NOMADIC COLLEGE @ EARTHDANCE
Nomadic College is returning to Earthdance again this year! The opportunity to intensely study the Axis Syllabus for one to two weeks is a wonderful chance to dive deep into all that the Axis Syllabus has to offer. With teachers from both Europe and North America, this is the only Nomadic College taking place in the Western Hemisphere for this calendar year.
About The Nomadic College:
The Nomadic College is an itinerant school for the principle study and application of The Axis Syllabus. Rather than a festival, or celebration, the Nomadic College is what its title suggests; an intensive study context.
Our Philosophy is: Conscientiousness towards commitments, self organization and voluntary participation. As below, so above.
As organizers, we seek to adapt and integrate the Nomadic College into the local conditions we find at the venue. The living and working conditions we search for are as low cost as possible, to permit as many people as possible to participate for as long as possible. These options usually entail communal living, which offers an opportunity to practice practical coordination & collaboration, mutual respect, and the mature maintenance of hygiene. Participants arrive with the awareness that they are expected to take initiative to alter their circumstances if unsatisfactory, to conserve their health and strength for the intensive demands of the study of The Axis Syllabus, and adapt to the challenges inherent in sharing spaces and resources. If people have the means, they are always welcome to organize living spaces for themselves.
At the Nomadic College, we organize a few pre-scheduled extra curricular events. Our idea is to leave time open for spontaneous initiatives. Alternative meetings, conferences, jams, or performances can be organized on a consent basis with/among the participants during the Nomadic College.
SCHEDULE: WEEK ONE – SOUL FUSION
September 27th to October 2nd
Class Descriptions:
Week One:
You Got This
teacher: Frey Faust
Yes, you do! 70,000 or more muscle fibres, bedded in a web of tensile connection and endless nervous sensors, capable of re-bundling and responding intelligently to any context, even to the unforeseen. 206 bones offering 900 synovial joint surfaces that in collaboration with the fascial meshwork, can reorganise and channel enormous forces in, through and onwards, transforming the potential danger of a fall into joyous, million-year old celebration of gravity. In preparation for two weeks of intense dancing, this class offers an in depth review of the body’s common heritage in all it’s endless variation, as drawn from the latest and 6th edition of The Axis Syllabus©, Volume One.
Circular Pathways
teacher: Claire Turner Reid
Explore sequential movement as it relates to clear circulation through our structure. Map and sense major thoroughfares that provide tunnels and highways for our precious fluids to circulate through. How might sequential spirals invite enlivening blood paths for easy flow and invigorated tissues? As we play with communication between our masses and articulating surfaces, we will bring our movement choices into relationship with our blood. Connect to the pathways of our pulses for soft circular sequencing, collaboratively working with the patterned miracle of our design.
Creation Now!: Tracing Gesture – Choreographing Meaning
teacher: Karola Luttrinhaus
This two day workshop focuses on the personal and inter-relational aspects of embodied creativity. Through moving intuitively and verbalising our experiences, we find belonging in spontaneity. Working with the idea of tracing our gestures, we will explore solo and duet formats that invite us to wildly distill meaning from our movement, and movement from our meanings. We tap into the membrane between the conscious and the subconscious to invite movement, poems, and conversational texts to emerge that bear witness to the beautiful and powerful interconnectedness of moving and thinking.
A Tapestry of Relational Circuits of Interdependence
Complex Movement Puzzles
teacher: Kerwin Barrington
Let’s explore some Axis Syllabus principles by relating them to the living organisation that is a movement phrase. Through a series of Fractals (self-similar movement patterns on a smaller/different scale), we will take time to move with and find new variants of these principles as we integrate/embody them. By way of this process, we will learn about the whole phrase through it’s very own parts, then eventually take these parts back to the whole. Like tapestry, we will weave together a multiplicity of variations of the original pattern, and in doing so, make it our own.
Reaching towards the Earth and Sky: the Logic of Support
teacher: Nuria Bowart
We all need support as we go through life. In this class we will practice dancing from the ground up, keying into the many systems that are already designed to support us as we move, and checking to insure the synergetic behaviour of our body’s masses.
- Hands and Feet
- Spine
- Tensegrity expressed the Fascial network
- Physical principles as they suggest vectors to harnessing the energy of our falls
SCHEDULE: WEEK TWO – KINETIC KINSHIP
October 4th to 9th
Class Descriptions:
WEEK TWO:
Playful Discoveries: A Study in Collective Intelligence
teacher: Nuria Bowart
“We are multiple and singular intelligences. Which one you are is determined by how you move your attention.” Nita Little 2025
Through the use of various games and scores, this class will involve some serious play! Together we will practice collective strategies for “success” and “failure”. Through movement play together, we will work to identify and expand our zone of adaptability while look for ways to find “success” in every moment. We will be working in duos, trios and larger groups.
This class aims to:
- Expand proprioception
- Tune intero/exteroception
- Practice moving between being one and many
Up and Falling UP!
teacher: Frey Faust
Here we will check runway options, landing gear integrity and propulsion system power output efficiency and energy conservation. Roll-through, vault, slingshot, catapult, and micro compensation motion for macro rebound! Flight ready?
Made of the Same Stuff
teacher: Dan Bear Davis
This workshop moves in the studio and out into the moving landscapes of the breathing, pulsing earth around us. We explore the human body in context of the winding contours and branching intelligences that we evolved with. We are made of the same stuff. Engaging nature as collaborator and teacher invites an intimacy with our own possibilities. This workshop will span from the contemplative to the dynamic. We will explore counterbalance, hanging support, three-dimensional architectures, spinal wrapping and contouring, and so much more.
Dialectical Cycles
teacher: Claire Turner Reid
We will test the proposal that by fully committing ourselves to the opposite of our aim, we might accomplish greater success. Go back in order to go forward. We will play with laws of physics, principles from Taijiquan and Taoist philosophy to inform this dance. We will apply ourselves to the progressive process of movement. Enjoy a refinement of nuance and subtlety in order to invite virtuosity. While attempting to hold the frame of locomotion as a great cyclical wave, we will stretch our minds’ and bodies’ ability to orient towards complexity – not through pushing, but through understanding. Parsing out phases of movement in opposition and in relation to a whole cycle, we will hone our agility within processes of landing and launching, reception and propulsion, lead and lag, undulations and oscillation. Can we allow ourselves to enter the dialectic with such awareness that we feel we might slow down time and escape earth’s gravity?
NOTE!!!! OPEN MENTORING SPACE
The open mentoring space will be available to all NC participants without further charge. Facilitators will be on hand to answer questions, give counsel or feedback
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Axis Syllabus Lab Classes
Tuesday 30th September 3:15 to 5:15
Wednesday 1st October 3:15 to 5:15
Sharing: informal performance opportunity for NC participants
Wednesday October 8th 9:00 to 10:00pm
After-Dinner Closing Celebration!
Thursday October 9th
If you have any questions about Nomadic College classes or registration please contact Kerwin at nomadiccollege.americas@gmail.com
If you have any questions about Earthdance accomodations, food, or work-exchange opportunities please contact Olive at site@earthdance.net