BEGINNERS PROGRAMME - WEEK 2

Sivananda yoga with Laia Puig Escandell

During this time we will be introduced to Yoga as a holistic practice. The five points of the holistic system are: proper exercise (Asana), proper breathing (Pranayama), proper relaxation (Savasan), proper diet (vegetarian), positive thinking and meditation (Vedanta and Dhyana), although we will mainly work on the first 2-3 points.

This first class in the morning will be our moment to prepare for the day in a different way. To unfold and to unblock, first physiologically/anatomically and then into deeper levels of awareness. Identifying our unnecessary patterns and habits, letting go of them, balancing the body, increasing concentration and learning to listen. So that each individual student can be in tune with a deeper intelligence, expanding themselves as artists and humans, sharing it with the community as well as the world. I hope you all enjoy the process of unfolding yourselves. Om Namah Sivaya.

Laia Puig Escandell (ES)

Laia Puig Escandell was introduced to yoga as a parallel practice to her dance career in 1998. However, it wasn’t until she took a Sivananda Yoga Teachers Training in 2008 in South India that her real initiation into Yoga started, with growing passion. Since then, she has been practicing regularly asanas, pranayama and meditation, reading the yogic philosophy/spirituality and trying to understand and apply all that in her daily life, as she continues to take training courses. She learned a lot from joining the Sivananda organization to translate Teachers Trainings or to do service in their Ashrams. She teaches Yoga classes at P.A.R.T.S., Rosas and around Brussels to all levels, and parallel to that she gives Ayurvedic massages and treatments, Yoga retreats and workshops.

Contemporary technique class with Tale Dolven

We will go through the whole body, gently but thoroughly. The warm-up aims at maintaining strength and flexibility of the body. Coordination and working with multiple directions are an integral part of the movement-material. Both within the body and in the room, we work with awareness of directions and focus. The aim is to wake up the body and the mind.

Tale Dolven (NO)

Tale Dolven is a Norwegian dancer living and working in Brussels. She has worked with Rosas and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for 12 years, performing in shows like FASE, Rosas Danst Rosas, Drumming, Zeitung and many others. She has also worked with Fieldworks, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, Doris Uhlich, Kris Verdonck, Benjamin Vandewalle and TG Stan. Tale studied at PARTS and KHIO in Oslo, Norway.

Project workshop with Peter Savel

Letting Go
Peter Savel has been developing and evolving his classes since graduating from P.A.R.T.S. He sees this as an opportunity to go back to himself. Working more and more with non-dancers as well as always being curious about the wider context of dance, he is not interested in dance techniques as such. He’d rather see movement and views dance as a means to re-access his full potential. The questions he asks is simple: “ where do we stand in our own way and what makes us hold back?”. By becoming aware of these patterns, beliefs, thoughts, fears or habits, Peter believes we can let go of them. Letting go refers to more than muscular tension and physical efficiency, though Peter uses these as the pragmatic and grounding elements in accessing the less graspable areas of thought, emotion and intuitions. In this class, he wants to come back to a space he believes we are all capable of re-entering. This is a space of total creativity, which he believes is innate to all humans and can be used in any life situation and constellation. It is a state we all know and passed through during childhood. The simple difference between childhood and now is the awareness of a state and therefore the possibility to be in it consciously. More concrete, during the classes Peter works with methods, principles and exercises to go back to himself, through body and movement into the core of his body. In this process he strengthens his body and realigns it with his core. At the same time the experiences of accessing this space allows him to understand where he can expand, what he can let go and how, what he’s always been capable of, but for some reasons didn’t allow it to fully manifest. In other words, rather being busy with “doing right or well” it is “ doing the best that you can right now” and learning from the observation of this process. Peter is very busy with his personal learning process but uses many methods (verbal and non-verbal) to share this with a whole group at the same time. Learning from each other strategy and methods, breaking the illusion of being alone or even isolating his particular experiences.

Peter Savel (SK)

Peter has a BA in Dance Pedagogy from the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Bratislava. He finished his further studies at P.A.R.T.S. in the summer of 2010. He is recently based in Brussels. Since 2011 he worked with the Belgium based choreographer Pierre Droulers at Charleroi Danses, dancing in the re-enactment of "De l'air et du vent", dancing and assisting him in "Soleils".

In May 2013, he started working with the Belgium based choreographer Salva Sanchis in projects "The phantom layer", "The organ project", "Islands" and in his last creation "Radical light". And in 2016 Peter became a dancer with the founder of the Belgian company Kunst/Werk Marc Vanrunxt, dancing in his "Prototype" and collaborating with his company Kunst/Werk.

​Peter is creating his own works in Belgium and abroad. Teaching his class Letting go around Europe to both professionals and amateurs.