Sensing the Living is BACK!

Sensing the Living: 

Finding Connection in Nature

An Outdoor Movement Workshop in the Wissahickon Woods

with Jenny Roe Sawyer
 
Two Dates:

Sunday November 2^nd, 2014 from 1-4:30pm &

Sunday November 9^th, 2014 from 1-4:30pm

You may sign up for one or both workshops!

Price for one workshop: $27.50 if you pre-register, $35 at the door

Price for both workshops: $52 if you pre-register, $60 at the door

Description
Sensing the Living is an outdoor movement workshop focused on exploration, that is specially designed to offer you an afternoon of experiencing DEEP CONNECTION to yourself as part of the natural world!

We will connect to ourselves, following our own deep internal impulses, and feeling our bodies come alive with breath and blood as we move our muscles, bones and hearts in new and inspired ways.

We will connect to the natural world, opening our senses to experience and respond to nature’s vast array of sounds, colors, smells, temperatures and textures.

Through curiosity and openess will create new relationships with ourselves, our bodies and the natural world.

And we will connect with each other in joy, fun, compassion, curiosity and playfulness!

The fall is an amazing season, offering us beautiful weather and gorgeous scenery. This season is an opportunity to connect with the splendor of nature that is not-to-be-missed!!

So come out to the woods and spend an afternoon following your own body’s wisdom, soaking in the beautiful fall colors and feeling deeply connected. Take an afternoon out of your busy schedule and make the time to feed yourself!

To Participate
Plan to meet at the Valley Green entrance to the Wissahickon woods at 12:45pm, so we can find each other and get started by 1pm. Wear sturdy footwear, clothes you won’t mind getting dirty and plenty of layers! Also bring water and a snack,
ALL levels and abilities of movers thoroughly welcomed and encouraged to attend!
Please contact me if you need directions, need help finding a ride or have any other questions.

Jenny Sawyer, 215-840-5710, jroesawyer@gmail.com

Bio
Jenny Roe Sawyer is a choreographer, improviser, teacher and dance artist who has been practicing dance and improvisational movement for over 20 years. She first fell in love with improvisation 15 years ago while a student at Oberlin College and has since studied with many great teachers like Nancy Stark Smith, Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, KJ Holmes, Kirstie Simpson and the Architects. Recently, she has become enthralled with outdoor site-specific improvisation, choreography and performance. Her latest work UPSTREAM premiered in the water of the Wissahickon Creek in 2012 and was presented at the Morris Arboretum in 2013. Jenny recently had the amazing opportunity to take a Body & Earth workshop with Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose and this newly inspired her to share the joy she finds in outdoor movement practices through her teaching. This year Jenny is excited to be launching all her outdoor movement and dance endeavors under one name, From The Earth. When in the woods she can often be found improvising with trees.

Awakening the Seeds of Your Practice: A 6-week Contact Improv Fundamentals Intensive!

 

It's Spring!!!   Come out of your cave!    Wake up your body!  Connect to others!!!  Play in the meadows! ...  We mean in the studio, of course!!

Come join us for the second annual...
Awakening the Seeds of Your Practice:
A Contact Improv Fundamentals Intensive

For All Levels

Newly Expanded!

A 6-week workshop led by Lee Nussbaum Fogel & Jenny Roe Sawyer

Tuesdays 7-9pm
April 16, 23, 30 & May 7, 14, 21  (Must pre-register for whole series)
@ Mascher Space Cooperative
155 Cecil B. Moore Ave.
+ The opportunity to attend a Community Contact Jam with Lee & Jenny!

Somatic Movement Educator Lee Nussbaum Fogel and Interdisciplinary Dance Artist Jenny Roe Sawyer are joining together to offer YOU a playful and invigorating class series that builds confidence in basic Contact skills, expands your range of dancing possibilities, and approaches dancing with a sense of joy and discovery!

~Have you been dancing for a while and wanting to get back to the basics of Contact so you can create a strong and responsive connection to your dancing partner?

~Are you new to Contact, and wanting a safe and supportive group of people with whom to build on skills, such as sharing weight, following points of contact, and riding waves of momentum through space??

~Are you wanting to access a greater range of energetic states and movement qualities in your dancing?

~ Do you love contact but feel intimidated by going to a jam?

....then this is the class for YOU!!!

We are very excited to offer you this unique opportunity to explore and learn with a committed group of dancers, have direct attention for YOUR specific needs and interests, AND have the extra special experience of trying out a jam, supported by your teachers & fellow students!

***Register by Friday April 5th for our Special Early Bird Discount!!!*** 

Info:

Tuesdays 7-9pm

April 16, 23, 30 & May 7, 14, 21

Mascher Space Cooperative

155 Cecil.B Moore Ave., Philadelphia

+ The opportunity to attend a Community Contact Jam with Lee & Jenny!

 

Price:

$185 for the full series

$165 *Early Bird Discount* - register by Friday April 5th!

Click here to Register Online!

Contact:  leefogel@visioningbody.com 

*Contact Improvisation is a revolutionary movement form developed through the investigation of touch, weight, sensation, and momentum in relation to another moving body.  

Lee Nussbaum Fogel, MA, RSME is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator, Reiki Practitioner, and Artist who guides people in living creative, empowered lives according to their body's wisdom.  Her practice draws on extensive experience in process-oriented art, movement, and somatic practice, including graduate degree studies in Dance and Somatic Well-being through the University of Central Lancashire.  Lee began teaching Contact Improvisation and somatic movement as a student at Oberlin College, and has since studied Contact, Somatics, and Improvisation with Kirstie Simson, Andrea Olsen, Simone Forti, Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, Andre Gribou and Mary Abrams, among fabulous others.  She co-founded, taught and performed with the Philly Contact Collective, and has movement and somatics in a variety of settings throughout and beyond Philadelphia.

Jenny Roe Sawyer is a choreographer, improviser, teacher and dance artist who has been practicing dance and improvisational movement for over 20 years. She first fell in love with Contact improvisation 13 years ago while a student at Oberlin College and has since studied with Contact greats like Nancy Stark Smith, Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, KJ Holmes, and Kirstie Simson. In Philadelphia, Jenny co-founded, taught and performed with the Philly Contact Collective; she was a founding member of Amnesiac Music and Dance, an experimental improv company; she co-directed the modern dance company Lo Roe Productions; and was a founding member of Mascher Space Cooperative. Her work has been presented by the Philly Fringe, GLUE Performance Series, Mascher Space Co-op, the Studio Series at SJtudio 34, and the Falls Bridge Improvisation Festival, among others. She is currently excited about expanding her improvisational teaching practice and touring her newest site-specific work, UPSTREAM.

Basking in the Glory of a Dream Come True

It is with great joy, gratitude, excitement, and pride, that I announce... our recent performances of UPSTREAM were a HUGE success!!

We had over 100 total audience members. We had amazing, picturesque weather for all 4 shows. Each audience was filled with appreciative, grateful, adoring, enthusiastic, and encouraging fans, many people who I already adore and some of whom I barely know. Each performance was beautiful and powerful in its own way with its own emotional journey. Really, things could not have gone better!! One of my mentors came. Two potential outdoor dance presenters attended (though ironically both watched from the "wrong" side of the creek). We even made MONEY! I asked for what I felt the show was really worth and for the first time ever, I got to pay myself and my dancers!!

YEE-HAW!!!

It is amazing when one can envision and imagine something grand and then will and work and coax and love it into being! I marvel that I imagined this beautiful project, brought it to life through love, sweat and tears, and it turned out just as beautifully as in my wildest dreams! (At least the wildest ones I dared to hope could come true...)

Now perhaps I will dare to dream of even wilder successes! Thus, I hope that soon there will be more wild dreams to report coming true. For now, please bask in the glory of this success with me..... with these lovely photos!

Dancers: Jenny Sawyer & Sinead O'Neill
Photos: Krista McKinnon

Live Outdoor Performances this Sept 15/16 & 22/23

Announcing a truly unique, evocative and strikingly beautiful site-specific duet IN the Wissahickon Creek. Please come to witness and be a part of this one-of-a-kind dance experience, surrounded and enveloped by the beauty of nature.

UPSTREAM

September 15th & 16th and September 22nd & 23rd @ 2pm
Outdoors IN the Wissahickon Creek (near Valley Green Inn)

Suggested Donation $15

Choreographed by Jenny Sawyer

Featuring Sinead O'Neill, Marina Libel and Jenny Sawyer

 

this dance is about humans

this dance is about nature
no music. no lights. no stage. no social accoutrements.
just two beings. stripped down to the bare essentials of their human-ness.
muscles. bodies. water. breath. air. rock. and bone.
existing as one. together. in joy and sorrow. 
in search of a place, of a world, where they can continue their deeply vital and connected existence.

This stunning and powerful dance piece by Philadelphia based choreographer Jenny Sawyer is a call for you to remember your own intrinsic connection with nature. This evocative duet is taking the traditional, sanitized dance performance and literally putting it into the river. This will be unlike anything you have seen before.

UPSTREAM is a radical plea for us to heal our ailing world by fully acknowledging that humans are part of nature and not separate from it.... a plea for a paradigm shift of cultural proportions.

Make your reservations now for this beautiful and remarkable dance!

To make your reservation please email jroesawyer@gmail.com and you will receive a confirmation email containing all the audience information you will need. Audience seating is somewhat limited, so reserve your spot now!

Watch UPSTREAM on YouTube

Now you can watch the first version of my outdoor dance project UPSTREAM on YouTube!!
This is an unfinished, yet strikingly beautiful and evocative piece which I am currently gearing up to keep working on this summer.

UPSTREAM - first version October 2011 - 20 min
http://youtu.be/roWXVjRsIKM

"An outdoor dance work-in-progress, exploring the human relationship to nature and the constant, eternal and ever-changing processes of life."

Comments and observations welcome.

UPSTREAM - Call for Dancers!

I am looking for dancers to join me in my river dance project "Upstream" this summer!  Would YOU like to be part of this beautiful outdoor investigation?

Last summer, I had a vision:

"A beautiful, haunting, meditative, and meaningful dance staged in the Wissahickon Creek, with the dancers continuously moving upstream over the course of the piece."

Last fall, two dancers joined me to create Upstream, a strangely beautiful and evocative duet in the Creek. In 6 to 8 rehearsals, we created an amazing rough draft.

You can view the full 20min piece here on YouTube: http://youtu.be/roWXVjRsIKM

This summer I want to expand the piece and perform a more finished version during the Philly Fringe Festival in September.

Would YOU like to join me?

More details about the piece:
Most of the river is very shallow so much of the dance will entail mostly wading and moving over rocks. Some sections will involve moving in pools or areas of deeper water, up to the knees, thighs, and possibly up to the waist. The dance may involve climbing over a small wall with a waterfall. You don't have to be a champion swimmer (you will never be in water over your head) but you need to feel comfortable floating, diving, splashing and submerging your whole body for a few moments.

In rehearsals we do a lot of experimenting with improvisational movement structures as research for the piece. In the end some sections of the piece will remain structured improvisational scores and some sections will be more highly structured or choreographed for effect.

What I am looking for in my dancers:I am looking for dancers who are very comfortable and creative within improvisation, in rehearsal and performance, and enjoy creating their own movements, who are interested in water, dirt, being outside, connecting to nature, getting wet, etc., and who are willing to experiment with using their voices, as I intend to use vocalized sound in the piece (no text). You don't have to have a good singing voice, just a willingness to explore using your voice loudly outdoors.

Intentions for the piece:

I intend to hold rehearsals regularly over the course of the summer, beginning the 2nd week of June until the performances at the end of September. I am looking for people who are free to rehearse during the day on a weekday preferably, but the exact rehearsal schedule is yet to be determined.  Each rehearsal block will take 4 to 5 hours since the site itself is about 40min away. For example: Leave the city at 12noon. Get to site and  rehearse from 1-4pm with a snack break. Leave and get home at 5pm.

I intend to perform it for a live audience on Saturday and Sunday Sept 15th/16th and/or Sept 22nd/23rd in the late morning or early afternoon.

I would like to hold an initial meeting/rehearsal with dancers who are interested in joining the project during the week of June 10-16th.
Please let me know If you are interested in joining me for this project or learning more information.

Thank you for your time and interest!

I am REALLY excited about this project and I hope it excites you too.

Please forward this to other dancers you know (who are not on this email) who you think would fit & enjoy the project.

Sincerely,
Jenny