Ash Rucker. Image courtesy the artist.
Free with RSVP
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Organized by 2023 Artist-in-Residence Oskar Sinclair in connection with their OPEN AiR program “Mammy May I…?”: A Paroxysm Back Home on December 10, this afternoon of workshops examines the body as a site of conversation. Three artists will lead participants through movement-based explorations of Sensuality (Star Mitchell), Rage + Release (Ash Rucker), and Play! (Osamudiamen Aiworo).
The body is a site of conversation. It embodies the outcomes of these dialogues. The body is also our first home. So when we move through the world experiencing these conversations without opportunities for respite and recovery, we become strangers in our homes (cue Tamia). We grow habituated to sidestepping it. We hate it. Apologize for it. Move impetuously. Things fall apart. Foreclose. Sometimes we lose our homes. And pry into the homes of others. Measuring our worth against theirs. Insisting on receiving our own apologies. A hurting world persists. What wonders could unfold if we changed our relationship with our bodies? We deserve spaces to find out. This is that. Invite every whisper, every tempest, every tale. Invite desire. Misfortune. Outrage. And heal. Release ____. Find ____.
What happened to you? Come work it out.
Workshop Schedule
Participate in as many workshops as you desire throughout the afternoon. Each workshop is approximately 1 hour. There will be small breaks between workshops to recover and check in new participants.
12:00 PM | Making Love With YOU with Star Mitchell
Brought to life with inspiration from Minnie Ripperton’s Adventures In Paradise, this workshop aims to introduce a sweet approach to the practice of sensual movement. Guided through an intimate movement meditation, participants are invited to refocus the relationship they currently have with their bodies using queries as lanterns to guide this exploration. Attendees will also have the opportunity to enhance their experiences of sensuality and self adoration by curating a three-song soundtrack that resonates with their inner desires as they create a moving love letter to their bodies. The workshop will culminate in the initiation of a practical moving routine to help navigate an intentional way of loving their bodies. Throughout the workshop, individuals are encouraged to engage the following questions: What excites your body? What makes you feel most confident? If your body had a rhythm what would it sound like? How would you move to it? How do you honor your body?
1:15 PM | You’ll Appear When The Flames Go Out with Ash Rucker
There’s an undeniably visceral power in shaking out the pains we trap in our bodies. To shake off those burdens is to grant ourselves the liberty to rediscover the emancipation of our very souls. Join Ash Rucker, movement educator, and founder of TherapART, for a workshop to come back home. To ourselves and bodies. In this immersive experience, we will begin to explore the hidden corners of our inner worlds, creating space for growth and expansion in the outer. Together, we will move through the emotion of rage, tracing the depths of our beings to find where this feeling resides, ultimately paving way for freedom and soulful liberation. This workshop invites you, through a synergy of movement, meditation, and art therapy, to embark on a deep excavation, unearthing and shedding layers that hinder your path to healing and self-discovery.
2:30 PM | The Party is the Court and I Bring the Ball! with Osamudiamen Aiworo
“The party is the court and I bring the ball!” Wherever music plays, a party emerges. And when there’s a party, there’s a dancer being invited to come alive. The goal of this workshop is to impart the significance of embracing enjoyment while dancing with the self and with others.
About the Artists
Oskar Sinclair (Vu/They) is a tough yet syrupy genderqueer femmebo(i)rg. Using Vu's body as a site of conversation, Oskar’s work explores, interrogates, and provokes notions of power, négritude, body politics, sex, queerness, desire, and outsidership. So here Vu is. Puckish. Malleable. Aspiring to wholesomeness. Amusing in all the ways you’re grateful for. Catch Vu running around NYC existing in multidimensional consciousness (because it be like that sometimes).
Star Mitchell (They/Them/he/she) is a Celestial luminescence of love. A Brooklyn-based artist creating with all mediums that excite them, they aim to awaken and “Move with love as the intention and Rebirth as the Score.” Star uses movement and multimedia as a further expression of our inner being. Giving voice back to the inner child that lives within. While walking in light of their Highest self. Star has taught movement as a form of interpersonal communication and reworking narratives for Arts and Literacy programs throughout Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn. They have Choreographed & Performed in collaboration with EMERGENYC's Residency Program with Brooklyn Arts Exchange 2023, CPR – Center for Performance Research as a 2022 Artist-in-Residence, The Shed’s Open Call as a guest choreographer for Ana María Agüero Jahannes Field Day in 2021, and is a summer 2021 City Artist Corps Grant recipient. A former fellow of Nana Chinara’s Healing The Black Body Fellowship 2019-220, and Caitlin Mahon’s Mayhem Dance Company while pursuing their BFA in Dance at SUNY The College at Brockport, 2018.
Ashley (Ash) Rucker (She/Her) founded TherapART to promote the positive effects of art therapy after struggling with the anguish of a sibling suffering from drug addiction and incarceration. A gifted dancer and passionate creative, she formed her unique method using meditation, dynamic movement,, and creative play as an alternative to traditional therapy. The results and breakthroughs were incomparable. Doubling down on how effective it was on adults, she’s been paying it forward from the beginning. Focusing on youths significantly effected by the criminal justice system, helping them to work through the release of emotional barriers that limit their future lives. A trained yoga teacher and graduate of the Institute of Transformative Mentoring (ITM) at The New School, she has facilitated TherapART workshops and ceremonies both nationally and internationally. Ashley has called New York home since 2011.
Osamudiamen Aiworo (He/Him) normally goes by Osa or Mudia, and is a student pursuing Finance with a goal of creating my his Research Firm. His current hobbies include Fashion Design, Programming (Game Development & Web Development), and Groove. He doesn’t normally classify himself as a Dancer, but as a Groovist, due to the fact that he just likes to have a good time when he goes to an event where music is present. However, for the past 3 years since Aiworo discovered Amapiano, he has been developing his skills in this dance style, without a teacher. Being that there are no South Africans teaching Amapiano in NY, he has still been able to learn on his own. With Groove and Dance, Aiworo’s goal is to learn as much as possible and one day go to Johannesburg, SA to further his knowledge on the culture and dance style of Amapiano.