Sha’ashua Performance Labs
Sample Techniques & Practices:
No-Form
No-Form, as I have been introduced to it by Antero Alli, is a standing meditation which encourages intimacy with the Void … the ultimate ground of our being which gives rise to all forms, images, sounds, thoughts, feelings, postures and embodiment. No-Form precedes and follows any ritual embodiment. Physically a position of vertical rest, No-Form is a "precursor to action [rather] than a gateway to Buddhistic samadhi" (Antero Alli, Towards an Archeology of the Soul, p. 7). No-Form neutralises and prepares the body, charges it until it is ready to enter into a new ritual form. No-Form is standing on the edge of emptiness … witnessing the Higher Self give birth to form. From here on potentiality may collapse into actuality and embodiment.
Authentic Movement
Authentic movement is self-directed embodiment through which the performer taps into the unconscious layers of the psyche and gives form and voice to the archetypal sources deep within. “With eyes closed, the mover listens inwardly and finds a movement arising from a hidden prompting, a cellular impulse. Gradually the invisible becomes visible, the inaudible becomes audible, and explicit form is given to the content of direct experience. […] Authentic Movement is informed by developmental psychology, somatic epistemology, Jungian thought, dance ethnology, and mystical studies.”
(Authentic Movement Institute)
Ritual Embodiments
Ritual embodiments are designed to amplify specific psychic conditions and dynamics of each individual, as well as of the group as a whole. From No-Form, potentiality collapses into actuality ... Embodiment is evoked through the provision of an initial impulse by the ritual guide. The impulse may take the form of a suggested polarity (e.g. masculine & feminine or chaos & order), or it may entail another of a great variety of archetypal themes (e.g. the four elements). The participants receive the impulse from the ritual guide, then enter the ritual space and engage with the evoked sources ... Working through layer and layer of meaning, the participants mine the deeper realms of the psyche ... until the process ‘cycles out’ ... at which point they return to No-Form.
What are the roots of this work?
Why do this work?
Lab schedule