Public Open Events Programme: 
​January - March 2021
​

We would like to invite you to join:
 
beyond flat - a weaving of people and places

A series of six weekly Zoom sessions
And a seventh session for digestion
No charge. Open to all Amerta Movers

January 27;  February 3, 10, 17, 24; March 3
March 10 (Digestion session)
14.00 -15.30 (UTC) for 7 weeks


Background
Twelve weeks before Christmas, six of us came together to share practice and guiding via Zoom. We took it in turns to guide the sessions and offer material for the group. We wanted to see how we might share Amerta Movement, a practice that is deeply embedded in ‘place’ and communities, through the medium of Zoom. We recognise Zoom as a two-dimensional virtual platform which creates its own particular presence and atmosphere, but as no substitute for the 3-dimensional ‘genius loci’ or ‘local genius’.

On Zoom, we move in our particular places, with others in theirs - perhaps far, far away from us. Alone, perhaps in lockdown, how has the experience of moving on Zoom transformed our relationships with our own surroundings, with our places and homes?

How, when we are moving together on a virtual platform like Zoom, can we connect our disparate places, each with their own fullness of being, their own story and history, into a shared Garden?

Through movement, can we weave a truly embodied and embedded tapestry of unique different places in shared time? Can we begin to sense, experience and respond to the different atmospheres?

Our intention, as individuals within a (temporary) collective, was always to spread our practice more widely – to open windows and doors for more dialogue. Working together in a group has offered us a sense of ‘companion plants’, studying new conditions in a virtual Zoom Garden together, each in our own way, helping each other to  understand this strange habitat by moving together, enriching the soil that sustains us all, while also tuning to each other’s local conditions at particular times.

We have had a fun, stimulating and fruitful time, and would now like to share practice in this way with others for a seven week ‘cycle’. Week by week, each one of us will continue to guide and to share their own personal practice. All Amerta movers are welcome to join. You can drop in any week, though we’re hoping that most participants will come for all or most of the six weeks, to support the unfolding of new understandings within the group through time.

We’d also like to invite anyone able to attend at least five of the sessions to an additional session in the seventh week for ‘digestion’ of the process through movement and words. Indeed, we thought another ‘cycle’ of sessions, offered by a different (temporary) group might evolve in some way, so that we can continue to appreciate what we share from many angles – a little bit in the spirit of ‘Embodied Lives – Reflections on the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement’ – but that would be up to others, and could perhaps be discussed in the seventh session.

We are aware that this is just one contribution to several initiatives taking place at the moment within the Amerta Movement circulation to study and to stay in connection while we are unable to meet each other. Also to feel how we can continue to co-create and share ‘goodness for goodness’ through our own distinctive approaches within Amerta Movement.

Right now many of us are in various forms of lockdown, so this seems to us like a good time to offer whatever we can and we look forward to moving with whoever would like to join us.

Wishing you all a Peaceful New Year,

Alex Crowe, Beate Stühm, Judy Cole, Keith Miller, Kristina Bourdillon, Sandra Reeve.

To register for the Zoom link please email weaving.people.places@gmail.com and let us know if you intend to come to all the sessions or as a drop-in. Both welcome. This will give us some idea of numbers. Thank you.

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Download the beyond flat  invitation as a pdf

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About Amerta Movement

Amerta movement, developed in the 1970s, was the movement practice of Suprapto Suryodarmo, a Javanese movement artist.  Exploration is at the heart of this non-stylised approach with roots in free movement practice, Javanese Theravada Buddhism and Javanese Sumarah meditation practice. 

Prapto's approach to movement as creative life practice brings dialogue between traditions and can help people learn more about their own habits, cultures and art practices by becoming aware of their movement habits.  Amerta movement cultivates an attitude towards a more engaged and embodied life, understanding of oneself, our natural environment and others.   

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