Dear Colleagues,
Please join us this Friday, April 8th at 3 pm. in the Room 145 of Fine Arts West (Use West Entrance that faces Goudy Hall) for our eighth Faculty Colloquium of this semester. Treats will be provided.
Anita King, Professor of Music Emerita, Piano
Title: The Alexander Technique: How Our Daily Activities Can Make Us Freer!
Abstract: The Alexander Technique is a simple and practical method for improving ease and freedom of movement, balance, support, and improved coordination. Practice of the Technique refines and heightens kinesthetic sensitivity, offering people a fluid and lively control of their movement. It provides a means whereby the use of a part–a voice or an arm or a leg–is improved by improving the use of the whole body, indeed, the whole self. These benefits are accomplished through a process of self-observation where one becomes intimately aware of one’s movement habits so that one can suspend habitual, often unconscious, muscular tightening where it exists and gradually, consciously, replace it with constructive behavior.
I will lead participants in explorations and activities designed to shed light on several topics related to coordinate movement (and yes, sitting, standing and speaking are movement activities!). These include: becoming more fully embodied by waking up the tactile and kinesthetic senses; sitting and standing with ease by taking full advantage of the weight-bearing capacity of the bony structure; maintaining full-stature by eliminating the distorting effects of unnecessary muscular effort (tension); avoiding isolation and overworking of individual parts by keeping them in continuous relation to the whole body.
Please feel free to invite students to attend this talk.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Doreen Simonsen and Bobby Brewer-Wallin
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators