This workshop is exclusively for choreographers and dancers and will explore the Skinner Releasing Technique.

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) is an innovative approach to dance and movement training developed by Joan Skinner* in the early 1960s. SRT utilizes image-guided floor work to ease tension and promote an effortless kind of moving, integrated with alignment of the whole self. Tactile exercises are used to give the imagery immediate kinesthetic effect; spontaneous movement is frequently evoked by imagery and movement studies. SRT smoothly integrates technical growth with creative process. Through the 1970s, Releasing technique was taught by Joan and the American Contemporary Dance Company, primarily in Seattle, Washington. The work continues to be taught and practiced today, deeply influencing many contemporary movement artists.

‘Skinner Releasing practices letting go: letting go of stress, letting go of unnecessary holding in our body, letting go of preconceptions about what is supposed to happen, letting go of fear of awkwardness, letting go of the belief that we don't have the right body for dancing. We let go of habitual holding patterns and habitual ways of thinking in order to let something new happen. ‘

About the Artist Ruth Gibson graduated from University of Kent Canterbury with a BA (Hons) in Performing Arts. She studied with the Marcel Marceau Group whilst on a scholarship at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti USA. She continued her education at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Nominated for a Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2000, she has worked with many artists including Sandra Fisher, Gary Rowe, Leonard McComb RA and Gaby Agis. Based in London, the artists work together and often as igloo with international artists, including John McCormick and Adam Nash. Their practice is multifaceted ranging through installation, intervention, virtualisation, film and performance drawing on the multiple layers of reality and unreality. Much of their work is in recreating environments and systems where coding joins hands with choreographies of the body.

* Joan Skinner is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington dance faculty and former member of the Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham dance companies. For more information on the technique and further readings go to http://www.skinnerreleasing.com/articles.html



18/08/2010

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