Laban Movement Analyst/Registered Somatic Movement Educator/Choreographer
MOVE! DANCE! PLAY! Vitality through Movement
Artistic Director of Octavia Cup Dance Theatre
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Photo Kristopher Johnson
Autumn SCHEDULE - Let's MOVE, DANCE, PLAY
Updated December 2024
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Happy HollyDAZE Movement Challenge 12/23-1/1
All Listings in EASTERN TIME
Monday
9:00-9:50am SoMATic Mat - exercise/fitness - Zoom
Tuesday - Private Sessions are available
TUESDAYS - Next MOVEMENT FOR MEDITATORS COURSE Starts January 7th
This is not available on a drop-in basis. You must register for the full course.
Next Session TBA
Wednesday
6:00pm–7:00pm: Barre Burn at the Kiva
7:00-8:00pm The THRUM at the Kiva
Thursday
9:00-9:50am SoMATic MAT Space, Mobility, Awareness on Zoom
Saturday
9:30-10:20am - SoMATic Mat - exercise/fitness - Zoom
This is an opportunity to stay connected to your own BODYMIND
on ZOOM - After I receive your registration you will receive the ONE link for all classes- there is only one link- but be sure to make your payment in advance - so that I can send you the link.
Movement for Meditators: Embodiment & FLOW
$250.00
Movement for Meditators with Laura V Ward
January 7th - March 11th, 2025
Tuesdays from 5:00-6:15pm EST, 2:00-3:15pm PST
A 10-week movement & theory course on Zoom
Your bodymind has brought you this far in life, bravo, but could you be more fluid, feel freer, and easily tune into the flows of life? Could you go deeper into experience? Learn to recognize and release tension as it arises? Disentangle old holding patterns?
The Movement for Meditators: Embodiment and FLOW course offers an experiential reconnection of body and mind in the interest of integral vitality. What does that even mean? Integral vitality is coherent vitality. Your body is working in accord with itself. Head, heart, and guts are all on the same page. The orchestra is in tune and playing the same song. It is healthy entrainment.
If you want to release crusty old thinking, inhibitory armoring, and outdated holding patterns then this class is for you. If you want to access more energy and deeper states of embodiment, presence, and connection, sign up! Finding more flow in movement will lead to more flow in your day-to-day.
Meditation has probably taught you a lot. You already have experience with depth practice. It's just a jump to the left and then a step to the ri-i-i-ight to aim this skill at your own body. The same body you will be in for the rest of your life. We interpret our whole world through our physical body and our senses first, and through thinking second. This course will connect and open our bodymind through movement, sound, and vibration. We will be reconceptualizing embodiment and moving in ways that are perfect for meditation practitioners.
The class will consist of:
Goals:
Who is this course for?
What if I have limited mobility?
No problem. You can move at whatever level of ability you have. Breathing is movement. Bringing the concepts we will work with into your imagination with no movement will still greatly affect your bodymind.
Laura Victoria Ward is a maximalist artist, choreographer, somatic movement educator, consciousness explorer, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst, teacher, musician, painter, somanaut (integral anatomist), psychonaut, and meditator. She is the artistic director of Octavia Cup Dance Theatre, and has been teaching movement, creating dance theater, and performing in New York State, the Hudson Valley, and internationally for almost 30 years.
Participating equally in both experiential and performative practices–including movement, awareness, and expression—lays the foundation for Laura's work, which includes creativity, play, inquiry, and the infinite wonder of existing in a human body. An expansive knowledge of diverse practices, hands-on bodywork, anatomy, and kinesiology underpins Laura’s playful investigation including Continuum Movement, classical ballet training, Laban/Bartenieff, physical theater, and nondual awareness meditation (with Michael Taft). She has been meditating for over 30 years.
photo: William Loeb
January 7th - March 11th, 2025
Tuesdays from 5:00-6:15pm EST, 2:00-3:15pm PST
A 10-week movement & theory course on Zoom
Your bodymind has brought you this far in life, bravo, but could you be more fluid, feel freer, and easily tune into the flows of life? Could you go deeper into experience? Learn to recognize and release tension as it arises? Disentangle old holding patterns?
The Movement for Meditators: Embodiment and FLOW course offers an experiential reconnection of body and mind in the interest of integral vitality. What does that even mean? Integral vitality is coherent vitality. Your body is working in accord with itself. Head, heart, and guts are all on the same page. The orchestra is in tune and playing the same song. It is healthy entrainment.
If you want to release crusty old thinking, inhibitory armoring, and outdated holding patterns then this class is for you. If you want to access more energy and deeper states of embodiment, presence, and connection, sign up! Finding more flow in movement will lead to more flow in your day-to-day.
Meditation has probably taught you a lot. You already have experience with depth practice. It's just a jump to the left and then a step to the ri-i-i-ight to aim this skill at your own body. The same body you will be in for the rest of your life. We interpret our whole world through our physical body and our senses first, and through thinking second. This course will connect and open our bodymind through movement, sound, and vibration. We will be reconceptualizing embodiment and moving in ways that are perfect for meditation practitioners.
The class will consist of:
- Warm-up/Tissue Prep: A Guided Free Flow Movement Exploration
- Rolling on the floor for mobility, tissue hydration and release
- Somatic Practice to go deeper into Awake Awareness while moving, staying present with your Self
- Using movement and dance as a means to free up expression and energy (don't be intimidated, it will be fun 🤩 )
- Simple exercises and mat work (like yoga, Pilates, functional mobility) focusing on specific exercises to relieve our bodies from excessive sitting and stillness and learn about healthy function
- Using sounding and vibration to engage with the wholeness pattern of your bodymind
Goals:
- Reconnect to movement and embodiment in a healthy user-friendly way
- Rethink and deprogram unhelpful social, cultural, familial, political, and historical biases that objectify and separate the BODYmind
- Renegociate flow to improve tissue hydration, healthy function, and expression
- Learn how to down-regulate and up-regulate through breath, sound, and movement
- Learn to move in novel ways, make space for new neural pathways, let go of old priors
- Better health, more flow, and resilience
Who is this course for?
- People who have achieved some depth in their mediation life and want to take their practice "off the cushion"
- People who are interested in approaching movement practice in the way they approach their mediation practice
- Analytical thinkers and people who spend a lot of time “in their head”
- People who want to grow and learn
What if I have limited mobility?
No problem. You can move at whatever level of ability you have. Breathing is movement. Bringing the concepts we will work with into your imagination with no movement will still greatly affect your bodymind.
Laura Victoria Ward is a maximalist artist, choreographer, somatic movement educator, consciousness explorer, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst, teacher, musician, painter, somanaut (integral anatomist), psychonaut, and meditator. She is the artistic director of Octavia Cup Dance Theatre, and has been teaching movement, creating dance theater, and performing in New York State, the Hudson Valley, and internationally for almost 30 years.
Participating equally in both experiential and performative practices–including movement, awareness, and expression—lays the foundation for Laura's work, which includes creativity, play, inquiry, and the infinite wonder of existing in a human body. An expansive knowledge of diverse practices, hands-on bodywork, anatomy, and kinesiology underpins Laura’s playful investigation including Continuum Movement, classical ballet training, Laban/Bartenieff, physical theater, and nondual awareness meditation (with Michael Taft). She has been meditating for over 30 years.
photo: William Loeb
The Thrum & Gong Bath
$40.00
Laura V Ward and Theresa Widman are collaborating! We will offer a guided somatic movement exploration with gong sounds folded in, followed by a deeper dive gong bath. We will work with sound, movement, and vibration to submerge ourselves in a nourishing experience. Let go, move with, integrate—these are some of the options to invite our bodies gently into sensation and flow. Open up to freer movement through gently guided movement flows, peel away the armoring, release holding patterns, and bask in vibration with community.
Location: 86 Brown Road, Olivebridge, NY 12461
Advance tickets $30
Day of $40
HOLLYDAZE 10-day Movement Challenge 12/23/24 to 1/1/25
$105.00
This is an opportunity to stay connected to your own BODYMIND through the holidays in the comfort of your own Zoom! I am offering this challenge for totally selfish reasons. I need to move, and I love to move with other people.
Join Everyday! Join every other day! It is up to you. No pressure. No Stress. Just an opportunity for some more skillful embodiment/movement/fitness/somatics/ballet/all the things.
12/23 9AM Mat Class
12/24 10AM Ballet Barre
12/25 12PM Mat Class
12/26 9AM Mat Class, 5PM Roll Play - Somatic Inquiry
12/27 10AM Ballet Barre, 5PM The Thrum - Somatic Inquiry with Sound
12/28 9:30AM Mat Class
12/29 10AM Mat Class
12/30 9AM Mat Class, 10AM Ballet Barre
12/31 5PM Somatic Meditation: Letting Go of 2024
1/1 1PM New Year Opening Creation/Invitation Ritual
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