Eliana Bonard is joining us all the way from Argentina!

Following *Fedora Aberastury’s fundamental principles and Contact Improvisation, we awake our “energy centers” in order to make energy flow freely. In so doing, subtle and authentic movement happens. Expanding the volume of our body, by opening joints, by moving our spine and by letting go unnecessary tensions, we generate a true presence. Then we get to Contact with the earth and the others, deepening our senses and hearing , unfolding communication. We will practice specific contact improvisation exercises in order to develop skills, and we will explore ways in our language of improvisation for solo, duo, and larger groups.

Fedora’s System is based on conscious thought. The word resonates and gives power to action, to movement. Movement is life, Fedora used to say. By awakening the energy centers from conscious thought, we allow their free flow that produces movement, a genuine movement born from within, without any pretension, giving space to our own dance. The spinal cord energetically connected to the tongue can move like a snake. Rivers that flow “undoing the muscular armor little by little”… as Wilhem Reich said.

Bringing to our dances a bit of the quality of water, which makes up more than 70% of our body. The planet is also a body, a large body with continents – islands floating in oceans, land floating on water. Wet earth, plants and animals, sap and blood flowing, watery plasma in each of its cells.

With this quality, we will approach contact improvisation by spreading our weight on the floor, practicing shapes and technical details. We will build solid but fluid structures to offer support. We’ll explore in detail how to share weight on rolls in order to be light. We will try slides, falls, effortless flights and dynamic weight transitions. We will include the relationship between eyes and movement in improvisation.

All levels of experience in CI and movement in general are welcome!

Share our Facebook Event!

Event Details

Workshop: 10am – 1pm

Lunch: 1 – 2pm (lunch will be provided)

Workshop: 2pm-4pm

PRICING

$400 – Financially Wealthy

$260 – Financially Abundant

$160 – Financially Stable

$100 – Financially Coping

$80 – Financially Strained

Sauna and 2 towels: $10

***If you find that you are struggling financially or there are other circumstances that are making it difficult to join this special workshop, please email programming@earthdance.net with your situation so that we can create a way to have you join us.***

A dorm bed in our Gratitude Lodge: If you wish to extend your visit and stay overnight it is $40. (Rental of sheets and towel is $15) * Includes access to the sauna and kitchen use but does not provide food. 

Our Fees Explained

Earthdance offers a sliding scale payment for participation in this event, please take a moment to reflect as you decide on where you best fit. 

Your level of contribution is self selected and does not need to be advocated for. However, we invite you to remember this contribution is currency and we ask that you stretch where you are able so that those who cannot stretch as far of a financial distance may also have potential access to community events. As you choose your rate please consider the following factors:

• Your access to income and wealth, as connected to family and partnership, both currently and anticipated in the future.
• The historical, systemic impacts of wealth accrual based on culture, race and other intersection marginalizations for you and your family.
• The regional ease of your attendance, while some community members can drive to Earthdance, others will need to consider tuition based on their ability to travel longer distances. 
• Earthdance is a community and rental funded organization which recently, historically and uniquely through the Covid-19 pandemic has struggled to have viable income.

Cancellation Policy

Refund available up to 10 days before the event less a $30 processing fee.

No refunds available less than 10 days from the start of the event.

Partial refunds might be given if a cancellation takes place under extenuating circumstances (e.g. a death of a 1st or 2nd degree family member, serious non-preventable illness or accident requiring hospitalization). Refunds in such cases remain at the discretion of the local organizers and will be decided on a case to case basis according to the timing of the cancellation and other factors.

COVID Precautions

No specific requirements on vaccination status are needed to attend this event. Please take adequate measures to limit your exposure in the days before. If you are feeling sick, or have a known close exposure to someone with COVID in the past 5 days, please sit this one out to keep the community well. 

Participant Community Support

Earthdance runs as a​ community, thus part of the participation is that all individuals contribute to 1-2 work shifts (typically meal cleans) throughout the event and participate in a final house clean on the last day of the event. These are great ways to connect more with your fellow participants and Earthdance staff, and to feel more at home in the Earthdance buildings & grounds. Your contributions to this collective caring of this space are invaluable!

Earthdance’s buildings are ADA accessible. More info here.

Earthdance’s Jam Guidelines

Earthdance’s Nudity Policy

HOST BIO

Eliana Bonard – Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Since I was a child, dance has always meant pleasure, health and freedom. At age fifteen I began my path in movement improvisation through the Aberastury System. My training includes contemporary dance, ballet, tango as well as yoga, eutony and somatics, I also nourished my practice with theater and clown.

I like to experiment with hybrid/juxtaposed languages on scene. I have choreographed dance-theater pieces, aerial dance, dance for children and also made site specific and street performances.

I fell in love with Contact Improvisation in 1987 and I began teaching CI four years later. I have been a CI teacher at the School of Artistic Education (ESEA) since 2012. I was co-creator of Eimcila, Latin America CI Teachers Meeting in 2011, co-organizer of the Buenos Aires CI50 Celebration, as well as ongoing Jams in my city. Another passion of mine is to work in heated water and I give Aguahara sessions and facilitate @milon.gota mixing CI and tango in water.

I love simple things, like practicing yoga at the seaside, cooking or collecting grapefruit in my neighborhood and sharing time with my beloved 20 year old son.

Eliana Bonard – Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Desde pequeña concebí la danza como placer, salud y libertad. Comencé a los 15 años mi camino en la improvisación de movimiento a través del Sistema Aberastury. Me formé en danza contemporánea y ballet como en yoga, tango, eutonía y somáticas. Nutrí mi práctica con actuación y clown.

Me interesa la experimentación escénica en el cruce de lenguajes. Realicé varias obras coreográficas de danza teatro, danza aérea, danza para niños y performances en espacios no convencionales.

Me enamoré del CI en 1987 y lo comencé a enseñar cuatro años más tarde. Dí clases en varias ciudades y festivales internacionales en América y Europa. Soy profesora de CI en ESEA, profesorados oficiales de danza desde 2012. Soy co-creadora de Eimcila, Encuentro internacional de maestros de CI en Latinoamérica en 2011, co-organizadora de Celebración 50 CI Bs As, y actualmente coordino Jams en mi ciudad. Otra de mis pasiones es trabajar en agua climatizada dando sesiones de Aguahara y facilitar la @milon.gota, lab en el agua cruzando CI y tango.

Amo las cosas simples como hacer yoga en la playa, cocinar, cosechar pomelos y paltas en mi barrio y compartir tiempo con mi amado hijo de 20.

IG: @eli.bonard

Eliana’s Historical review with The Fedora Aberastury Conscious System:

I began to investigate movement evoking water more than 10 years ago.

The Fedora Aberastury Conscious System revealed several axes on which to experiment.
The tongue, a powerful energetic center, is perhaps Fedora’s most important discovery. The tongue that expands like a sponge and connects with the the marrow and spine, invites the nervous system to relax, and the entire volume of our body to expand. Top of the head, center of thought, tongue, cardiac plexus, solar plexus, lower center or aura, energy centers coinciding with the chakras evoked from thought, and the centers at the tips of our ten fingers and toes, where energy can flow and connect us with the source of the bio electro magnetic field.

I was lucky to meet my teacher Ana Labat when I was fifteen. She taught the principles of Fedora’s System to me for seven years. Fedora’s System matured in Buenos Aires from the 60’s, without school, without diplomas, founded on a conception of human being and a rigorous practice. I was also lucky to meet Fedora. She would come to see us practice. We were the youngest, the ones that would succeed her.

It is a System that is transmitted, like martial arts, from master to disciple. I used to attend Ana’s classes every day. Her studio was open to me and she welcomed me with joy. When I was eighteen one day she spoked to me very seriously and told me that I was ready, that I had to start transmitting it. And I did it. In my own bedroom I would raised the mattress and received a group of friends and relatives for classes every week.

A year later, I met CI through Daniel Trenner, who taught his first CI intensive in Buenos Aires. It was a quantum leap. Since then I knew that this dance would stay with me forever with its infinite possibilities. We organized the first jam in my city in 1988. Alma Falkenberg, who was one of the first CI transmitters in Argentina, was my teacher at the dance school training I was attending. Foreign teachers visited Buenos Aires every year and I didn’t miss any of them. Dany Trenner, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Danny Lepkoff, Alito Alessi, Karen Nelson, Luc Petton, Sue Lauther, Martin Keogh, Camillo Vacalebre, and more. I started teaching CI in 1991. Eight years later I traveled to deepen my practice (San Francisco, CA) with Martin and Ray Chung, and then I organized Ray Chung ́s visit Buenos Aires. I went to Europe to deepen the Underscore with Nancy (Arlequi, Spain). I was invited to teach at international festivals in Argentina, in Brazil (Sao Paulo, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro), and Freiburg Contact Festival in Germany…

In 2007 in Buenos Aires with my colleague Paula Baratta I began to investigate the connections between Fedora Aberastury System and CI. Several years ago they invited me to my first jam in heated water. In 2019 I began my Aguahara Training. Currently I offer Aguahara sessions. Last year, I co-created @milon.gota, mixing contact and tango in water.

*Fedora Aberastury was born in Chile and moved to Argentina at a young age where she began her musical training. She moved with her husband to Washington for a while and studied in NY with whom she considers her masters Claudio Arrau and Rafael da Silva. It was the sound she was looking for with the neccesary emotional charge. Back in Buenos Aires, she developed her System, researching for decades with countless students and various disciples. The System’s protagonists are the tongue and the hands , a legacy of her training as a pianist. She passed away in 1985. “I’ll be, no matter when. Life is inside me”

Come join others on a path of self-discovery for a fruitful dive into your inner world. Drawing from IFS (Internal Family Systems), also called Parts Work, we will root into our centered self, that inner witness, and attend to the parts of us that hold challenging emotions or thought patterns, such as depression, anxiety, judgment, and jealousy, from a place of curiosity.

As we do this, we learn that all parts of us are simply trying their best to help us. One role they play is trying to shield us from pain, harm, discomfort or overwhelm. These are called our “protectors”. Often their strategies aren’t so great: They may distract us, lead us toward addictive behaviors, ignite anger or cause endless mental loops. Pushing these protectors away or ignoring, often makes things worse. Here, we learn to partner with them and support them. We get more familiar with their strategies and
discover their deepest needs: to feel more safe and connected. We also take time to meet
these needs, as best we can.

The practices we engage with are somatic skills, such as breath, sensing and movement, as well as writing, drawing, sharing and creativity. Some practices are done alone, others in small groups or the whole group.

It’s important to know this work may unearth feelings or sensations that can feel uncomfortable. While I will be offering strategies for working with these feelings, please come with a tool or two for getting back to center if you feel triggered or overwhelmed, for example, taking deep breaths, grounding practices or taking breaks. I will encourage self-care and give opportunities for co-regulation. You may want to schedule a little time after the workshop or the next day for rest and self-reflection. Reach out if you have any questions about this workshop. I hope you will join me for this rich opportunity to receive personal insights, to grow in self-acceptance and to experience the joys of learning together.

Share Our Facebook Event!

Event Details

Workshop: 3 – 6pm

Potluck and Open Movement: 6pm

PRICING

Workshop: $50 – $125 sliding scale

Potluck Dinner: Please bring your favorite dish or donation of $10-15

Sauna and 2 towels: $10

***If you find that you are struggling financially or there are other circumstances that are making it difficult to join this special workshop, please email programming@earthdance.net with your situation so that we can create a way to have you join us.***

If you wish to extend your visit and stay overnight: A dorm bed in our Gratitude Lodge is $40. (Rental of sheets and towel is $15) * Includes access to the sauna and kitchen use but does not provide food. 

Cancellation Policy

Refund available up to 10 days before the event less a $20 processing fee.

No refunds available less than 10 days from the start of the event.

Partial refunds might be given if a cancellation takes place under extenuating circumstances (e.g. a death of a 1st or 2nd degree family member, serious non-preventable illness or accident requiring hospitalization). Refunds in such cases remain at the discretion of the local organizers and will be decided on a case to case basis according to the timing of the cancellation and other factors.

COVID Precautions

No specific requirements on vaccination status are needed to attend this event. Please take adequate measures to limit your exposure in the days before. If you are feeling sick, or have a known close exposure to someone with COVID in the past 5 days, please sit this one out to keep the community well. 

Earthdance’s buildings are ADA accessible. More info here.

Earthdance’s Jam Guidelines

Earthdance’s Nudity Policy

HOST BIO

Mandy Snyder is a Somatic Healer and group facilitator who is passionate about creating spaces for embodied self-discovery. With warmth and welcoming, she guides others to make contact with self-compassion, a balm that makes everything just a little easier. Her individual sessions, groups and workshops draw from her training in Somatic Experiencing, study in Internal Family Systems and 25 + years as in movement studies, including Authentic Movement, Body Tales and Contact Improvisation. A lover of nature and laughter, Mandy has spent many years in Vermont and California, and now makes Western Massachusetts her home.