Jennie’s movement-based expressive arts practice is grounded in the Tamalpa Life/Art Process, a process developed by dance pioneers Daria Halprin and Anna Halprin, and informed by the work of Anna’s husband, renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin.

In the Tamalpa process, we track sensation, emotion, and associations, then move, giving expression to our physical, emotional, mental bodies. We move and are moved. Then we use sketching, poetic writing/journaling, and voice to psychologize and explore the interplay of body, mind, and creativity. Our life material becomes art. Creativity becomes a way of life.

The Tamalpa process is valuable in the contexts of healing and balancing, creativity and arts, and spirituality.

In witnessing each other and being witnessed, we cultivate our own inner witness. Group member observations are their own aesthetic responses, from their own self knowledge. We do not fix, advise, interpret, analyze, or deconstruct each other. The process is therapeutic, but it is not therapy.

We practice in small group circles of four to eight people. Circles are held at Jennie’s home studio in the Paris Mountain area of Greenville, SC.

No expertise in movement/dance, visual art, or writing is needed.  Please modify your movement to suit your physical abilities and needs. Appropriate for adolescents through seniors, female and male. 

Upcoming Circles

Movement-Based Dream Group

Three consecutive Saturdays (October 26, Nov. 2, 9).  Time: 10 AM – noon.

Explore images from your own and others’ nightly dreams using the body as entry point.  Grounding in sensory aspects of the dream – such as its energy quality; spatial orientation; sense of time; body actions, parts, or systems – you listen and respond to the dream’s wisdom through subtle movement.  Play with dream symbols in the kinesthetic realm.  Use your body as it is perceived from within as a way to drop into the immediate, embodied experience of the dream.  We also draw, write poetically, and respond aesthetically to the dream images of others.   

 We will follow the Haden Institute guidelines for projective dreamwork to maintain a safe container and to steer clear of advice giving, interpretation, or analysis of others’ dreams.  However, the format of the group will be informed by the Tamalpa Life/Art Process so not projective in the conventional sense.

While this work is therapeutic, it is not therapy.  Jennie is a certified Tamalpa associate teacher and a (Haden Institute) dream group leader.  She is not a licensed therapist. 

Limited to six people.  Email me and I’ll send you a link to register and pay.  You are signing up for all three dates; this series is not a la carte.  Limited to six participants.  $60.  Workshop may be cancelled if it does not fill in a timely way. 

Remembering Body:  Track, Move, Create

Saturday, November 16, 2024. Time is 10 AM to 3 PM. Limited to 4 people.

This retreat will focus on tracking sensation, both receptively and actively, to acknowledge energy that may be pooling in areas of the body and calling for attention.  We wait with it, use subtle movement to play with it, and create artifacts of the engagement with it using language and image. 

Bring a bag lunch. Email Jennie at jenniewake@gmail.com for a link to register and pay. $75. Sessions do fill up. Sessions that do not fill in a timely way may be cancelled. No expertise in movement/dance, visual art, or writing is needed.