“The Radiance of Being” – GURDJIEFF Movements workshop

"The Radiance of Being" - GURDJIEFF Movements workshop

4 November - 6 November, 2022

with Amiyo and Chetan

150 EUR if booked before 15 October and 180 EUR thereafter

Information and Booking : majivanleela@hotmail.com, tel :+33 (0)780 305 305

Something is transmitted, through and beyond the Movements: A quality of silence, a wisdom that is both ancient and contemporary, a quiet clarity and a lively openness. Through this practice, we try to transmit what it means to be present and to radiate this quality in our daily life.

This workshop will happen in a bright dance studio in Foix, a charming medieval town situated an hour car journey south of Toulouse International Airport.

GURDJIEFF

Movements are an essential part of the teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff, an enlighted mystic of the 20th century. Gurdjieff created around 250 Movements or Dances, which some come from Sufi, Tibetan, Buddhist, Gnostic traditions, from Asia, Tibet, Egypt… Some movements were created by Gurdjieff himself on a music composed by Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann.

MOVEMENTS:

gurdjieff-dances-amiyoMovements in general are of incomparable beauty and uniqueness, each one being complete in itself.

Movements offer the opportunity to see ourselves in our greatest nakedness, and at the same time to lift ourselves out of the muck in which we might be immersed, opening doors to higher places within ourselves from which we can begin to live a more conscious life.

Movements involving our 3 centres have proven to be tools we can use against the downward movement of inertia. Some we can use to relax, some to come out of sadness or despondency, some to invigorate the courage to move forward, some to feel the wholeness and joy of life, and most of all some to feel that our being acts as an antenna through which a higher force can act.

Because the practice demands our full attention, it offers shelter from the worries and anxieties of ordinary life. The result is complete relaxation, even though the movements can be very active and tiring.

The effort of attention and presence leaves us with an inner accumulation of energy which, in turn, can serve our ability to cope with life’s difficulties without being too entangled in our emotions and thoughts.

Movements teach us to feel body parts and muscles, postures and body co-ordination that we have ignored until now.

They open our limited vocabulary of gestures to new combinations of limbs moving in unison or in opposite and totally different ways.

At the end of the class, we often feel a rush of energy, a sense of well-being, life pulsing in our muscles, a clear eye, an uplifted spirit and calmed emotions, provided we give ourselves totally to the movements, leaving aside the emotional highs and lows that we mistake for real emotions within us.

The movements awaken the body and the body in turn awakens the “I” in us that simply looks at what is happening inside and outside, giving us relative freedom from the constant external manifestations in which we have been so constantly involved, forgetting the inner dimension of our existence.

So when I find my mind wandering, when I am lost in inner discussions, in worries, in doubts, in concerns about people’s opinions, in desires, the practice engages my attention in such a way that it becomes impossible for me to wander very far away in mental flights, but I find a deep inner centre and a ground from which I can open myself to the outer world with more compassion, patience and silence.

FACILITATORS :

Originally dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and dance therapist, trained in several psycho-corporal techniques, in Esalen Institute (USA), in African dance in Douala (Cameroon), in contemporary dance in France, Amiyo Devienne studied Gurdjieff movements with Avrom Altmann, direct student of John G. Bennett. Amiyo lived many years in India, in the international commune of Osho, where she created a unique synthesis between the eastern and western visions of dance, and where she learned the stillness of meditation.

For 30 years now, she travels worldwide, sharing her experiences on movement, as a science, as an art, as a tool for inner development, for both amateurs and professionals (as in 2002 she taught at Carolyn Carlson Institute “Accademia Isola Danza”). Amiyo is actually leading several seminars internationally: in France, in Germany: Munich, Bielefeld and Koln, in Kerala and Dharamsala in India, in Ukraine, in Moscow, St Petersburg and Siberia in Russia, in the USA: New York and Boulder. Choreographer, she created and directed more than 50 public demonstration, of which 30 were of Gurdjieff movements.

Chetan Greenberg  has been deeply involved with the practice and the teaching of the movements with Amiyo, in seminars, trainings and public demonstrations since 1997.An accomplished musician, he brings his skills for a deeper understanding of the music and rhythms, and of the science of vibrations

More information about other workshops with Amiyo and Chetan : https://www.meditationfrance.com/therapie/amiyo/index.htm

For more information on Amiyo’s and Chetan’s work : http://www.gurdjieff-dances.com

FOOD AND ACCOMMODATION for two nights’ stay:

There is room for 10-11 people live in. 

  • Full board from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch in a shared room with 3-4 people, with bathroom : 130 Euros
  • For people who live outside – lunch, fruit and hot drinks: 15 euros per day

HOW TO GET HERE:

By train : there is a train station in Foix

By plane: The international airports of Toulouse and Carcassone are an hour’s car journey away. Please call us for taxi hire possibility.

CONTACT AND BOOKINGS:

Leela  +33 (0) 7 80 30 53 05 or by email : majivanleela@hotmail.com