Photo documentation by Anna Semenova Kozak

all drawing is of the moment, SALT, 2024 – 00:35 video short (text excerpt from Amy Sillman’s Menil Collection lecture – ‘Drawing in the Continuous Present’, January 13 2017)

resonant bodies // fluid intelligence

SALT w/ Linda Rabin (Continuum) at White Wall Studio, MTL (Sept 14 – 15, 2024)

There are many ways to be a fungus. SALT is thrilled to announce the next phase of our Sympoeisis research unfolding over summer 2024 and culminating with a resonant bodies // fluid intelligence workshop in September (MTL) weaving dimensions of somatic awareness, drawing and Continuum. We are incredibly honoured to be working with Linda Rabin as mentor for the movement-focused dimension of this project, who brings to her work more than 50 years of experience in dance, movement education, coaching and direction. 

We (SALT) position ourselves as emergent processes that require fluid strategies. Essentially a score for attunement, Sympoeisis supports inroads to shared interiority through silent meditation, sounding (Continuum), contemplative movement and drawing. We propose that listening together opens us to a larger field of generative awareness, within which we deepen inward and extend outwards, allowing unexpected possibilities to flow. We envision Sympoeisis as embodied preparation for somatic-informed collaborative process. Join us : )

“Moving fluidly increases our vitality, just as water in the natural world is vitalized by flowing freely.”
— BONNIE GINTIS

“Become the water.”
– EMILIE CONRAD

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Resonant Bodies // Fluid Intelligence

Montreal, QC – Sept 14th and 15th, 2024 at White Wall Studio
Facilitation SALT (Rachel Crummey and Tara Dougans) with Linda Rabin

Tune into the interstitial spaces of collective movement, silence, sounding, and drawing. This workshop explores the fertile connections between Continuum (taught by Linda Rabin) and drawing as spontaneous gesture (facilitated by SALT). These practices incline us towards inhabiting the present moment with greater ease and creative flow.

With Continuum, we slow down and become intimate with internal rhythms, inviting a fluid intelligence beyond the thinking mind. When we tune our minds and bodies in this way, drawing then becomes an embodied expression of the present moment. What can listening together teach us about collective emergence? What does it mean to relate, and make, from this place? Continuum offers us access to sensations flowing below our habitual attention, while drawing offers us a portal for expressing this fluid matrix, enabling us to share in a non verbal form.

This workshop is open to artists, writers, dancers, the MTL Continuum community and somatically curious folk. No previous experience in Continuum or with drawing necessary. Drawing materials will be provided.

Saturday, Sept 14th
11:00 - Introduction / opening circle
11:15 – 1:15: Continuum (facilitated by Linda Rabin)
1:15 - 2:00: lunch 
2:00 - 4:00: Somatic drawing (facilitated by SALT)

Sunday, Sept 15th
11:00 - 1:00: Continuum
1:00 - 1:45: lunch
1:45 - 3:30: Somatic drawing
3:30 – 4:00: Sharing and Closing Circle

White Wall is at 4532 Av. Laval, Montreal QC
Metro: Mont-Royal

Registration: $200. Scholarship available for low income / financially strained.
To reserve your place; e-transfer to: tara.dougans@gmail.com

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SALT (The Institute of Sensual Awareness, Language and Touch) is a research vessel for collaborative practice centering empathic attunement through 'Sympoeisis' (making with)

Rachel Crummey is a visual artist, writer, and educator based in Tkaronto / Toronto.  With a background in abstract painting, poetry, and contemplative practice, she is currently learning from non-linear intelligences through collaboration with fungi.  She has exhibited nationally and internationally; her poetry has been published widely including CV2 and Maisonneuve .  She has over seventeen years of daily meditation practice as well as yearly silent retreats at venues including the Insight Meditation Society and the Toronto Zen Centre.  She holds an MFA from Guelph University and teaches drawing in Toronto.

Tara Dougans is a Tiohtià:ke / Montreal-based artist whose sculpture and field coherence work explores silent-level sensing through touch. Founded by Tara in 2020, The Institute of Sensual Awareness, Language and Touch (SALT) is a research vessel for collaborative practice centering empathic attunement. Attending to form through clay and improvisation through dance, their focus on the kinesthetic and relational is informed by fifteen years of somatic work with horses. They have exhibited nationally and internationally, with films screened with the Van Gogh Museum (NL), CBC Arts (CAN), at the Gardiner Museum (CAN) and film festivals in Canada and overseas. They teach sensory-informed ceramics in Montreal. 

Linda Rabin brings to her teaching 50 years of experience in the fields of dance, movement education, coaching and directing. In her earlier professional life, she was a choreographer, dance teacher and co-founder of l’École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (founded in 1981). In the 1990s, Linda turned her attention to somatic education and became a certified practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®, and an authorized teacher of Continuum, a practice that is at the heart of her teaching today. Recipient of the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance, Linda shares her life’s passion with people from all walks of life: movement both as art and healing, as a way of life knowledge and spiritual practice.

Continuum is a movement practice approach to exploring how we live in, and move through, our bodies. Founded by American dance and movement pioneer Emilie Conrad, it is a portal to a deeper awareness of, and connection to, embodiment, movement, learning, growth, well-being and creativity. Using sound and mindful movement, Continuum invites us to slow down and become intimate with internal rhythms, inviting a fluid intelligence beyond the thinking mind.