At A Glance:

Grounded in Theory U framework, Social Presencing Theater is a series of embodiment practices that develop capacity for awareness-based engagement in social and organizational transformation.

Course Description:

In this 2-day, in-person course at the beautiful Dendros Group workspace, you'll be guided in the simple movement practices of Social Presencing Theater (SPT). These basic techniques will increase your awareness of your own complex social structures; and most importantly, provide tools to get personally and collectively "un-stuck." SPT is grounded in the systems-change work of Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline) and Otto Scharmer (Theory U), emphasizing the inseparability between inner knowing and outer change. Synthesizing this with the arts and contemplative traditions, SPT brings the theory into practice. It emphasizes the importance of embodiment and social field awareness in the process of transformation.

"Arawana Hayashi is a master. She has invented a form whereby people learn to use their bodies to explore, individually and collectively, what the intellect can never fully grasp — the complex social structures we humans create and become stuck in. She has created a wonderful vehicle to guide the journey." — Peter Senge, MIT & Center for Systems Awareness

During the workshop we will engage in basic Social Presencing Theater practices to:

Experience the wisdom of embodied presence
See and sense the larger systems in which we live and work
Cultivate our social field of relationship in family, teams, organizations, and communities
Build action confidence to create new solutions.

Participation in this program will be certified as part of the U-School for Transformation practitioner certifications.

Details:

Who should come?

Anyone wishing to become more grounded, lead with a larger perspective, or gain insight into the deep architectural patterns of team dynamics, power structures, or community relationships.

No prior experience is required.

When?

Saturday, November 2, 9 am - 5 pm; Sunday, November 3, 9 am - 4 pm

How to get there?
Driving: For detailed directions and parking information, see the Dendros website.

Transit: Take the Metro Green Line light rail to Westgate station; Dendros is directly across University Avenue.

More about Social Presencing Theater:

Social Presencing Theater (SPT) is an embodied social arts-based change methodology, developed under the leadership of Arawana Hayashi, for making visible current reality and exploring emerging future possibilities. Social Presencing Theater reveals the wisdom in every social system and supports movement towards healthier futures.

SPT is a series of embodiment practices that develop capacity for awareness-based engagement in social and organizational transformation (grounded in Theory U framework). The practices have been used for over fifteen years in business, government, and civil society settings, in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the United States. SPT uses simple body postures, movements, and spatial design to dissolve limiting concepts, to communicate directly, to access intuition, and to make visible both current realities, and the deeper — often invisible — leverage points for creating profound change.

By bringing these to the surface it allows co-creators in a given system to gain insight into the current situation, seeing potential opportunities for change. It sets the ground for creative collective action. "Theater" here denotes an empty stage or a blank canvas where the different aspects and roles of the system can be embodied. In that space, the roles can interact in fresh and creative ways to reveal emerging possibilities hidden in the system. Social Presencing Theater is "the art of making a true move."

Your Instructor: Arawana Hayashi

Arawana’s pioneering work as a choreographer, performer and educator is deeply sourced in collaborative improvisation. She currently heads the creation of Social Presencing Theater (SPT) for the Presencing Institute. Working with Otto Scharmer and colleagues at the Presencing Institute, she brings her background in the arts, meditation and social justice to creating “social presencing” that makes visible both current reality and emerging future possibilities.

Her dance career ranges from directing an interracial street dance company formed by the Boston Mayor’s Office for Cultural Affairs in the aftermath of the 1968 murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, to being one of the foremost performers of Japanese Court Dance, bugaku, in the US. She has been Co-Director of the Dance Program at Naropa University, Boulder, CO; and founder-director of two contemporary dance companies in Cambridge. MA. She continues to perform in a multi-disciplinary performance ensemble, originating out of Naropa University and the ALIA Institute, where she currently teaches in leadership programs.

Arawana is the author of the book Social Presencing Theater – The Art of Making a True Move.

Read more about Arawana here and here.

Your Local Hosts:

Wendy C. Morris, Founder of the Creative Leadership Studio, has worked at the intersections of human development, human development, organizational change and social innovation for over 20 years. She is internationally recognized as a master facilitator of learning, leadership development, and systems change.
Read more about Wendy here

Rie Algeo Gilsdorf (she/her/ella) is a facilitator and coach skilled at integrating mind & body, science & art, healing & systems change to restore wholeness to our fragmented culture. The founder of Embody Equity, Rie is an advanced practitioner of Social Presencing Theater. Read more about Rie here.