Embodied Perception

The Nervous System and The Senses

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Schedule: 10:00 am - 12:30 pm | Saturday 27 April

Course Description: This experiential anatomy workshop focuses on touch, perception, and ways of accessing both gravity and space in the body.

We will explore our nervous systems, proprioception, the richness of the senses, and ways of expanding our awareness of space through the use of props and imagery. Often, as human beings, we develop a preconceived notion of how our body moves and end up missing the reality of the body we are living in at this moment in time. Through a variety of movement explorations, conversations, and tactile feedback we’ll practice attuning to the body we are in right now.

We will be working individually, with partners, and collectively to cultivate a collaborative spirit and to tap into the wisdom of the group.

For participants who have taken previous workshops with Annie and Leah, this iteration will continue to build on the awareness of the whole body being connected, just through a different lens.

And for folks who are new, welcome! No previous movement or anatomy experience is needed, and our last group ranged in age from 23 to 88!

Dress comfortably and participate either sitting in a chair or standing and traveling through the space. Please bring a water bottle, a yoga mat if you want it, a notebook and writing implement, and your curiosity! We'll also have an optional brown-bag lunch and debriefing afterwards.

Questions? Please email Annie at anniedwyer4@gmail.com.

Location: Center Building Dance Studio | Carolina Friends School

Annie Dwyer

Annie recently retired from 32 years teaching dance at Carolina Friends School where she shaped and facilitated a preschool through Upper School dance experience. For six of those years she had the joy of teaching with alum Leah Wilks and delights in any chance to build on that foundation.

In the last 12 years Annie has woven somatic practices into her teaching and designed a teacher research project with Lower School teachers integrating movement and somatic understandings into the classroom.

While in the CFS Upper School she designed an Experiential Anatomy class where students explored the sense of interconnectedness within their own body. This class fundamentally made a difference in the way that each student engaged with movement.

For the past three years she has been deeply involved with Culture Mill with Tommy Noonan (CFS '01) and Murielle Elizeon in Moving Through, a structured approach to utilizing tools, techniques, and practices common to Contemporary Dance to benefit people living with Parkinson’s.

Annie has studied extensively with Caryn McHose, Andrea Olsen, Nancy Romita, Allegra Romita, Bill Evans (certified Evans Technique Teacher), and countless others who continue to shape her perspective on the body. Her ongoing passions include moving with others to discover and nurture practices that bring us into a specific sense of the body we inhabit and the possibilities that exist in each moment.

Leah Wilks '05

Leah, a 2005 Friends School graduate, is a dancer, choreographer, musician, and teacher currently based out of Brooklyn, New York (Munsee Lenape and Canarsie land).

She became an educator under the guidance of Annie Dwyer, and helped design courses for, teach in, and run the CFS Upper School dance program for six years with her. She is so delighted to get the opportunity to co-teach with Annie again!

Since her time at CFS, Leah has taught and shared her work in a variety of locations including the American Dance Festival, Elon University, University of Michigan, Ponderosa Tanzland festival, Lawrence University, Gibney Dance, and PROTEO|media+performance’s Post/Futures Festival.

She has been a collaborator/performer with Okwui Okpokwasili, real.live.people, BAND|portier, and Tommy DeFrantz/SLIPPAGE among others.

She holds an M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she received awards both for her choreography and teaching, and is currently an artist-in-residence at MOtiVE Brooklyn, as well as a 2023 MacDowell Fellow with collaborator Mauriah Kraker (L+M). She loves nerding out about anatomy and discovering new possibilities for movement through humor, exploration, and curiosity with others.

For more information about her work, please visit leahwilks.com.

As a teacher, I am always a work in progress. I strive to be brave, to get un-stuck, to keep curious about the potential of the body in motion. Informed by a number of somatic practices (BMC, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Alexander Technique, contact improvisation, and various forms of release technique) I teach about efficiency of movement when it seems useful and helps to keep bodies from injuring themselves or other bodies.

Photo Credit: Anna Maynard