“Dance is not for dancers, dance is for man.”
- Mary Starks Whitehouse, 1962
Mary Starks Whitehouse was a dancer and the creator of an original movement form which she named Movement in Depth. Movement in Depth combined Whitehouse’s studies of dance improvisation with Mary Wigman and Martha Graham, with her experiences of psychoanalysis under a patient of Carl Jung, integrating her experiences of “dream work” into an embodied form.
After Mary’s death, movement in depth came to be known as ‘authentic movement’ through the work of her students Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. Refusing notions of ‘authenticity’ , cinema antiplastique draws mostly from the writings and films of Mary Whitehouse and rania’s studies and faciliation of both forms over decades, including as an undergraduate at Hampshire College with Daphne Lowell. cinema antiplastique adds the element of original moving images of nature with techniques from rania’s practice of other experiential movement forms including Experiential Anatomy, Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Klein Technique and Butoh dance. Acknowledging the leisure and whiteness embedded within these forms, and the colonial contexts which engendered them (with the exception of butoh dance) , cinema antiplastique works to share these forms with the people, nature and our ancestors upon who’s labor and often uncompensated resources their creation relied.
for more on the inception of cinema antiplastique as a practice, please see Cinema Antiplastique: the making of, by Rania Lee Khalil , coming out this fall, in publication with L Nour Editions,
for answers to questions about our classes and workshops as well as the practice of cinema antiplastique, please read below. if you find that you still have unanswered questions after reading, please write to us at info@cinemantiplastique.org or our contact form here
this said, the ability to improvise is something adults often benefit from being taught to do across various forms. cinema antiplastique offers skill sets and techniques for self directed movement. within every class and workshop, these techniques are offered. over time, participants develop more and more trust in their embodied intuition, allowing them to move in ways that are both surprising and genuine to their own needs and spirits.
who are “the people”? in other words, who is cinema antiplastique for? cinema antiplastique’s workshops are specifically designed for people who’s joys and challenges we have directly experienced ourselves, from racial, class and gender based perspectives. this diverse and intergenerational range can be seen in ourofferings page.
this said, we welcome everyone from allies to the working classes and poetic masses, here / queer, all races, body types and abilities. it is our hope to offer something for everyone no matter how you identify or are identified as long as you’re respectful of others
your workshops look pretty far out, are they for people on drugs or for medicine ceremonies?
actually no! our workshops are designed for every day people, functioning at every day frequencies. our workshops and classes require a level of boundaries and self composure that inebriated or medicinally altered people might have difficulty maintaining, so please come to us as you’d go to any space in the world where you’d need to be sensitive and open to new experiences, clear headed and thoughtful. we do hope that all participants will experience a “natural high” at some point from our movement and moving images.
*our drug and alcohol policy: the use of recreational drugs and alcohol is strictly prohibited in our space, and participants who do not respect this can be removed.
can people with phsyical disabilities participate? cinema antiplastique offers a practice of listening to one’s body that is creative and genuine to one’s own unique needs and embodied ability. movement is intuitive and self directed, making it an ideal practice for people with physical disabilities. one of our favorite teachers, the butoh dancer atsushi takenouchi says “dance can be anything from the movement of an eyelash to the twitch of a finger.” participants in our workshops - both in person and online - are in fact not required to move at all.
our space is wheelchair accessible. for specific questions about disability accommodations please reach out to us at info@cinemantiplastique.org
mental health and boundaries at cinema antiplastiquethe practice of cinema antiplastique is designed for individuals who are able to function independently and autonomously, maintain thoughtful boundaries with strangers, and demonstrate stable mental coherence.
all participants are responsible for their behavior and energies, including respecting our drug and alcohol policy* (see above). this includes not touching others or making sounds during movement time, so that everyone can tune into their own experience. please see our forms of agreements for participation in group and individual sessions.
cinema antiplastique and feelings our classes and workshops are never a substitute for personalized work with mental health professionals, in settings including but not limited to: individual, group therapy, in or outpatient treatment. cinema antiplastique is above all a creative space for expansion, imagination and reconnection with one’s body and not a mental health setting. this said, in our disembodied society, we can often be surprised by feelings that come up when we silently and thoughtfully tune in with our bodies. this is common and expected and to the best of our capacities we gently make space for this in our studio. we just ask that everyone be responsible for themselves, and not interfere with the experience of other participants.
is there music at cinema antiplastique?unless otherwise noted, our experiences and original moving images are silent so that we can hear the sounds and songs within ourselves. we can tune in to our hearts beating, the sound of our joints or our breathing, the movement of others swishing softly on the floor.
all offerings