Connection in Motion: Partner Dance, Contact Improv and Embodied Relationship
ONLINE SALES END at 11AM, Saturday 2/18
Tickets will be available at the door.
This day-long workshop is all about learning how to dance in partnership. Wren and Odessa bring their decades-deep experience in contact improv and partner dance to this connection-based learning space. Deep listening, relational intelligence building and energetic attunement skills will be emphasized. We’ll use techniques from an array of dance styles as a vehicle for exploring subtle energies, and having a blissfully good time moving together.
Cocréa was originally imagined as a bridging modality for dancers from social partner dance circles and ecstatic/”conscious” dance circles to meet on any dance floor and experience nourishing connection. It has grown into an intentional, holistic modality that empowers the individual to grow resilient within community and society and liberate expression within relationship, nurturing authentic connection and right relationship, and honor and relate well with our environment. It is about exploring our connection to that inexplicable sense that we are part of a much bigger whole through this miraculous vessel of our bodies.
Wren LaFeet brings 23+ years of physical exploration and experience in the performing and somatic arts to his facilitation. Tools he envisions offering into this space include Suzuki physical theater, Viewpoints, Contact Improvisation, Blues Fusion, mindful movement practices for generating collective intelligence and a new emergent synthesis he is calling, Ecstatic Access.
Odessa weaves wisdom streams of 3+ decades of dance and movement, 10 years of energy healing and bodywork experience, and a masters-level education in somatic psychology. Her tool box includes polyvagal theory, attachment theory, nervous system regulation, somatic resourcing, contact improvisation, modern dance (release technique, bartenieff), and trauma- informed and inclusive facilitation practices.
In this workshop you will learn:
- Fundamentals of both partner dance and contact improv
- How to deepen your embodied listening
- The non-verbal cues of consent
- Expanded awareness of your own desires and boundaries in a dance (and in life)
- How to invite and co-create a dance that is joyful, nourishing and juicy!
- Expanded musicality and movement vocabulary
No partner necessary. All experience levels welcome.
FACILITATORS
ODESSA AVIANNA PEREZ
Odessa is a trauma-informed somatic, movement and social justice educator who helps people have more easeful, connected and meaningful relationships through trauma-informed somatics, dance and movement and resilience-building self-care practices.
She holds an MA in Somatic Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies and triple bachelor degrees in Dance, Theater Arts, and Sociology from Rutgers University. She is a ThetaHealing practitioner and instructor, and has a background in massage and bodywork. She has over 2 decades of movement and dance performance experience, and has been practicing and teaching Contact Improvisation as a form of self inquiry and relationship alchemy for over ten years.
Odessa is a cis gender, able-bodied, biracial white-presenting latina currently residing in the lands traditionally belonging to the Kizh and Tongva peoples – aka Los Angeles, CA. Odessa is deeply curious about the intersection of personal and collective trauma, collective nervous system states and expression, and how we can use somatics and dance to integrate our trauma for better relationship, community and planet. She has facilitated workshops at dozens of retreats and festivals using somatics, movement, and contact improvisation as the platform through which to explore safety, relationship, building capacity for discomfort, interdependence and inclusion.
In her psychotherapeutic private practice, she weaves somatics, movement, interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal theory, attachment work, and social and racial justice frameworks. She is part of the Healer’s Collective for the Decolonizing Wealth Project, and the Inclusion and Belonging co-lead for SoulPlay festivals.
WREN LAFEET
Wren is celebrating entering his 24th year dancing in partnership and loves serving humanity as a somatic permissionary. Teaching partner dance internationally as a practice for mindful, authentic living, and enlivening communities by facilitating his signature modality, Cocréa, has been his joy for over a decade. Using this potent synthesis, Wren provides navigational assistance to humans nurturing a curiosity in gaining more access to the power and potential of their bodies. Using movement as a vehicle, he guides people towards right-relationship through listening and responding to, as well as inviting, allowing and embracing change. He is a celebrated TEDx speaker, featured author in “ReInhabiting the Village” and ardent proponent of pioneering a new renaissance through authentic connection and consensual touch.
Wren is a cis-gender, able bodied white male residing on the traditional ancestral lands of the Muwekma Ohlone people (Los Gatos, CA). As a non-binary identified, 11th generation American descended most recently from artist and blue collar working class parents, Wren is in a deep reckoning with the numerous and nuanced aspects of self that influence how we navigate interpersonal relationships and cultural identity on the journey into right relationship.
As a Danyasa trained facilitator, former Awake at Work program facilitator, certified Attunement Therapy practitioner, Do Good Things with Power program graduate, and holder of a BA in Drama and Dance from the University of Washington, Wren promotes dance and connection as an embodied approach to spirituality and medicinal salve for our modern ailments of disconnection and dislocation.
DATE AND TIME
Saturday, February 18th
Workshop: 1pm – 5pm
(Dinner break 5-7pm)
Warmup/Connection Space led by ODESSA: 7-8
DJ Dance with WREN LAFEET: 8-10pm
EXCHANGE
Sliding Scale
$95 / $125 / $155 advance purchase
$115 / $145 / $175 at the door
Dance only: $20-30 in advance, $30-$40 at the door
WHAT TO BRING:
Water bottle, snacks, change of clothes if you want/need, socks
LOCATION
Creatington, Los Angeles, CA (Downtown LA)
Exact Address given at Registration