An environment is that which surrounds us. But what does that mean? This embodied workshop explores the theme of environment through multiple creative modalities and concepts. We will unpack “environment” by allowing our movement to be influenced by the inputs of a particular environment, by working with the eco-psychological concept of affordances, and by thinking about our own communities through an environmental justice lens. The class will include movement, building with found materials, and recording a sound (or photo) journey. We will also begin with a grounding warm-up that invites participants to image their own internal environment. The class is designed for people of all abilities and any level of movement experience. It can be taken indoors or outdoors, and can be adapted to participants’ needs and spaces.

Jill Sigman is an interdisciplinary artist and agent of change who choreographs with bodies and materials. She founded jill sigman/thinkdance in 1998 to think about pressing social issues through the body, and in 2016, she founded “Body Politic”, a program of workshops and performance laboratories to ask salient political questions somatically. Working with things we throw away such as “garbage” and “weeds”, Sigman helps us to understand the connections between social justice and the environment and to envision a world in which we re-connect with the natural world and each other in meaningful and empathic ways. Sigman was the first Gibney Community Action Artist in Residence; has been in residence at Movement Research, Guapamacátaro Interdisciplinary Residency in Art and Ecology (Mexico), The Rauschenberg Residency, MANCC, and the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research at NYU; and is a Creative Campus Fellow at Wesleyan University. She was born and raised in Brooklyn.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/27503284@N07/albums

http://thinkdance.org/