“Art, Dance and Creative Writing have been a great source of healing and transformation for me, my passion is to offer that to others. To hold a space to allow people to feel and express, to be seen, heard and acknowledged. I work with a kinesthetic learning approach and use somatic principles to give students tools for embodiment, providing a platform to create from an authentic place of sensing…coming home to the body and imagination”
Lauren
Student Performance using Life Art Process
This summer Create Recovery is launching a new project in Brighton called the Life Art Course. The Life Art Course is an integrated course drawing from the principles of the Life Art Process and the 12 Steps. The Life Art Process combines movement, dance, visual art and creative writing to access the innate wisdom of the body and the transformative power of the imagination.
This course has been specifically designed to support women who are in 12 Step recovery (we broadly conceptualize addiction recovery to include codependency, eating disorders, and Al Anon members as well as those in drug and alcohol recovery). The focus is on deepening the participants understanding and experience of the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps through an embodied creative process.
Addiction/s can develop as a way to manage emotional difficulties or painful life events. As such, beginning the process of recovery through abstinence and learning new behaviours we may be faced with overwhelming feelings. The Life Art Process can provide a strong container for these difficult feelings, thoughts and memories. It can also offer a safe place to recognize and unblock emotions, thus allowing pain to be released in the body and soothe the mind. Instead of being addicted to behaviours and destructive patterns, we can now use the arts as a way to feel alive and to bring inspiration and vibrancy to our lives in a healthy and productive way. The arts can bring colour to recovering from the often dark and bleak experience of being caught in the cycle of addiction.
This course has been specifically designed to support women who are in 12 Step recovery (we broadly conceptualize addiction recovery to include codependency, eating disorders, and Al Anon members as well as those in drug and alcohol recovery). The focus is on deepening the participants understanding and experience of the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps through an embodied creative process.
Addiction/s can develop as a way to manage emotional difficulties or painful life events. As such, beginning the process of recovery through abstinence and learning new behaviours we may be faced with overwhelming feelings. The Life Art Process can provide a strong container for these difficult feelings, thoughts and memories. It can also offer a safe place to recognize and unblock emotions, thus allowing pain to be released in the body and soothe the mind. Instead of being addicted to behaviours and destructive patterns, we can now use the arts as a way to feel alive and to bring inspiration and vibrancy to our lives in a healthy and productive way. The arts can bring colour to recovering from the often dark and bleak experience of being caught in the cycle of addiction.
Life Art Students in Session
Benefits of practicing the Life Art Process in recovery from addiction include:
We work from the idea that creative collaboration can bring deep connection, satisfaction and trust, as with sharing in 12 step fellowships. For being witnessed in a safe non- judgmental environment can be deeply healing. We also deliver guided body awareness techniques and simple self-care tools, for developing self -awareness can improve physical and emotional well being, enhance creativity, as well as improving communication and relationships.
The course consists of 12 sessions that run over 8 weeks. Each session will focus on the specific spiritual principle of each step. The course will culminate in a performance ritual for the participants to show their personal and collective journeys.
This work originated in the 1950's by Anna Halprin, who is amongst the first pioneers in the contemporary Western world to use dance as a healing and transformative art. In the 1970's, Daria Halprin further developed the artistic and therapeutic aspects of this work and articulated the methodology that is currently delivered in the courses.
- Moments of clarity in the midst of troubles or difficulty.
- Tools for dealing with grief, loss and remorse.
- The opportunity for people to experience themselves more fully through 3 levels of awareness - mental, emotional, physical.
- Improved quality of life by providing the opportunity for play and sensory awareness.
- Deepens connection between people, opening up the empathetic field of resonance between individuals and community.
- Helps people to come out of hiding, secrecy, shame and guilt.
- Teaches effective communication skills and creative problem solving.
- Reduces stress by providing physical, emotional and mental management tools.
- General increased sense of health and wellbeing.
We work from the idea that creative collaboration can bring deep connection, satisfaction and trust, as with sharing in 12 step fellowships. For being witnessed in a safe non- judgmental environment can be deeply healing. We also deliver guided body awareness techniques and simple self-care tools, for developing self -awareness can improve physical and emotional well being, enhance creativity, as well as improving communication and relationships.
The course consists of 12 sessions that run over 8 weeks. Each session will focus on the specific spiritual principle of each step. The course will culminate in a performance ritual for the participants to show their personal and collective journeys.
This work originated in the 1950's by Anna Halprin, who is amongst the first pioneers in the contemporary Western world to use dance as a healing and transformative art. In the 1970's, Daria Halprin further developed the artistic and therapeutic aspects of this work and articulated the methodology that is currently delivered in the courses.
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LAUREN DOWSE
Our courses are facilitated by Lauren Dowse. She is a creative, passionate and dynamic facilitator and understands the transformative power of this work from her own experience in recovery and having worked as a professional dancer and performer for twenty years. Lauren has taught creative movement classes and workshops in many settings including The Royal Shakespeare Co and University of Brighton. |
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She continues to teach in her local community and is actively developing her knowledge and expertise of delivering the arts to vulnerable populations. Lauren is currently training as a Movement based Expressive Arts Therapist and Educator with the Tamalpa Institute and was awarded an ArtWorks Scholarship to continue her studies in the USA. She has just been accepted on a professional mentoring scheme with the National Alliance for Arts in Criminal Justice, London, with a vision to take the arts programs into the criminal justice sector. Lauren is also a visual artist and writer. Her poetry, and artwork have been used for various publicity and publications, including Soul and Spirit in Dance Movement Psychotherapy by Dr Jill Hayes, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
