Posts tagged ‘Bangor’

October 16, 2011

sunny fall skies, dance, meditation, and the peace of wild things

Volkswagen-like steering wheel vector graphic ...

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings all-today’s cooler temperatures seem to confirm the arrival of fall. We’ve been graced this year, I think-that’s it’s the third week in October before it’s feeling so fall. This week marks the 2nd week of meditation class-practicing mindful presence.

And considering the possibility of being present even while driving. Turn off the music, turn on the attention. Notice the color and feel of the road. The feeling of the steering wheel and pedals under your feet. Attend with a focused attention, not the brief awareness that many years of driving brings. Remember when you first learned? How every movement, motion and reaction was full of thought, filled with adrenalin for fear of making a wrong turn, or not putting the car in gear, or not leaving enough space between your vehicular neighbor?

Happy driving this week. Oh, and it works if you’re walking too…

AND if you’re in Bangor this weekend, come dance! Contact dance class number 2 is Saturday October 22 from 7-9pm. It’s at the UU Church in Bangor. Sliding scale of $5-$10 and no registration is required. The first hour will be a lesson, followed by one hour of dancing.

Be well! And a poem by Wendell Barry:

Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For the time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

September 2, 2011

Contact Improvisation Comes to Bangor

Contact Improvisation Jam in Toulouse

Image by david-o.net via Flickr

Contact Improvisation Dance Workshop

When: Saturday, September 24  4pm-6pm

Where: Central Street Yoga, Bangor, Maine

Fee:  $20 if pre-registered by 9/21/11 online at: http://www.centralstreetyoga.com/workshops.html or $25 (check or cash) at the door

Description of class:

Wondering what a mixture of Aikido, surfing, wrestling, meditating and dancing could look and feel like? Then come join us and learn this amazing movement/dance partnering form called contact improvisation! It is a dance that fine tunes your senses and wakes up your ability to listen and respond to what is happening in the moment. Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges.

In this beginner’s class, we will be exploring:

  • basic weight sharing techniques,
  • incorporating sensory work, and
  • developing an improvisatory mind and body.

Workshop led by Carl Rudman, assisted by Connie McVey & Leslie Forstadt

Video of contact improv: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl514iZpN2E&feature=related

Carl Rudman is a free-lance performer and dance educator based in Portland, Maine. He began dancing many years ago at the University of Maine at Farmington with Margaret Gould Wescott, who became a long time mentor and friend. Subsequently, he studied with a number of internationally known teachers and performers, including David Beadle, K.J. Holmes, Martin Keogh, Liz Lerman, Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Claire Porter, and Susan Schell among others. Carl performed, choreographed, and collaborated with the UMF Dancers for 11 years, and later danced for several years with Katenia Keller’s Flying Feet Dance Theater. He has served as Vice-President-Dance for the Maine Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (MAHPERD) and has taught dance for the Bates College ArtSmart program, the Foothills Arts Center, the New England College Dance Festival, and at theUniversity of Maine at Farmington. Most recently, Carl has been appearing on stage regularly in Southern Maine and has been on the faculty at New Dance Studio in Portland. He annually serves as an artist in residence for various Maine schools, and also offers self-produced classes, workshops, and dance jams around the state.

Connie McVey has been a dance and movement lover all of her life, and for the past 17 years has been practicing contact improvisation to nourish her body, soul, and psyche. She is very excited about the possibility of starting a monthly (or bi-weekly?) contact improv jam in Bangor.

Leslie Forstadt loves the elements of play and the absolute *being in the moment* that contact improvisation offers. She’s practiced contact for over 10 years, and also teaches yoga at Central Street and through inhabityoga.

August 3, 2011

new classes on the horizon in Bangor and Orono

hello hello! Fall is just around the corner, and there will be meditation in Bangor at Central Street Yoga again, starting in October. Yin/Yang switches to Tuesdays at 4 at CSY and there’s a new Yin class at Full Circle Yoga in Orono Monday nights at 7:15 starting 9/19. what a wonderful time of change and new beginnings. Hope to see you on the mat-

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