The Practice

It’s both as simple as a children’s game and as complex as a human body : dance is in our nature and the full mastery of all movement resources requires a lifetime of practice. You can practice Open Floor solo, in a relationship, in a group, in nature, to the music of a soundscape or to the sound of silence. You can open the floor for 10 minutes, 3 jours, 5 days, 7 weeks … 2 years even!

So what do we do in Open Floor? We dance, we meet, we sweat, we laugh, we cry, we rise, or dive, we are alive. The choice of music is ecclectic : from classical music to trance dance via jazz, pop, and world music.

Why practice?

Open Floor gives you an opportunity to explore free mouvement and to explore yourself through movement. The practice is dynamic, joyful and deep, it grounds us and frees us. It enables a greater quality of presence, nourishes our hunger for expression, our capacity to be fluid and structured, creative and connected to the flow of life. As we practice, we cultivate resources that will help us move through challenges and fully enjoy our accomplishments and moments of grace. It integrates all the dimensions of our being, and gives space to ou hunger for connection, but also for solitude, for belonging and for source.
Sometimes what is in the foreground is the pure pleasure of dance, sometimes the power of a feeling, the flash of an insight, the power of our imagination, or the fullness of our soul.

What is the methodology?

We use anchors in the body (feet, heart, jaw, hips, back body, muscles, etc. ) to allow for a fully embodied experience. We awaken our movement resources develop the dancer in us and to increase our capacity to live a full life. We learn how to activate and settle, how to release, how to ground, how to follow the natural movement of expansion and contraction, how to follow a vector, an intention, how to fully inhabit a form and let it dissolve into something bigger … etc.
The movement cycle guides our exploration of the weave of our experience : we open our attention, enter the body through an anchor, then explore a them, a movement resource, or just the present moment. And finally we take some time for settling and integration.
Tout cela nourrit notre danse, nos relations, notre quête et notre vitalité.

The School

Open Floor International was created by a group of 15 experienced teachers, and quickly grew into a worldwide web of over 200 teachers.
The school has chosen to register openfloor.org through an open source organisation, Creative Commons, to become a non-profit, and to follow the model of Dynamic Governance. It is run by several circles of devoted volunteers. It has been quite the human adventure to volunteer for the organization for the past 7 years. I am currently the Operational Leader of the Training Design Circle, the facilitator or the Educational Programs Circle and a member of the Art in Motion Circle.

For more information on our school, please visit our international website : OPEN FLOOR INTERNATIONAL