In this workshop, open to Hampshire and Five College students, faculty, and staff, participants will receive an experimental introduction to the Feldenkrais Method and the many fields of study that it touches. Both a means of self-discovery through movement and a framework for understanding habit, we will explore how the method works with the nervous system to regulate, perceive self, and create a sense of readiness and open possibility in moving, performing, creating, healing, and more. We will begin by doing a Feldenkrais lesson and conclude with a group discussion about the method, its inception, and where we can apply it in novel ways within a changing world.

Liz O’Brien (S'19) is a movement educator, performance artist, and dance maker currently residing in Holyoke MA. They graduated with a B.A. from Hampshire College in 2019 with a concentration across dance, labor, agriculture, and anthropology. Liz’s thesis studied others' and their own lived experiences around performing wage-labor, and what that means for workers' own senses of self and agency, a topic of continued research. Liz has had the pleasure of working with Terre Parker, Barbie Diewald, Xan Burley + Alex Springer, jacob sheppard-saidel, Koby Leff, and others; in addition to everyday collaborations with sidewalks, trees, the countertop ledge and various unsuspecting door frames. As a dancer and performance-maker, their current work probes the creation and experience of self-hood through humor and absurdism. They have contributed to experiential productions of many sorts and they are especially interested in consensus-driven collaboration as a means of performance making with others. Liz also works as dance educator and a certified Feldenkrais ATM teacher.

Join Liz in the Small Dance Studio in the Music and Dance Building, Friday, March 8th from 4:00-6:00pm!