Contemplative Movement Practices (October)

Name: Contemplative Movement Practices (October)
Start: 2025-10-17T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-17T20:30:00-04:00
Location: 461 E Mitchell St, Petoskey, MI, United States, Michigan 49770

Schedule

Fri Oct 17 2025 at 07:00 pm to 08:30 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

461 E Mitchell St, Petoskey, MI, United States, Michigan 49770 | Petoskey, MI

Contemplative Movement Practice is a three part session divided between meditation held in a circle, personal attunement (warmup), and collective or external attunement/improvised movement (open space). Participants are welcome to stay in meditation for the whole practice if they feel called to. They can engage in meditation in whatever static posture is of most ease for them. During the external attunement section participants are welcome to move alone, in relation to other participants, or in response to their environment. The whole practice happens in silence with a chime rung every 20 minutes to divide the sections. The practice is bookended by shared breathing and verbal check-ins.
Contemplative Movement Practice is inspired by Contemplative Dance Practice. We choose to use the word movement with the understanding that dance is just one of the many types of intentional movement. CDP was developed at Naropa University by Barbara Dilley, a dance artist and teacher who has been practicing and studying meditation in the Shambhala tradition of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche for more than 30 years. Described by Dilley as “a meditator’s dance hall or a dancers’ meditation hall,” this practice provides opportunities to sensitize our awareness of ourselves as a system, and to observe how that system interacts with, affects, and is affected by the systems we move through.
SUPPLIES & MATERIALS
Supplies provided
No
Art Area
Visual Arts
Instructor(s)
Benjamin Cheney
Guest Lecturer
CTAC Petoskey
https://croftresidency.org/
Benjamin Cheney is a performer and designer from Northern Michigan. He is the founder and Artistic Director of The Croft Residency. His personal dance practice centers on moving meditation, with a focus on somatic, intentional, and metaphoric improvisational movement. He uses the tools of Body Mind Centering (BMC) and the Tamalpa Life Art Process (TLAP) as lenses and languages to engage in his explorations and facilitations. He is a level 2 Graduate from Tamalpa and has completed the BMC SME (Somatic Movement Educator) courses. His performance experience includes the New York premier of Bienvenue, with Company SBB in New York in May 2017, The Nutcracker with Crooked Tree School of Ballet in 2018, and a performance at Mass MoCA with Dance The Yard on Valentine’s Day 2019. He worked at The Yard as the Production associate, in 2016, facilitating the onsite needs of incoming artists in residence for performance. He was also an artist educator while at the yard, facilitating classes in schools, senior homes, and at community venues. This is his 5th year as Artistic Director of The Croft.