Alex Rodriguez (in green) will lead a 5 Rhythms Dance workshop on April 14 in Whanganui.
PICTURE / SUPPLIED
Alex Rodriguez (in green) will lead a 5 Rhythms Dance workshop on April 14 in Whanganui.
PICTURE / SUPPLIED
Returning to Whanganui to take another 5Rhythms Dance workshop is Wellington-based teacher Alex Rodriguez.
This is the second workshop here and is one of five. "5Rhythms is a kind of dance and movement meditation practice," says Alex. "Gabrielle Roth, a classically-trained dancer from America, had some injuries and body issues whenshe was young. She wanted to find a way where she could be okay about being in her body and working with her body. She evolved a free dance that involved connecting with what is going on in you at any time, coming out of the head, which is where we live most of the time, and connecting with what's going on in the body."
Alex says it's about moving from that place rather than learning steps and following a set format. "She identified five basic rhythms in the shape of an energy wave that this free dance follows," she says. "So that's the form, if there is one, and everybody just follows it and moves in their own way."
Any type of music can be used as long as it fits with the rhythms. "We just play the music and that provides the journey people respond to and follow their own dance through the wave. It's a full on physical workout if you choose it to be, but anybody of any age and ability can do it."
The five rhythms are labelled Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness, the last being a place of meditation. "Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use it as a life-long practice of embodiment and practising and cultivating being able to let go of life's experiences and their impact."
