To: Lisa Ullmann Travelling
Scholarship Fund
Please find enclosed my end
of award report to the Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund; I do apologise
that I am sending this past the two-month deadline.
The
Fund’s generous grant of £800 supported my travel costs to
Below are some unexpected outcomes, which stand out as
highlights:
§
Whilst immersed
in the technique and away from my daily life, I was afforded the space to
devise and plan the London Skinner Releasing Easter School 2006, with my
colleague Gaby Agis who was in
§
Similarly as
above, being in the creative environment of the summer, I was inspired to write
an article about the performance application of ‘awareness of spaces’
cultivated in Skinner Releasing for the American dance journal, Contact
Quarterly. I also collaborated with SRT teacher Sally Metcalf on the submission
of her article ‘My Place is in Process’ to the same publication.
§
I meet a local
dance producer who has offered to produce my solo, My Father’s Grace, in
§
I was introduced
to the Bessie-award winning,
My plans to share my
learning and what I have gained include:
§
the biennial
London Skinner Releasing Easter Schools
§
creating a new
SRT evening class in
§
the Breathing
Space: dance-in-health programme
§
and training and
working with psychotherapists.
In addition, I have
re-designed the Falling Wide website to be the central information point for
SRT in
My
advice to future Awardees would be to take as much time as possible for their
travel, and to really strive to prioritise their travel project in terms how
much time and space they afford it. Being away for six weeks was an incredible
experience – opening space for reflection, renewal and rejuvenation.
I
have not included an attendance certificate for the course, since I will not
receive this until I complete the programme next summer. However, I am more
than happy to send a copy of this at that time.
My sincere thanks once again
for this invaluable support; I have appreciated it greatly and do hope to be
able to make a difference in the dance and wider communities here in
With all best wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Moran
End of award report to the
Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund by Joe Moran
Skinner Releasing Technique™
Teaching Certification Programme
The £800 grant that was
generously awarded to me by the Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund funded
by return travel to Seattle, USA to undertake the first six-weeks of the
Skinner Releasing Technique™ (SRT) Teacher Certification Programme: 18th
July – 26th August 2005.
“Skinner Releasing is a dance technique that has the
same objectives as other concert dance techniques: alignment, flexibility,
strength, speed, dynamic range, musicality and control of nuance. This
technique, however, is a system of kinaesthetic training that refines the
perception and performance of movement … The teaching of this technique is
complex, and requires specialist skills. The training to be certified to teach
is rigorous. Only 10-12 people are accepted at one time into the training
program.”
Joan Skinner, from ‘Skinner Releasing Technique™ Syllabus for
Teacher Certification Programme’, May 2005
The summer was taught by the
SRT teacher certification faculty: Joan Skinner, Sally Metcalf, Theresa
Moriarty and Stephanie Skura, and included daily classes in SRT at the
introductory and intermediate levels, daily training seminars and lectures,
discussions, voice work and music studies, alongside weekly essay assignments.
In addition, the training group observed the morning classes of the Annual SRT
Summer Intensive during the last three weeks.
Having
successfully completed the first year, I have been accepted onto the second
year of the training programme that will be take place over a second six-week
period in Jul/Aug 2006, again in
I gained immeasurable from the
summer. Firstly, I am very pleased to have begun the process of training as a
Releasing teacher and thereby creating a strong foundation for my teaching and
community practice. I feel I have gained a significantly deeper understanding
and appreciation of the practice of Skinner Releasing, whilst also deepened in
my own releasing experience, as a dance artist, in unexpected and profound
ways. The most explicit benefit of the summer has been successfully completing the first year of the training programme.
I will complete the training next summer and will then be ‘certified to teach
the fifteen two-hour classes, which comprise the Introductory level material of
SRT (SRT covers Intermediate and Advanced levels as well)’. [1]
§
Upon
certification, I plan to teach as part of the faculty of the biennial
§
In Sept 2006, I
will create a new, weekly evening class in SRT to address the current lack of
evening class provision. This will be offered in partnership with a
§
Teachers in
training are not permitted to teach SRT prior to their certification, yet we
are encouraged to reflect deeply on the principles of the practice and
integrate these, where appropriate, into our existing work. In Spring 2006, I
will embark upon leading a three-month programme of creative movement workshops
for those living with HIV & Aids as part of Falling Wide’s Breathing Space:
dance-in-health programme, funded by the National Lottery through the Awards
for All scheme. This work will be highly informed by Skinner Releasing and the
first part of my training that was supported by the LUTSF.
The training has had an
immediate influence on my choreographic
work. Daily SRT classes over the six weeks and weekly assignments - that
included of topics on Releasing principles such as the integration of technical
skill and creative growth, Releasing Alignment and the nature of process -
offered me an opportunity for reflection and inward attention, which, by
contrast, has propelling dramatic unfoldment in my choreographic work. The
training clarified and affirmed my current choreographic investigation,
increased my confidence as an artist and developed my skills in working with
dancers.
§
In Feb 2006, I
will present my new work Oh Abraham,
a group work for four dancers created in collaboration with filmmakers Jane
Barnwell & Roberto Napolitano, at The Place: Robin Howard Dance Theatre as
part of the Resolution! season.
§
In addition, I
am developing the solo My Father’s Grace
for performance at a
§
Training
psychotherapists and therapists of other disciplines in Skinner Releasing as a
way to cultivate ‘embodied intuition’: a skill that is essential in the
training and practice of psychotherapy.
§
A practice-based
research project into Releasing,
Embodiment and Psychotherapy, that will
be make up part of my eventual PhD research.
§
Whilst immersed
in the technique and away from my daily life, I was afforded the space to
devise and plan the London Skinner Releasing Easter School 2006, with my
colleague Gaby Agis who was in
§
Similarly as
above, being in the creative environment of the summer, I was inspired to write
an article about the performance application of ‘awareness of spaces’
cultivated in Skinner Releasing for the American dance journal, Contact
Quarterly. I also collaborated with SRT teacher Sally Metcalf on the submission
of her article ‘My Place is in Process’ to the same publication.
§
I meet a local
dance producer who has offered to produce my solo, My Father’s Grace, in
§
I was introduced
to the Bessie-award winning,
I will disseminate my
learning and what I have gained through:
§
the biennial
London Skinner Releasing Easter Schools
§
creating a new
SRT evening class in
§
the Breathing
Space: dance-in-health programme
§
training and
working with psychotherapists
In addition, I have
re-designed the Falling Wide website to be the central information point for
SRT in
Once
again thank you very much to the Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund and
its committee for this generous assistance – it has been greatly appreciated.
Joe
Moran
[1] Joan Skinner, ‘Skinner Releasing Technique™ Syllabus for Teacher Certification
Programme’, May 2005