexico studying movement and choreography, with a focus on relationships and personal creative process. She has created a variety of collaborative movement pieces with unique location including the Winooski River, New City Gallerie, The Light Club Lamp Shop, The Hive, The Attic, Museu Contemporaneo Arte Oaxaca and Bosque Ciudad de Mexico. She has received a degree in contemporary dance and movement studies through the University of Vermont and has with studied with wide variety of talented choreographers including Erika Senft-Miller, Claire Byrne and Hannah Dennison. She is an alumni of Temenos Vermont's Course Creative Concept Development: Art as Alchemy by Estefania Puerta. She has supplemented her studies through the completion of many workshops: 'Siente' at CASA San Augustin Etla in Oaxaca, MX by Laura Rios and Linda Austin, 'Figure/Ground' at Shelburne Farms Breeding Barn by Hannah Dennison, 'Taller Danza Africana' at AfrOaxaquena, MX by Karim Keita and 'MELT' at Movement Research, NY by Vicky Schick. She has been creative consultant for Temenos Vermont, assisting in the development of community programs and arts initiatives .  She has been a dancer in three professional works in Vermont and countless other incredible pieces by local artists. She has often found herself as a assistant stage director, choreographer or roving performance artist. 

Mia has a great desire to share her in depth studies of this unique form of body-expression with all who want to learn, for she believes it is a certain kind of medicine. A potent concoction for intuitive action. She holds 'play' and 'celebration' as necessary antidotes to the heaviness of our current socio-politic; and knows these gatherings-these collaborations- will nibble away at the magic cookie of humans remembering the wild-selves.  

Jennifer L. Kerns, M.A. Depth Psychotherapist 

Jenn is a trained Depth Psychotherapist (Jungian-oriented), psychotherapeutic Reiki practitioner, educator, writer and artist with a clinical practice that serves individuals and couples in Burlington, VT.  You can learn more about her clinical work here. Jenn holds a Bachelors in Psychology with a concentration in Buddhist Studies from Saint Michael's College, and a Masters in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her research explores avenues for degendering psyche and queering Jungian thought by observing tenets of Buddhist studies, Deep ecology, and social justice theories. She brings 10+ years of experience as a scholar-practitioner to the fields of mental health, social justice, and the healing arts. Jenn has studied Reiki and meditation in the Buddhist tradition since 2006, when she had the opportunity to live in a Burmese monastery in Bodh Gaya, India. Jenn sits several retreats a year at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. Her commitment to mindfulness-based modalities and spiritual growth sustains all of her work. See her qualifications and certifications here and check out her profile on Psychology today!

Tuition:  Sliding Scale Fees:  Sustaining: $2,800   Mid: $2,415   Base: $1,832.50  

Please note that 'sustaining' fees reflect the "actual" at-cost fee for running this program. Students are invited to pay within their means,  at the sliding scale 'tier' that feels most manageable. Payment Plans are available for students for this course. 

Scholarship:   VSAC Non-Degree Grants Available to Cover PartialTuition. 

Certification: Students will receive a certification of completion from Temenos Vermont.

For further inquiries + questions regarding the COURSE (interest in course, specifics of course material, personal concerns), email the instructor:

 Mia Pinheiro bleubein@gmail.com