#SplitThisRock2016 Sessions: Body & Movement

We are pleased to present a selection of sessions on themes of the body and movement at Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2016: Poems of Provocation & Witness.

For the full festival program, please visit the program page here.

And hey: Pre-registration is open now until March 31. 

Moving Breath, Moving Justice – Yoga Writes the Body
Kazim Ali, Susan Brennan, Jeffrey Davis
Institute for Policy Studies Conference Room [Map]
Thursday, April 14 11:30am – 1:00pm

How do you want your body to move?  Funky – High Octane – Sinuous?  How do you want your words to move?  Covert – Deliberate – Liberating?  While tapping into the pertinent issues that are roiling inside you, allow yoga to yoke you to your movements, both Social and physical.  Poets & Yogis, Kazim Ali, Susan Brennan, and Jeffrey Davis will guide you through a seamless sequence of delicious yoga postures spiced with reflective writing exercises and ancient texts. Wear clothing appropriate for movement, bring pen and paper; feel free to bring your mat and prepare to breath consciously, delve your impulses, and trip up your conventional language-ing.

Photo by Kristin Adair.

Off The Page, On Your Feet: Moving To Labor Poetry

Elise Bryant, Rocky Delaplaine

Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room 300 [Map]

Friday, April 15 4:00pm – 5:30pm

Activism and activists thrive in a community of kindred spirits. It takes courage to speak truth to power. Like laughter, courage is contagious and can be cultivated, nurtured, passed along. In this workshop we will pick a few potent poems about work, and back up the words with the power of our breath, volume and timbre of voice, gesture, expression, and shared movement. When we stand, move, and speak truths using the medium of poetry, we embody courage and become its transmitter.

In This Skin: A Writing and Performance Workshop

Aimee Suzara

Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Gallery [Map]

Saturday, April 16 9:30am – 11:00am

Photo by Kristin Adair.

"Every organ has a consciousness," wrote Akira Kesai. And Sekou Sundiata said, so aptly, "it all depends on the skin we're livin' in." The body is our nexus of joy and pleasure, as well as the nexus for historical trauma, erasure, and exploitation. This writing and performance workshop will allow participants to explore how to begin writing from the body, while addressing attitudes about the body, including perceptions and expressions of beauty, race, gender, sexuality, and ability/disability. Participants will explore and develop gesture and text through guided writing, theater, and movement exercises and create a short piece. Given recent events in which the destruction of Black bodies has been most visible, and the historical trauma experienced by many people of color, those of colonized histories, and women, the workshop has special timeliness and relevance. It is a part of an effort to remember, heal, and transform individually and collectively.