Open Sesame: The Dream in Motion

The first of three embodied lectures with Mary Smail

Each gathering in this three-part series explores a different aspect of Sesame's history, philosophy and living practice through storytelling, archive, discussion and embodied exploration.

Sesame began with a dream.

Open Sesame: The Dream in Motion continues the gathering begun with Open Sesame: Reconnecting the Practice, inviting practitioners connected to the Sesame Approach to gather again and explore how that original dream has travelled through bodies, stories, relationships and generations.

Mary Smail will open the day by drawing on her first-hand relationship with Marian ‘Billy’ Lindkvist, founder of the Sesame Approach to Drama and Movement Therapy. Mary trained with and worked closely alongside Billy, and brings personal memories of the friendships, questions, experiments and relationships through which Sesame took form. Her contribution offers one living thread back to those beginnings, brought into conversation with the experiences and practices of those gathering today.

Reviving the Dream

Through personal memories, storytelling, archival material and embodied reflection, Mary will share something of the early world of Sesame: the dream from which it emerged, the people and places through which it took form, and its movement from imaginative experiment into training and professional practice.

Drawing on her first-hand experience, she will trace Sesame’s journey through Sesame KATS, the short courses, Kingston, Central and the journey towards professional recognition, while opening space for others’ memories, questions and connections to the roots of Sesame to enter the room.

Part story, part reflection and part shared remembering, this session invites us not simply to learn about Sesame’s history, but to encounter the living lineage of the work and listen for what the original dream may still be asking of us today.

This is not an attempt to preserve Sesame as something fixed in the past. It is an invitation to encounter the dream again, feel its presence in the room and allow it to remain alive.

Following the morning session, we will share lunch, conversation and material from the Sesame archive, creating space for memories, questions and reflections to meet across generations of practitioners.

Moving the Dream

In the afternoon, Lewis Pickles and PETRA (Petros Petrou), newer Sesame practitioners, will facilitate Moving the Dream: an experiential response to the morning’s embodied lecture.

The morning will not simply be discussed. It will be invited further into the body.

Drawing on movement, imagination and the symbolic language of Sesame, Lewis and Petra will invite the group to respond to the stories, memories and images that have emerged through the day. Rather than seeking to recreate what came before, the session asks what happens when the dream is received by different bodies, in a different time, and allowed to move again.

Together, we will explore the space between inheritance and emergence:

How might the dream change as it passes from one generation to another?

What do our bodies remember?

What wants to move?

What might now be ready to take form?

In this meeting between lived history and present practice, experienced and newer practitioners are invited not only to look back, but to encounter one another in the present and listen for how the living lineage of Sesame might continue to unfold.

A dream began the work.

What happens when we begin to move it?

What to Expect

A soft welcome and time to arrive
Reviving the Dream, the first of three embodied lectures with Mary Smail
First-hand memories and stories from Mary’s relationship with Billy Lindkvist and the early Sesame community
Shared reflection and conversation across generations of practitioners
Time with material from the Sesame archive
Moving the Dream, an experiential movement response facilitated by newer Sesame practitioners
A closing space to gather what has emerged

Lunch

Please bring your own lunch. You are also warmly invited to bring something small to share with the group, should you wish to. There is no expectation to contribute food, and bringing only what you need for yourself is absolutely welcome.

Tea and coffee will be available.

Who Is the Gathering For?

This gathering is for people with a connection to the Sesame Approach to Drama and Movement Therapy, including graduates of the Sesame Approach and Psyche and Soma programmes, current and recent trainees, and practitioners with an established relationship to the work.

Limited Places

Places for this gathering are very limited, as the venue has a smaller capacity than our previous Open Sesame event, so early booking is recommended.

Where Your Ticket Goes

Open Sesame is practitioner-led, and none of the organising team takes payment from ticket sales.

Ticket income goes towards the practical costs of making the gathering happen. Any money left over is carried forward into future Open Sesame events and into finding ways to care for and make Sesame’s archival material more accessible, including exploring possibilities for preservation and digitisation.

Our Pay-It-Forward ticket is part of this ethos. If you are able to pay a little more, your contribution helps make a supported place possible for someone who may not currently be able to afford the standard ticket price.

In this way, each gathering can help sustain the next: keeping places accessible, bringing practitioners together across generations, and helping to keep Sesame’s shared history accessible and alive.

Certificates of Attendance

Certificates of attendance will be available following the event. To request a certificate, please email opensesamedramatherapy@gmail.com after attending.

Contact the host of Open Sesame: The Dream in Motion