Body Tuning with Gong Meditation

BODY TUNING

a meditation-in-motion practice by

Claire Elizabeth Barratt

Body Tuning is for anybody who has a body.

Body Tuning is a holistic practice that integrates mind, body and spirit.

Body Tuning investigates the body as a medium for creative exploration.

Body Tuning is a valuable resource for dancers, actors, artists, yoga and bodywork practitioners, yet requires no previous movement method experience, involves no set poses or sequences and is accessible to all.

For each of the three Body Tuning with gong meditation sessions, we will focus on one single and simple action of the body.

1) Breath

2) Shift of Weight

3) Motion of Joints

The resonant vibrations of the gong will facilitate our movement meditation – as if carried by waves of sound. In turn, our motion opens the body to fully receive healing vibration on a deep, cellular level. It is a cycle of well-being.

Body Tuning was developed through a Masters Degree project at the Transart Institute for Creative Research and accredited by Plymouth University UK, as a component of the Living Art pedagogy for performance.

Claire Elizabeth Barratt - Biography

Claire Elizabeth Barratt (aka Cilla Vee) is an inter-disciplinary artist with a performing arts background. She is the director of Cilla Vee Life Arts  – an arts organization with a focus on cross-media collaboration. Her work utilizes artistic disciplines of dance, music, text, media, visual and installation art. 

Claire has presented her work in venues as diverse as Jacob’s Pillow, the New York Botanical Gardens, Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center and Art Basel Miami. She has performed and taught throughout the USA and in Canada, Europe, Japan, Israel and Pakistan.

Claire received her professional training in London at The Laban Centre For Movement and Dance and at the London Studio Centre For Performing Arts. Her pre-professional training includes the Royal Academy of Dance and the Royal Schools of Music examinations. She also served an apprenticeship with the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in New York and holds an MFA in Creative Practice from the Transart Institute with Plymouth University, UK.

On moving to the USA in 1992, Claire held the positions of Dancer for Unto These Hills drama on the Cherokee Indian Reservation and for Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater in North Carolina, as well as serving as a Co-Founder and Director for Circle Modern Dance and as Choreographer for the Knoxville Opera Company in Tennessee.

Once based in New York in 2002, Claire founded Cilla Vee Life Arts and, with the support of arts advocates such as Chashama, Bronx Council on the Arts and Arts for Art, began to develop and present her signature modes of work – including Motion Sculpture Movement Installations and The Sound Of Movement projects.

She is the creator of the Living Art pedagogy for performance.

Claire now uses Asheville NC as her home base and tours frequently to connect and collaborate with a variety of international artists.

Body Tuning

BODY TUNING

a bodywork practice by

Claire Elizabeth Barratt

Body Tuning is for anybody who has a body!

Body Tuning is a holistic practice that integrates mind, body and spirit.

Body Tuning investigates the body as a medium for creativity.

Body Tuning is a valuable resource for dancers, actors, artists, yoga and bodywork practitioners.

However, Body Tuning requires no previous movement method experience, involves no set poses or sequences and is accessible to anybody who just wants to move.

More organic than a dance technique, Body Tuning investigates basic and

fundamental movement concepts and combines them with imagery in a creative response.

Body Tuning is a fun and immersive way to move your body and engage

your imagination!

 

In much the same way as early scientists sought the basic building blocks of all matter (eventually discovering molecules, atoms and beyond), I have sought to find basic movement concepts inherent in the body on a “molecular” level – the substance of motion in its purest form. In this method, each exercise is a thorough investigation of one specific movement concept and its possibilities.

I have classified and catalogued these concepts in a series of exercises I call Body Tuning. Using the analogy of tuning a musical instrument or an engine in order for it to function smoothly and efficiently, I have developed a series of physical preparation exercises. Each of these exercises isolates one specific fundamental concept of Self in relationship to body, time, space, gravity, surface, form, body sound and motion.

These concepts are known as the “raw materials” and include explorations based on such body fundamentals as: Breath, Transfer of Weight and Vibration.

Comments from previous workshop participants:

Pat Petersen

Retired, former County Finance Director and federal auditor

I found the workshop very informative and very stress-less. As a 64-year-old non-limber person, I wasn't sure if I would be able to do everything I was asked to do, but the way you conducted it put me at ease - basically, just do what I was comfortable with within the parameters of the exercise.

Clarisse Young

Musician

Claire's workshop changed my whole perspective on movement and bodily control. I received such a sensation of renewal and freedom. The more control I gained over my muscles, particularly through my breathing, the freer I felt. The workshop opened my eyes even wider to the power of even, deep, and intentional breathing. If you completely relax, you end up with more energy, as if the more energy you release the more you receive. As if you're breathing in divine source energy. I believe with a clear and focused mind you are. She taught me how to more efficiently practice moving mediation.

Claire's workshop was truly a life changing and perspective broadening experience. I'm extremely grateful to have been a part.

Corinne Beardsley

Sculpture and Ceramic Professor

The workshop was wonderful and got me to open up in new ways.

I hadn't slowed down my movements before, and felt each dimension of their movements with my breath. It was experimental moving yoga.

I felt so much of myself moving and opening up. New forms developed, I felt myself connecting the vision of what I saw my body doing connecting with the movement. Controlling the breath with my gestures, thinking about the expressiveness of the movement, and the beauty of shapes between transitions.

The warm up of shaking it all out, focusing on separate body parts felt so good too.

 It was a powerful and transformative workshop for my dancing practice.

Kimathi Moore:
Musician, electronic experimental artist, composer.
I found the workshop to be very empowering thus enabling of a great amount of freedom within each participant. It felt as if each participant was able to dig deep into the their natural, instinctual and creative habitat and explore it with great innocence.

Body Tuning was developed through a Masters Degree project at the Transart Institute for Creative Research, Plymouth University UK, as a component of the Living Art pedagogy for performing arts.

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About Claire:

Claire Elizabeth Barratt - Biography

Claire Elizabeth Barratt is an inter-disciplinary artist with a performing arts background. She is the director of Cilla Vee Life Arts – an arts organization with a focus on cross-media collaboration.

Claire received her professional training in London at The Laban Centre For Movement and Dance and at the London Studio Centre For Performing Arts. Her pre-professional training includes the Royal Academy of Dance and the Royal Schools of Music examinations. She also served an apprenticeship with the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in New York and holds an MFA in Creative Practice from the Transart Institute for Creative Research, Plymouth University, UK.

She is the creator of the Living Art pedagogy for performing arts, including the bodywork method Body Tuning.

She has performed and taught throughout the USA as well as in Canada, Europe, Japan and Pakistan. Previous credits include: Co-Founding Director of Circle Modern Dance Knoxville TN, Choreographer for the Knoxville Opera Company, Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center Asheville NC, Asheville Art Museum, Art Basel Miami FL, the Vision Festival NYC, chashama NYC, Wave Hill NYC, the New York Botanical Gardens, the Washington DC International Improv Festival, George Washington University DC, the Scared Dance Guild Festival, School for Visual Arts and Design at BNU Lahore Pakistan.

Claire now uses Asheville NC as her home base.

Please contact me in regards to group workshops or private sessions for

BODY TUNING

Claire Elizabeth Barratt

(917) 650 7321

cillavee @ gmail.com

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