Dance artists Kirstie Simson and Charlie Brittain will join Dance North for a week-long residency centred around themes of health, rejuvenation and resilience. They have been drawn to these themes through their individual life paths – they acknowledge a growing drive to connect, share and resolve, especially at this time of global crisis. With curiosity, they will explore the crucial nature of health, self-care, resilience, care for others, surrender, creativity, connectedness, community and restoration.

Kirstie and Charlie are inviting participants to join them in a Health Circle Dialogues and will offer a one-day Immersive Workshop where they will share their stories, discoveries and interests.

Health Circle Dialogue
Wed 20 Mar | 6pm – 8pm
Findhorn Hive
£5
This two-hour session is open to anyone – join us as we talk by the fire and make a hearty soup. It’s an invitation to connect with others and engage in creative conversations around health, wellbeing and other themes that may emerge through conversation. We will explore these essential topics through our collective imagination, creativity and celebration of life.

What could it mean to be healthy in today’s world? A One-Day Immersive Workshop
Sat 23 Mar | 11am – 5pm
The Sunshine Room
Pay What You Can (Suggested price range: £20 – £60)

What could it mean to engage with our innate desire to be healthy as we traverse an increasingly unhealthy world?

This open-to-all session will explore ways to enhance health and wellbeing through movement, blending exploration, tasks and play with discourse and reflection. We will explore embodied intelligence and imagination as ways to listen to the body and its innate drive towards wholeness, balance, creativity and healing. The session will blend practical and theoretical knowledge with embodied learning that you can take into your own life. We aim to furnish you with tools and questions to enhance your resilience both in dance and life.

Level – Open – Offering valuable information for all curious people who like to play, learn, and enjoy moving.

More about Kirstie Simson:

Kirstie Simson (UK) has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called “a force of nature”; by The New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has “immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance” according to Time Out Magazine. Kirstie is renowned today as an excellent teacher, a captivating performer and a leading light in the field of Dance Improvisation. She recently retired after thirteen years working as a professor of dance at the University of Illinois. She currently resides in Wales and continues to teach and perform in the UK and internationally. Kirstie has been dealing with a life-threatening health issue since 2020 which has led her to question what health and sickness signify in our current global environment.

More about Charlie Brittain:

Charlie Brittain (UK) is a dramaturg whose practice is distilled through his work as a dancer, teacher, choreographer and rehearsal director. His passion lies in empowering others to take ownership of their practice and champion their values through dancing. Charlie continues to perform internationally with dance companies, independent projects and in collaboration with other artists alongside his choreographic work, which looks to the processes and innate wisdom of the body as a vehicle for learning and a means to extrapolate compositional methods. He is a sought-after rehearsal director and choreographic facilitator working across a range of artistic environments and ventures as well as a passionate teacher, regularly invited to lead classes and workshops for dance companies, educational institutes and festivals worldwide. He integrates his art with his practice as a bodyworker, sports rehabilitator, musculoskeletal health specialist and integrative health practitioner, specialising in the treatment, rehabilitation and education of dancers and movement practitioners as well as lecturing and examining on higher education programs in the UK and Europe.

https://www.charliebrittain.com