Monthly Moveshops 2026

Creative Movement for All Bodies
In-person, Second Saturdays of the month (Jan 11, Feb 8, Mar 8, Apr 12, May 10, Jun 14)
11:00am-1:00pm | The Berkeley Alembic | 2820 Seventh St. Berkeley

Upcoming in 2025

FINDING FLOW
Creative Movement for All Bodies
In-person, November 23rd, 2025
11:00am-1:00pm | The Berkeley Alembic | 2820 Seventh St. Berkeley
REGISTER HERE

Fluent
I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.
– John O’Donohue

In this workshop we explore the water element and fluid embodied states as a source of support, ease, and inspiration. Through guided somatic practice we will find a sense of flow within that moves us through states of freeze back into our organic and essential nature as coherent and creative beings. This workshop draws on the teachings of Continuum, Noguchi Taiso, Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering and contemplative movement.

WHAT ARE MOVESHOPS?
Moveshops are in-person movement-based gatherings for folks interested in exploring embodiment as a means of empowerment, creative expression, and connection. Moveshops integrate guided improvisation, contemplative movement, and somatic skill building. Modalities include Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais, Energy Medicine, Open Source Forms Release Technique, and contemporary movement traditions. Moveshops are meant for EVERY BODY. No prior movement experience necessary.

Moveshops are always responsive to the group, but usually follow a loose structure:

• welcoming circle (orienting, grounding)

• experiential, full body warm up (body, breath, voice)

• solo and group embodied exploration (scores, puzzles, somatic practice)

• closing circle (reflections, sharing)

PAST

MAKING MARKS //\\ LEAVING TRACES
CREATIVE MOVEMENT FOR ALL BODIES
In-person, July13, 2025
11:00am-1:00pm | The Berkeley Alembic | 2820 Seventh St. Berkeley
By Donation, REGISTER HERE

Making marks is fundamental to our learning — an experimental and messy process through which we self-reveal and self-create. We express ideas and emotions to others, tell stories, and invoke meaning through the marks we make on paper, on land, in space, and in time. Through these and other modes and mediums of mark-making, we explore our creative range, develop our artistic voice, and come to better understand our impact on the world around us.

This workshop invites participants to investigate the relationship between movement, drawing, and writing — all forms of mark-making. We will traverse and translate across page and ground, using embodied prompts to discover new pathways of creative flow and expression: we will splatter, curve, open, close, straighten, dot, scribble, circle, stipple, mirror, pour, erase, darken, tangle, scatter…

Although the workshop will unfold in response to the particular group, there is a loose structure as follows:

• Opening meditation, inviting grounding and orientation

• Guided warm-up for breath and body

• Structured exploratory movement practice and composition (translating from movement to page, from page to movement)

• Opportunity to share & closing practice

We all carry divine opposites within us– a longing for connection and an impulse to return to self, a desire to slow down and an expectation to keep apace with the mind, a wish to be free and a fear of losing control– but we don’t often explore their generative qualities of complexity. As Jungian psychologist and scholar, Marie-Louise von Franze reminds us, when we engage strong polarities with curiosity and reverence something new emerges.

Embodying Opposites invites you to go deep into the messy mystery of the mixed state. Through improvisational and durational prompts and scores, we will explore oppositional dynamics (contraction/ extension, accumulation/ dispersion, inward/ outward, earth/ air) as an expression of contrast and continuum. With curiosity and imagination as our guides, we will embody edges and linger in transitions, exploring what blooms in the field beyond extremes, between states, and beneath surfaces.

REMOVING CREATIVE BLOCKS THROUGH EMBODIED EXPRESSION
October 19th, 2024 from 10am-2pm | Oakland

Feeling stuck and constricted in your creative flow? This workshop is an invitation to get out of your head and drop into your body as a source of inspiration and wayfinding through creative blocks. We invite EVERY BODY to join us, no prior movement experience necessary!

We will draw on the principle of improvisation* (finding a yes, and…) to accept the offer of the present and draw on direct experience (sensation, emotion, location etc) as a source of possibility and generative inspiration. With pleasure, ease, and playful curiosity as our guides, we will offer a range of contemplative and creative movement practices to alchemize paralysis into potential and move through constriction to connection. 

The workshop will integrate somatic techniques that participants can take into their daily practice for future encounters with creative blocks.

The workshop will draw on a range of somatic practices including: contemporary dance (release technique, improvisation), contemplative and developmental movement (Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais, Qi Gong), and Energy Medicine.

*This is not a contact improvisation class.