Expressive Dance

What is Expressive Dance?

There are innumerable ways we can describe Expressive (Open Floor) Dance:

  • It’s a free-movement practice.
  • It’s a meditation.
  • It’s a means to release the tensions of the day.
  • It’s a space to connect with ourselves and others.
  • It’s a process through which we can get closer to knowing, finding, creating what we really want.
  • It’s a vehicle to drive towards the change we are seeking.
  • It’s a tool to help us find rootedness on uncertain ground.
  • It’s a meeting with the here-and-now (and every time this can be different).

What are the benefits of Expressive Dance?

Expressive dance has been shown to give people:

  • Greater ability to deal calmly with difficult situations.
  • Strength to move forward/break through personal barriers.
  • Empowerment in their choices - whether minor, life-transforming or anywhere in between.
  • Courage to express their interests, preferences and needs where they may have previously felt too inhibited.
  • Develop an enhanced feeling of well-being.

Current Classes

About Open Floor

Open Floor logo

Open Floor is a school dedicated to the Common Good through the study, practice, and teaching of embodied dance. The Founders of Open Floor (Andrea Juhan, Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzman and Vic Cooper) have taught thousands of students and trained hundreds of teachers over the past 35 years. Along with a seasoned, talented international team of Open Floor teachers, we are excited to pass on what we’ve learned to the next generation of dance and movement leaders, as well as those in service to people in "non-dance floor" settings. Conscious dance practices are flourishing all over the world -- the perfect and necessary medicine for our increasingly troubled and digitized planet.

Open Floor events can be simple drop-in classes, typically 1.5 to 3 hours in duration or longer workshops for a day, weekend or even a week. The videos below show a flavour of what happens during a class or workshop and feature comments from some participants.

About ICMTA

IMTA logo

The International Concious Movement Teachers Association is an independent professional association, created in 2013 to support and represent teachers of dance meditation and conscious movement. Its members are dedicated to serving people in being more fully alive, creative, original and authentic in their self-expression, primarily through using the medium of the body-in-motion.

Dancing with Dreams from Open Floor International on Vimeo.

Open Floor from Open Floor International on Vimeo.

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