About Pen Pynfarch

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The Feldenkrais Method

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Availability & Prices 2008

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Andy Paget &
Eeva-Maria Mutka
tel: 01559 384 948

Workshops, Courses & Events

“Penpynfarch is set up to develop a deeper understanding and care for the living body, alongside care for the rhythms and needs of land . Set at the head of a steeply wooded valley, at the end of a road, it’s a unique place to learn and work together, a place where a passionate care for the ecology of our lives infuses everything that happens.” - Miranda Tufnell

March 17th-21st 2008 Heartland movement retreat with Miranda Tufnell
Within the word Heart
hear tear earth eat art
This workshop will begin in the anatomy of the Heart,
listening to its pulse and understanding more of its embryological forming, and the forces and movements that shape its growth.
We will explore alone and with partners, both inside and outside, through moving and stillness, through making and writing,
to find the stories, images, rhythms and qualities that strengthen and give heart to our lives, our heartland.

'What turns one's boat around in the eddies and shallows of meaninglessness, bringing you back to a sense of destiny,
the reason to be alive "James Hillman The Souls Code

8 places.
Price: £355 Independent. £455 Funded. £250 Working Scholarship
- Including full board and accommodation.

June 3rd-8th 2008 Body and Earth Training 2008 with Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose
This six-day residential training refreshes connection to place and to the moving/dancing body. Body is earth: our bones, breath, and blood are the minerals, air, and water inside us. As we explore and create in the studio and on the land, we develop the skills to communicate these principles to others. Included are investigations in evolutionary movement, anatomy, and perception led by Caryn McHose (co-author of How Life Moves) and in neuro-endocrine systems, authentic movement, and excursions on the land--fields, forests, stream, and ocean--led by Andrea Olsen (author of Body and Earth). Throughout, we engage the geological, biological, and cultural history of this unique place, nourished by local organic food and the place-based creativity of our hosts.
10 places.
Price: £595 Independent. £720 Funded. £420 Working Scholarship. £545 Camping. - Including full board and accommodation.
£462 Non-residential with lunches.
This year’s Body and Earth will be preceeded by an international gathering open to performers from past Body and Earth courses/trainings 2004-07. Andrea Olsen and Eeva-Maria Mutka will lead this three-day investigation into creative forming.
Friday, May 30th through to Sunday, June 1st 2008.
Please contact Eeva-Maria for further details about this.

June 20th -22nd 3rd LAND WORK WEEKEND AT PENPYNFARCH - Clearing pond weed. Midsummer.
Over the last few years quite a number of people who’ve been visiting Pen Pynfarch have been kind enough to offer help on the land but up until now we haven’t quite felt ready to take people up on their offers and make use of that good will. We have programmed three working weekends with the aim of pushing forward a couple of projects which could really do with some extra people power. As well as giving us some very welcome and much needed help, I hope these weekends will give an opportunity to those of you who have visited before and who might feel that they would like to get a little closer to the place, get some of it’s mud on their hands, make a bit of a mark and bring a little of your energy into this valley that constantly offers all of us so much.If all goes well we hope that these working weekends can become a regular feature of the Pen Pynfarch year.
Ring us 01559-384 948 for more info.

July 29th-31st 2008 SONS 5 with Simon Whitehead
Three day residential workshop for boys aged 6-12 with a parent, led by movement artist Simon Whitehead. There will be explorations in movement, walks (day and night), drawing, map making, painting, foraging and making. This time we will be joined by visual artist Peter Bodenham will lead a session on wood whittling and carving. The workshop will culminate in an evening fire, with performances and food. Accomodation will be in tents in the Penpynfarch valley, we will cook outdoors, facilities nearby.
For 6 pairs of son and parent.
Price: £160/ Camping. £180/ Caravan - Including 1st lunch and a campfire meal.


September 4th-7th 2008 In The Absence Of Dances - improv for professional dance practitioners,
annual retreat with Adam Benjamin,
Dancing with heart and humor and a passion for the absurd in an on-going exploration of 'ensemble'. We will explore, not just the exhilaration of improvising, but the resonances of what we leave behind when we stop. A concern with the dance space itself as touchstone of what we experience. An invitation to listen to what is held in places and conveyed in the momentary passing of a dance. How do we leave a place/space better for our having been there? How do we hear what on Earth is being asked of us? All this and probably a good deal of swearing and mischieve making, text and torment.
Price: £275 Independent. £350 Funded. £200 Working Scholarship.

For Pen Pynfarch Teachers' Biographies, Click here for Adobe Acrobat version

“Pen Pynfarch is a tender place to immerse oneself in the forest and farm land of Wales. This fecundity nourishes the senses and helps bring alive a naturally resonant community. It is a place quiet enough for creativity to flourish and in which the movements within the body find reflection in the natural world.”
- Caryn McHose, Resources In Movement, New Hampshire, US

"Penpynfarch is one of those rare places where improvisors working intensively can delve deeper into their personal journeys and public faces. The work in this safest of environments has ,over the past years been as deep and rich as the landscape that surrounds us. We have danced, laughed, cried, eaten (very well) played sumo on the beach and shouted at the sky
- Adam Benjamin

Other workshops and events in 2008