Movement
Through movement with Shakti you grow somatically: finding joy, awareness, and compassion, grounded in the knowledge of your own body.
Shakti is available for private sessions and group classes in the following forms:
Authentic Movement - this profound moving meditation practice offers endless insight, deepening awareness, and the joy of movement to the practitioner. Shakti has been practicing and teaching this form since 1992 -- having guided many in private sessions, weekly classes, and weekend workshops. Her teachers include Janet Adler, Paula Josa-Jones, Christie Svane, and Elizabeth Whirlabout. See Below >>
Contact Improvisation - Shakti teaches classes at Movement Research in Manhattan. She has been teaching this fun, release based partner form, to hundreds of movers, since her first Contact Improv teaching gig at the University of Vermont in 1995. Shakti was active in the Contact communities in Vermont, Boston, and at Earthdance before moving to NYC. She organized and facilitated International Contact Jams in all three communities, facilitated Teacher's Labs in Boston and at Earthdance, and helped to develop new Improvisational Workshop offerings at Earthdance. She taught ongoing weekly classes, weekend workshops, and 5 day intensives in Boston, at Earthdance, and at Dance New England; also teaching in California, North Carolina, and India. Her teachers include Andrew Harwood, Nancy Stark Smith, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, Kirstie Simson, and Olivier Besson. Shakti is known for her in depth warm-ups, that assist you in becoming more fully present. This leads to safe, soft, full, and fantastic Dancing. See Classes page on this website, and Movementresearch.org for more information on current classes .
Yoga - Shakti teaches regularly at Shambhala Yoga in Prospect Heights. Her current class is Restorative Yoga, on Fridays at 5:00. Shakti first practiced yoga with her father, when she was a teen, and has been teaching since the late 90s. Her teachers include Rodney Yee, Jai Uttal, Mark Whitwell, and Eileen Muir--with whom she did her 200 hour Iyengar Teacher Training. Along with an emphasis on alignment, Shakti's classes are imbued with a softness and embodied intelligence that comes from her Bodywork practice and her teaching/research in Somatic Movement Education and Therapy. Shakti has also taught Yoga at Northampton Hospital, The Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge, and at Earthdance Retreat Center. See Shambhalayogadance.com for details.
Inner Body Dancing: Meditation into Movement - this is a class that Shakti has developed since 1999 (formerly called Dance Meditation), and currently teaches at Maha Rose in Williamsburg and the Barefoot Boogie at the Insight Meditation Center in Manhattan. Starting in Meditation, then exploring the inner body via experiential anatomy, authentic movement, toning, and energy practices, one is gradually guided from stillness into luxuriously full on embodied dancing. See Barefootboogie.org for more information.
MORE ABOUT AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT
Authentic Movement is Embodied Meditation. It can also be described as Deep Listening with Your Body and Your Eyes. It is a movement form that focuses on following the threads of our inner impulses. Over time, a fabric emerges. Becoming aware of these impulses, allowing them to emerge, then moving in response to them, brings the stories of our bodies/the fabric into our consciousness. It is a simple form, with profound ripples. In a class we try on both roles of mover and witness, followed by writing, drawing, and/or speaking. No dance experience is necessary.
It is explored by some to deepen compassion, and acceptance, and by others simply for the joy of movement. It is practiced by dancers, writers, and visual artists to source/access material.
For more information on Authentic Movement, please visit the Authentic Movement Community at authenticmovementcommunity.org.
MASSAGE AND MOVEMENT, with Shakti Andrea Smith, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn