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NEW DATES: Moving the modes of the encounter

23 May 2023–06 June 2023, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm

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Are you working in committees, initiatives and structures supporting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at UCL? You might be faculty, staff or students in AHSS or beyond. Looking for a non-linear space to connect process and reflect with peers? Interested in exploring embodied aspects of social dynamics?

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

UCL staff | UCL students

Availability

Sold out

Cost

Free

Organiser

Ali Baybutt

Location

Room 20 for first session, then IAS Forum
South Wing, UCL
Gower St, London
WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom

Alexandra Baybutt and Mark Rietema invite you to participate in a series of workshops at the IAS, grounded in the theory and practice of creative movement improvisation, somatic movement education and process-oriented psychology.

The workshops will bring questions around trust into an embodied inquiry that interacts and moves with the complexity of social dynamics present in the University. We aim to deepen the discourse and practice of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion through what emerges in this facilitated explorative space. The workshops will emphasise working directly with themes, concerns and ideas arising from participants through movement and discussion.

Why we are holding these workshops

These workshops build from Alexandra’s research on embodiment and encounter (2021-22, IAS), and the EDI Salon sharing her work and that of post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Lo Marshall. In September 2022, the Salon included semi-structured discussion amongst peers and there was enthusiasm for more contexts of meeting/moving at the IAS.

Feeling safe in one’s body and curious to meet new knowledge and each other are preconditions for learning and teaching. To respond to the challenges created by the pandemic that added to pre-existing challenges of EDI, we argue it is necessary to address the whole body-mind that participates. Our sense of trust, safety, well-being, and underlying power dynamics are often enacted and felt first on a physical and spatial level. We think, feel and act primarily with our bodies, not as isolated processes, but already-always entangled in a particular time, place, physiology and culture. We are curious about how the university might be inhabited through turning to the body as first affordance and to deepen embodied relating and trust.

We will share and facilitate practices for learning, meeting and trusting. Somatic movement practices offer tools for increased awareness and perception of self, other and space. Opening sensory awareness and perception helps individuals connect more easily to themselves and to others to create safe and playful preconditions for learning, and group dynamics that can increase trust and mutual responsibility. These workshops on embodied relating will act as training, recuperation and research.

What the workshops will involve

  • Moving in semi-structured/guided ways alone and with others.
  • Discussion, listening and reflection.
  • Touch, as related to methods and practices from Contact Improvisation.

No prior experience of dance/movement/improvisation needed.

You will be encouraged to move in ways that feel safe and appropriate for your current health or ongoing conditions, and take responsibility for modulating your use of energy. We facilitate in ways that attempt to recognise and welcome movement as a broad category that includes many intensities and subtleties. 

When and where?

Tuesdays, 6.00 – 8.00pm, IAS Forum (G17, ground floor, South Wing, Gower Street: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/maps/south-wing)

  • 23rd May 2023
  • 30th May 2023
  • 6 June 2023

Who is invited

Faculty, staff, students from AHSS working in committees, initiatives and structures supporting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at UCL. We recognise that EDI is everyone’s responsibility so if you are not actively part of the EDI initiatives but interested in participating, please get in touch also.

Email us to ask any questions you might have, a.baybutt@ucl.ac.uk. You are welcome to sign up to any or all of the workshops. Each will have different and similar elements. When getting in touch, please tell us a little bit about your work and any current concerns or wishes for such a workshop.

Register to attend: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/556439434327

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Who are we

Alexandra Baybutt (she/her) (PhD, Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst, Registered Somatic Movement Educator, artist and dramaturg) / Visiting Research Fellow, IAS; freelance 

Mark Rietema (MA Community Arts, Somatic Movement Educator (BMCA), Psychotherapist (UKCP) / Kings College; freelance

This workshop series is presented with the support of the Octagon small grant fund.