UK & Abroad
Dance workshops
VILLAGE 2024
A year-long, monthly online moving village gathering to include losses as part of our vibrant living.
When: Mondays monthly online: 5-6.30pm;
22 April, 20 May, 24 June, 22 July, 19 Aug, 23 Sept, 21 Oct, 25 Nov, 16 Dec, 13 Jan, 17 Feb, 17 March
Where: online (zoom code sent near the start date once registered)
Time: 5-6.30pm (UK time)
Cost: £140 (€165) for the year
£100 (€117) early bird until 19th March
There are 2 places available at £40(€47) for people for whom the cost would otherwise be prohibitive
Info & Booking: susanrickards@blueyonder.co.uk
Holding ourselves, together
We need to be able to hold ourselves when grief and sorrow wash through our lives. We also need a village, to acknowledge our grief and loss, the big and the small, so that it can colour, but not define our lives.
For most of us this place and 'process' has been lost or ignored so that we are left in the cold of grief, rather than being alive to it. The difference, the cost, is our vitality. Which is a waste of our life while we have it. As Elizabeth says in The Last Devil to Die "I'm grieving, not dead".
So this group - 1.5 hours a month, is a village for our aliveness whilst acknowledging loss. Holding ourselves, together, as we include what's true; that sorrow is a healthy response in our vibrant life. It's not what we carry, but how.
We'll dance, of course.
We'll laugh, maybe cry, we'll be delighted, we'll be together and that's healthy.
I have been training as a grief-tender with Frances Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, who names a few gates of the grief that we all live with, and that are often unacknowledged. This work will gently inform our times together.
SURPRISED BY A POEM 2024
with Rachel Smith & Sue Rickards
When: Wednesdays in May: 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, 6-8pm
29th, 6-8.30pm
Where: online (zoom code sent near the start date once registered)
Time: 6-8pm (UK time)
Cost: £220
£180 earlybird until 31st March
There are 2 places at £40 for people for whom the cost would otherwise be prohibitive
To book your place: susanrickards@blueyonder.co.uk
However, we might turn out to love making omelettes or pots or writing a poem or two. If you would like the latter to be true, whatever your experience or absence thereof, this might be for you. Over these 5 weeks we'll come together to work and play with letting poems appear. We'll read and write poems, whether we think we can or not, we'll move to some fab music and see what happens. Work or play or both, it's up to you - together we'll hear and write the unexpected
Sue is not a poet, and doesn’t want to be, yet she loves poetry and wants to play with it.
Rachel is a poet and always will be, she loves poetry and wants to work with it.
In the same way that learning to make an omelette doesn't make us a chef, or making a clay pot doesn't make us a ceramicist, writing a poem doesn't make us a poet.
And The Beat Goes On
An on-going closed dance group with Sue Rickards. Assisted by Angela Griffiths - in person & online
Each Term: 1 x Weekend SAT 11.00am - 6.00pm SUN 10.30am - 5.00pm + 5 x Thursday Evenings 7.00pm - 10.00pm
251 Hungerford Rd, London N7 9LD, UK
To join or find out more information email Virginia: info@acalltodance.com
The next term starts with a weekend on The next term starts with a weekend on 11/12 May 2024. The minimum commitment is 2 terms to allow time for new participants to arrive and to have a sense of continuity for the group.
And The Beat Goes On is an ongoing group intended to accompany us through our lives. We dance, we use words and other means of expression to explore our relationship with ourselves, with each other and in community, using movement as our bedrock.
It is a closed group. New comers are welcome and invited only at the beginning of each term. We're a movement based community of dancers who practice dancing and exploring deeply, playfully, and seriously, expanding our ability to be spontaneous, honest, responsible and real.
These sessions might sometimes require a little courage and humour - you will only dive as deep as you want to go and will be supported. It's not about learning skills, although you might. It's more about the sometimes astonishing freedom that a different perspective can bring.
For people with a conscious movement practice/experience, as we will include dance and movement.
PERSPECTIVES 2024
An 8-week closed, ongoing group online with Sue Rickards for anyone who holds people, individually or in groups.
When: Wednesdays: 6 Mar - 24 Apr 2024
Where: online (zoom code sent near the start date once registered)
Time: 6-8pm (UK time)
Cost: £/€ 290 (240 lower cost - if you need to request a lower rate to make the group accessible, email Sue)
Info & Booking: susanrickards@blueyonder.co.uk
An adventure through movement and enquiry, curiosity and support, and in good company, we’ll bring freshness, pleasure, simplicity, freedom, and gravitas to our work. Who knows what will turn up when we turn up?
This is a particular series for people who run groups, or hold others in 1-1 settings. We'll get curious about what gets in the way of our natural excellence as teachers, therapists, facilitators. We'll value what we do well, and grow. Dropping problem based attention we'll hand over to our particular genius and presence. We'll likely be surprised and possibly liberated. We'll become better at our jobs of holding others.
Already Alright
An annual retreat and gathering in Orval, Belgium
5 Days: 28/07/2024 - 2/08/2024
Already Alright is an annual summer retreat and gathering. The week is both unique for each of us and also deeply supported by our coming together. We dance and create space to be curious, excited and surprised by what is actually ready to emerge and be included. We don't need to know in advance what we need or what might happen. This simple yet radical practice of exploring and being curious can change everything.
Connected to ourselves and to each other, we find ourselves much less interested in thinking there is something wrong with us, or anyone else. We can stop fighting with the underlying fear that we are not truly ok and therefore we can relax and become available to delight and spaciousness. Freedom and freshness come through us, sometimes when we least expect it.
Each year we build our confidence in what's ready to emerge. Fresh each year, and as a result of all our years of dancing together, this Annual Retreat and Gathering helps us to keep remembering the value of our unique contributions and our Alrightness. Oldtimers are as welcome as ever - we welcome each other! And newcomers are always very welcome too.
Booking & Info: luc@owc.be www.owc.be
Past - EVERYTHING IS INTERESTING 2024
An Open Floor Workshop with Sue Rickards assisted by Frie Lavelli
When: 11-18.00 Sat 23/3/24; 11.00-17.00 Sun 24/4/24
Where: Atheneum Deurne, Jan Brochovenstraat 15, 2100 Deurne, Belgium
Cost: € 160
Info & Booking: https://www.owc.be/course/2915/everything-is-interesting
Let's spend the weekend together dancing and loosening any ideas or underlying beliefs that something might be wrong, either with us or with someone else or the world. Let's have some fun and get curious. One of my teachers said: If nothing is wrong, everything is interesting. So simple and so inviting as an exploration. We have plenty of natural freedom to be remembered.
The freedom to be who we are; to be curious about who others are, and see what life offers us moment by moment. This isn't rocket science, and yet - dancing and taking the time to explore and practice the art of curiosity whilst in good company is probably as interesting as a rocket trip to the moon - and way more eco-friendly.
Past - Fire 2024
A winter ceremony group held by Sue Rickards, happening over 4 residential days at the very special Earth Spirit Centre in Somerset, with an optional Sweat Lodge
When: Wed 31st Jan - Sun 4th Feb 2024
Where: Earth Spirit Centre, Lockyers Farm, Peak Ln, Compton Dundon, Somerton TA11 6PE, UK
Info & Booking: becca@movinglandscapes.org
Food & accommodation included in cost
A rich and special time, to dance together, be with
the earth and the fire, to remember our imaginative and instinctive nature.
A gorgeous group of dancers are gathering for FIRE 2024. Come congregate in the the dark depths of winter, as our ancestors once did in longhouses and caves; we’ll dance and shelter together in kinship and feed our imaginations around the hearth.
This is a call to the untamed in us which is not satisfied by the artificial light of devices or TV. This is the call to that in us which wants the heat of real fire, real company and real aliveness.
We dance, however each moment takes us, invoking mystery to choreograph our time together and find ourselves enchanted by nature, music, stories and each other. We remember our natural kinship.
A winter ceremony group held by Sue Rickards with Becca Parkinson and Rachel Smith happening over 4 residential days at the very special Earth Spirit Centre in Somerset, where Hilary Kneale will lead the Sweat Lodge (optional).
We're a seasoned team who love this gathering.
Many people come to every FIRE and you be will warmly welcomed if this is your first time.