17, 24, 31 March & 7 April 2022

4 Thursdays: 17, 24, 31 March & 7 April / 10:00-12:00  / Skinner Releasing Technique/ Anamorphic Studio, Overtoom 301, Amsterdam, NL / €12,50 per class. You can pay with a card or cash. Receipts for payment available.

I will pick you up downstairs in front of the entrance. Please come in time as I won’t be able to let you in afterwards. Thank you. Be welcome!

These morning classes are meant as professional trainings and aimed for people who have some experience in SRT already. I look at experience related to the practice of SRT, yet different fields and practices may connect. If not sure, please contact me through email. Thank you. 

SKINNER RELEASING TECHNIQUE (SRT)™ | Lily Kiara

Tuning into dance technique and the creative process simultaneously through the use of imagery, designed to enhance expansion and strength with efficiency and ease. 

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)™ is a visionary approach to dance and movement training, developed by Joan Skinner (1924-2021); a detailed, refined and expansive technique. It is designed to find greater ease in our dancing and dynamic alignment with our environment and a refined tuning with our bodies and imagination. The teaching strongly draws on guided imagery and hands-on partner studies, supporting an experiential understanding of both the technical and the creative process in movement. There is an ongoing fine tuning in allowing ourselves to consciously fall into unknown creative territories. We allow ourselves to be intimately in touch with our inner body as well as align with something greater than ourselves through embodied listening. As we move with imagery that guides us through different layers of the whole self, the imagery can begin to move us. The poetic imagery can atune to physiological layers and includes the mystery of intangible layers present.

Embodied listening, inner spaces, presence, dynamic stillness, softening and allowing are some of the essential areas of practice in Skinner Releasing (other than release), that support action into newness. Softening supports the releasing of strength through efficiency and responsiveness. Allowing encourages listening, to one’s own dancing first. This way we can become more available.

Time & Perspective

with Lily Kiara

15-19 August 2022 / Monday – Friday / 10:00-16:00 / Amsterdam, NL

Lily Kiara draws from Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)™, imagery, experiential anatomy & physiology, Biodynamic Craniosacral practice, poetry and improvisation.

How do we dance (live) through time? By oneself, in connection to each other, our environment, space? How do we perceive time as we are moving in relation and in context? How could we perceive time as beneficial and what can we do when it’s perceived as pressure? What choices and tools do we have to move within a particular present flow of time and what tools to play with changing, disrupting, allowing and directing from within? How do our choices affect our dances? What are the dances we make in this time?

We’ll look at linear time and ‘time of consciousness’ (John Berger). Accuracy, layers, stillness, resonance, space of time, beginning, ending, time together.

What different perspectives could different ways of moving through time offer? 

“In reality we are always between two times: that of the body and that of consciousness.”

– John Berger, in: and our faces, our heart, brief as photos

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)™ supports the coming together of  dance technique and the creative process simultaneously through the use of imagery, designed to enhance expansion and strength with efficiency and ease. 

Through practicing within different layers of consciousness, from eyes closed deeper in oneself (deeper imagery), in direct relation to space (movement studies), or in touch with another person (hands-on partner graphics), we can have different felt senses of time and how we live through time. Tuning in and expanding. Being still in place, moving with an image or being moved unexpectedly, slow or fast.

We’ll be making connections throughout the whole workshop between how it works in the dancing self and how we make dances with time as main area of attention.

Aligning with time through space. This. Here. Now. Instant dances. What is the dance asking of you now? Can you listen to what this is and know it instantly through the dancing self, through time? This also offers the possibility of ease: this moment contains and can reveal everything you need to know right now. We practice technically and compositionally so there is an availability and readiness in this moment, in the body and in reading the composition as it unfolds and is being created. We include the practise and generosity of witnessing, watching and being watched, seeing and being seen. How does being seen support and affect our dance?

Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy is a gentle form of bodywork that originates from Osteopathic practice. It holds that the health of the body is always present in the client. Connecting with the more subtle layers in the self, dynamic stillness and allowing are aspects of its orientation that resonate with approaches in SRT.

Lily Kiara danced her first improvised solo performance on invitation of her dance teacher at the age of eight. She started her professional training at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam (1990-1994), at Bennington College and Movement Research in NYC.  Further on, Skinner Releasing Technique (certified teacher since 2001), martial arts and training in instant composition with teachers such as Julyen Hamilton and Lisa Nelson have greatly influenced her work and evolving vision. The work of her late teacher Suprapto Suryodarmo, Amerta Movement continues to inspire her on numerous levels while practicing and performing in Indonesia. She has been making work for over 25 years. 

In 2021 she graduated in London as a Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist. Lily also is active as a folk singer-songwriter, solo and with her band The RIVER. Her new EP Roses (The New Orleans Sessions) releases in 2022 on ZIP Records. 

Lily Kiara has been teaching classes and workshops in Skinner Releasing Technique and Creating (Instant) Dances, sometimes together with a musician or lighting designer. She has been teaching at independent studios, festivals, academies and art institutions throughout Europe, USA, Australia and Indonesia and also guides artists in their process of making their own work. New website to be expected in March 2022 | old site still available

FOR WHOM:

The Summer Intensive is being offered for the 20th year in 2022 and is intended for more experienced dancers, movers, choreographers, mimers, actors, etc. so we can deepen and develop the work in the professional field. Experience can mean different things. If you are not sure but wish to join, please contact me through email. As it is an Intensive, it is not possible to come for single days.

WHEN:

15-19 August 2021 / Monday – Friday / 10:00 – 16:00

COST:

€325

WHERE:

BAU Studio (directions below), Entrepotdok 4, 1018 AD Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ORGANIZATION:

If you wish to join, please send a mail. Deadline for signing up is 24 July. It is helpful if you confirm in time by payment or by staying in touch about it, otherwise you loose your place or the workshop might be cancelled because i don’t know in time who is coming. If you are interested, please register in time and be clear about your participation and registration. It helps these independently set up workshops to be possible. It is very much appreciated! Thank you! Priority is given to participants who commit to coming for the whole workshop. Please send me a few lines of your previous experience. Details for further registration you can find below.

REGISTRATION:

To make your registration complete, you can transfer €325 to the account below. If you cancel up until 10 days before the workshop, €60 administration costs will be kept. If you cancel after that, there can be no refund. You will receive a receipt on the first day. If the workshop is cancelled, you will get the full amount return. If you need other ways of payment, please let me know. If you just communicate about it in time, it is usually fine.

Account (please note the different name!): 

IBAN: NL47 INGB 000 349 1465  

Account name: A.M. Venendaal, Amsterdam, NL  

BIC: INGBNL2A 

LOCATION: 

BAU Studio

Entrepotdok 4

1018 AD Amsterdam

From Amsterdam CS a 15 minute walk or bus 22 in direction of Indische Buurt. Out at Kadijksplein (2nd stop). Walk underneath the arc with ‘Entrepot-Dok’ on it. The building is then on the left.

BAU studio and Lily Kiara are not to be held responsible for any physical injury or damage or loss of possessions during the workshop.

You can also connect to this facebook page for dance workshops and classes:

Thank you for your interest! Feel free to contact me if there might be any questions.

To see one must go beyond the imagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though in the center of a leap. 

– John Cage, in: Silence, Lectures and Writings

ALIGNING with SPACE

Embodying Space as Presence

2 -6 August 2021 / Monday – Friday / 10:30 – 16:30 / Amsterdam, NL

with Lily Kiara & guest Laressa Dickey

Aligning with inner space and aligning with the space we dance in. The inner body of space moving through the outer body of space. Continuation. Boundless. Boundaries. Differentiation. Space and body moving each other.

Space is here before anything is being formed, in the physical body and in the dances. We’ll look at this in creating dances, craniosacral work and embryology. 

The body as a perceptive field. Open listening. Alert and at ease. What details can we sense and let guide us into the dance from this space? We’ll bring in some attention on the spine which we tuned into in the last two Intensives, this time including further experiencing space(s) along the spine. Midlines as space. 

Aligning with real time through space. This. Now. Instant dances. What is the dance asking of you now? Can you listen to what this is and know it instantly through the dancing self? This also offers the possibility of ease: this moment contains and can reveal everything you need to know right now. We practice technically and compositionally so there is an availability and readiness in this moment, in the body and in reading the composition as it unfolds and is being created. 

Space. Presence and articulation, alive space and dynamic stillness, imagination and beyond imagination. Tuning into our dancing selves and tuning into the dances being made, together, in space.

“To see one must go beyond the imagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though in the center of a leap”. – John Cage, in: Silence, Lectures and Writings

Lily Kiara & Laressa Dickey. Together they draw from Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)™, imagery, experiential anatomy & physiology (incl. embryology), Craniosacral approach, poetry and improvisation. In this Summer Intensive, dance artist, singer-songwriter Lily Kiara collaborates for the fourth year in a row with poet, dancer, somatic practitioner Laressa Dickey, who will offer at least two morning sessions. Some of the days their work may intertwine.

WHEN:

2 -6 August 2021 / Monday – Friday / 10:30 – 16:30

COST:

€325 early bird* / €360

* early bird if you sign up before 7 June 2021

WHERE:

BAU Studio

Entrepotdok 4

1018 AD Amsterdam

The Netherlands

FOR WHOM:
The Summer Intensive has been going for about 20 years and is intended for more experienced dancers, movers, choreographers, mimers, actors, etc. so we can deepen and develop the work in the professional field. Experience can mean different things. If you are not sure but wish to join, please contact me through email As it is an Intensive, it is not possible to come for single days.

SOME APPROACHES in the WORKSHOP:
Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)™ supports the coming together of  dance technique and the creative process simultaneously through the use of imagery, designed to enhance expansion and strength with efficiency and ease. Tuning in and expanding. Much of the technique and imagery is based in the experience and use of spaces in the body and the direct connection between inner space and outer space and awareness. The multidimensionality of our being is both made tangible and allowed to embody its mystery through the imagery, hands-on partner studies and movement practices. We’ll be making connections throughout the whole workshop between how it works in the dancing self and how we make dances, or how dances are evolving. 

SRT is at the source of what has come to be known under the name ‘Release Technique’. It is different from it though in several ways. you can read more extensively about it on this page: www.lilykiara.nl/srt.html

Through the approach of craniosacral work, we’ll look at how different parts of the body are formed in their embryological development and how this continues to inform us now. Our structure develops out of spaces that delineate themselves over time. Also: Orientation. Proprioception— a way to sense where we are in the space and how we are moving, from inside.  Craniosacral therapy is a gentle form of bodywork that originates from Osteopathic practice. It holds that the Health of the body is always present in the patient, and that the role of the practitioner is to support the whole Health through gentle and informed touch. 

We may include one day of working outside, starting at sunrise. 

We include the practise and generosity of witnessing, watching and being watched, seeing and being seen. How does being seen support and affect our dance?

ABOUT LILY KIARA & LARESSA DICKEY: 
Laressa Dickey (USA, Stockholm) and Lily Kiara (NL, Amsterdam) first met in Berlin in 2010. They gradually became more acquainted with each others work and continued meeting and exchanging, in poetry, songs and dance. They started performing reading-concerts in 2014, with poetry by Laressa Dickey and folk pop songs by Lily Kiara. Throughout the years they developed a sharing practise also including dance and somatic work, through Improvisation, Skinner Releasing Technique, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and Poetry as well as a shared training in Amerta Movement, with Suprapto Suryodarmo in Indonesia.

Lily Kiara is a dance artist and singer/songwriter, based in Amsterdam, NL. She has been making performances for over 25 years. Her work comes to form through a fierce and refined dedication to improvisation. Her current long time solo project, on stillness, is ‘Field of Disappearance’. During the lockdowns in covid-19 pandemic she started working outside with musician Ab Baars which evolved into a new work ‘Even The Houses Are Dancing And All Is Well’. She has collaborated with artists such as Michael Schumacher, Julyen Hamilton, Eva Karczag (dance), Michael Moore, Felicity Provan, Michael Vatcher, Wilbert de Joode (music) and Ellen Knops (lights). Poetry and stillness are at the heart of her work. Her dancing has been informed and inspired by many great teachers in the field, among which are Lisa Nelson, Suprapto Suryodamo, Julyen Hamilton, Joan Skinner, Eileen Standley, Peter B. Schmitz as well as teachers in martial arts. Currently she is studying Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy in London. Lily Kiara has been teaching at independent studios, festivals and art institutions throughout Europe, USA, Australia and Indonesia, since 1996. She is a certified SRT teacher since 2001. She formed her own band The RIVER and produces cds on her label for music and poetry Sibyl Sings. Her latest album ‘Fishing In The Field’ released in 2016 on ZIP Records. 

“You must tilt your head to see the world”. – Laressa Dickey

Laressa Dickey is a mover, bodyworker, poet, and curious soul. She’s the author of 4 books of poems including Roam, and several chapbooks including A Piece of Information About His Invisibility. A new book called Syncopations was published in 2019. Since 2005, she’s been using movement improvisation to inform her writing and vice versa. Language, image, gesture, movement: presence. Her bodywork is informed by Craniosacral Therapy, Amerta Movement practice, integrative massage techniques, and an attuned, empathetic imagination. She created a video/movement installation together with her partner for the Bergen Assembly 2019 entitled “How to Pass Time With No Reference.”

You can find more details on their individual websites: Laressa Dickey & Lily Kiara (old version available, currently newly being created)

ORGANIZATION:
If you wish to join, please send a mail to info@lilykiara.nl  Deadline for signing up is 18 July. It is extremely helpful if you confirm in time by payment or by staying in touch about it, otherwise you loose your place or the workshop might be cancelled because i don’t know in time who is coming. So if you are interested, please register in time and be clear about your participation and registration. It helps these independently set up workshops to be possible. It is very much appreciated! Thank you! Priority is given to participants who commit to coming for the whole workshop. Please send me a few lines of your previous experience. Details for further registration you can find below.

REGISTRATION:
To make your registration complete, you can wire €360 (or early bird price €325 if before 7 June) to the account below. If you cancel up until 10 days before the workshop, €60 administration costs will be kept. If you cancel after that, there can be no refund. You will receive a receipt on the first day. If the workshop is cancelled, you will get the full amount return. If you need other ways of payment, please let me know. If you just communicate about it in time, it is usually fine. A note on the price for those who have come before: after many years of keeping quite a low price I have now raised it due to the disappearance of dance studios in Amsterdam and much higher rent for most that are still here. Also we are now two teachers. The BAU studio is beautiful to spend a week in and I am happy we can work here together. 

Account (please note the different name!):
IBAN: NL47 INGB 000 349 1465  Account name: A.M. Venendaal, Amsterdam, NL  
BIC: INGBNL2A 

LOCATION:
BAU Studio
Entrepotdok 4
1018 AD Amsterdam

From Amsterdam CS a 15 minute walk or bus 22 in direction of Indische Buurt. Out at Kadijksplein (2nd stop). Walk underneath the arc with ‘Entrepot-Dok’ on it. The building is then on the left.

BAU studio, Lily Kiara and Laressa Dickey are not to be held responsible for any physical injury or damage or loss of possessions during the workshop.

You can also connect to this facebook page for dance workshops and classes. Thank you for your interest! Feel free to contact me if there might be any questions. Any possible corona related protocols in place may apply.