Classes and Workshops:
The Somatics of Place
Daylong ecosomatic movement retreats in nature
September 28, October 26, & November 16, 2025
September 28 | 10am–4pm | Point Reyes
Morning session at the Dance Palace, Point Reyes Station
Afternoon session in Point Reyes National Seashore
Join us this Fall for a day of embodied exploration and improvisation in relationship with the natural world.
In somatic movement practice, we attune to the felt body through our inner and outer senses—gravity, touch, proprioception, and more—as ways of locating ourselves. In ecosomatic practice, this inquiry expands outward: how do we orient in relation to the land itself? To the four directions, the plants and creatures, and the histories of the people who lived here for thousands of years?
We’ll begin the day with a studio session of movement exploration, drawing on the experiential anatomy of Body-Mind Centering®. After lunch, we’ll journey to a site in Point Reyes National Seashore, where the landscape becomes our partner. Through outdoor scores of moving, writing, being, and witnessing, we’ll explore the interconnection of body, environment and imagination.
These retreats invite us to move, listen, and imagine with place as collaborator—cultivating presence, creativity, and a deepened sense of belonging in the more-than-human world.
COST: Sliding scale fee $50-$150. BIPOC discount available.
Please pay what you can afford, which helps make this work accessible to those who are financially challenged.
TO REGISTER: email Nick Smith at grapesdance@gmail.com
and Venmo: @KinesisMovementArts
Please include your name and email address with your Venmo payment.
Somatic Techniques in Improvisation: Cultivating Solo Practice
September 20–21, 2025 Sat 10-3 / Sun 10-4
at the Berkeley Finnish Hall
This weekend immersion in somatic movement source work draws on the experiential anatomy of Body-Mind Centering®, explored through solo, duet, and ensemble improvisation.
At the heart of the workshop is cultivating the solo practice - learning to direct attention in ways that invite embodied presence, fresh movement qualities, and deeper awareness. Guided explorations will create space for personal research, while witnessing scores will support seeing and being seen within the group.
We’ll explore:
• Nervous system — balancing inner and outer focus, sensing and action
• Perceptual awareness — fine-tuning the senses
• Organs — connecting to core support and vitality
• Fluids — expressing tone, presence, space, musicality, the dynamics of change
Grounding in solo practice becomes the basis for entering Contact Improvisation duets and ensemble scores - where attention expands to include multiple layers at once. Ultimately, we’ll explore how solo research can remain alive in any relational or group context, cultivating the capacity to witness ourselves in every situation.
No prior experience in Body-Mind Centering® or Contact Improvisation is required. All curious movers are welcome.
COST: Sliding scale fee $300-$400. Early bird fee: $250 by Sept 7. BIPOC discount available.
Thank you for paying what you can afford, which helps makes this work accessible to those who are financially challenged.
TO REGISTER: email Nick Smith at grapesdance@gmail.com
and Venmo: @KinesisMovementArts
Please include your name and email address with your Venmo.
GET DOWN, GET UP!
A somatic approach to functional movement for healthy aging
Free intro class: Saturday Sept 13, 12-1:15
A Body of Work in the Presidio, SF
Human beings evolved to walk. A healthy and functional gait is key to our movement longevity as we age. Healthy locomotion includes the ability to move into and out of the floor with safety and ease. In these classes we will:
- Start on the floor, learning movement patterns for ease in rolling and changing levels
- Improve proprioception: the sensory awareness of where we are, relative to gravity and space
- Develop a better sense of balance by fine-tuning the vestibular system
- Explore new ways of moving up and down from the floor with ease and fluidity
- Understand and improve our individual gait patterns in walking
This class is for all ages, abilities and movement backgrounds. Each participant will be invited to work at their own pace and comfort level, with modifications offered for every exercise.
Class size is limited; advance registration is advised.
To register: email Cathie at: cathie.caraker@gmail.com
Cathie Caraker (MFA, RSME) is a dancer and movement educator who has worked in the field for 35 years. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator, a Body-Mind Centering® teacher and a long time practitioner and teacher of Contact Improvisation, a movement form that trains falling and rolling skills. She has studied the biomechanics of gait with Jean-Claude West and Frey Faust. Her teaching of somatics and dance has been presented widely at institutes across the US, Europe and S.America. She maintains a private practice for Pilates and Gyrotonic in San Francisco.
The Tonal Continuum in CI
West Coast Contact Improvisation Jam (wcciJAM) July 2-6, 2025 at the Berkeley Finnish Hall
"Tone is the readiness to move" - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
In Contact Improvisation our physical tone is ever-shifting and adapting to our changing environments - a partner's body, the quality of touch, the direction of gravity...as well as our personal histories, movement patterns, sensations and feelings. In this session we'll explore some strategies for balancing tone, working with intentional touch, developmental movement patterns and reflexes, and CI scores.
Somatic Strategies for Resilience: Body-Mind Centering® and Contact Improvisation
Schedule:
Sunday 5/25 1:30 - 6:30
Monday 5/26 10:30 - 5
This workshop will explore connections between the somatic movement practices of Body-Mind Centering® and Contact Improvisation. Each day will have 2 sessions, with a break for lunch.
Session 1: THE TONAAL CONTINUUM IN CI
"Tone is the readiness to move.”
- Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
In Contact Improvisation, our physical tone is ever-shifting and adapting to our changing environments - a partner's body, the direction of gravity, the position of our head, the quality of touch. Our tone is influenced by the quality of our attention, our habitual movement patterns and personal histories. We'll practice cultivating a more balanced and responsive tone, as we explore developmental movement states, intentional touch, and CI scores.
Session 2: FLUIDS IN IMPROVISATION
“Transformation is just a membrane away.”
- Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
About 70% of our body weight is fluid! Cellular, interstitial, blood, CSF, lymph, synovial: the fluids system is one basic medium, continuously circulating, that transforms from one fluid state to another as it passes through the body’s membranes. The fluids embody transformation. They support our ability to be present, to sense and feel, to find lightness and density, to go with the flow, to hold boundaries, to run fast and sit quietly. Together we’ll explore the dynamic states of the fluids through embodied physiology, partnering and improvisation.
TO REGISTER: https://forms.gle/uSEGQYGhv1bp84AG9
BODY-MIND CENTERING® is an ongoing, experiential study of the relationship between movement and mind. BMC was developed by somatics pioneer Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, in collaboration with her students and faculty at the School for Body-Mind Centering®. In BMC we practice the embodiment of our tissues, cells, body systems, and sense perceptions. We explore their expression through movement, breath, touch, voice, and the developmental / evolutionary movement process.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION is an open-ended movement form in which 2 or more people move in physical contact. Skills involve falling, rolling, supporting each other’s weight and fine-tuning the sense perceptions. CI blends elements of martial arts, partner dance, acrobatics, and meditation, while being completely improvised in the moment. Since its inception in 1972 by dancer Steve Paxton, CI has evolved into a form that’s practiced all over the world.
Body-Mind Centering® and Contact Improvisation Techniques with Cathie Caraker and Miriam Wolodarski
March 1 & 2
Berkeley Finnish Hall
Schedule
Saturday 1:30-5:30PM
* Join us at the Saturday Jam in the morning!
Sunday 11AM-5PM, with a break for lunch
Registration: $150-300
Zelle or Paypal to contactsenseobject@gmail.com
or Venmo @senseobject
Email contactsenseobject@gmail.com for questions.
* Money tight? That’s alright. Reach out, and we’ll figure it out.
When those who can, pay more, those who can’t still get to dance.
Somatic Strategies for Resilience (BMC)
“Tone is the readiness to move.” - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
“All real living is meeting” - Martin Buber
How do we cultivate safety and connection through our embodied artistic practices? Can we meet this challenging moment in our shared history with a tone that’s active and resilient?
We’ll begin with the somatic practice of Cellular Breathing as a non-hierarchical paradigm for nourishing self and community. Respecting our cyclic needs for cocooning into action, we’ll explore the tonal continuum of active yielding/ pushing/ reaching/ pulling: practices that foster resilience in the midst of change.
Improvising with the dynamic states of the fluids systems, we’ll play with boundaries, tune our spidey-senses, ride cyclical flow, shake it all out and more. Integrating what comes up through the collective practices of Authentic Movement and Contact Improvisation, together we’ll evolve dance scores for the moment we’re in.
Centers of Power (CI)
This Contact Improvisation work is about finding power, identifying and contextualizing many different modes of embodied potential in contact improvisation. Mass, mobility, momentum, tone, tuning, and more come into play as we ask ourselves how we move on, move over, move through. From center to periphery, every part of us has myriad locomotive possibilities to offer. Let’s gather up our resources for staying safe, staying present, and sharing weight.