the movement practice of cinema antiplastique

“Dance is not for dancers, dance is for man.“
                                                      Mary Starks Whitehouse, 1960

1.  cinema antiplastique?  

Cinema antiplastique is a practice sourced from Rania Lee Khalil’s movement and video art practice as well her training and background in healing.  Talk therapy is only one way to attend to imbalances, anxiety, problems or feelings of “being stuck”.  Memories, joy and solutions are lodged within our bodies and moving can help to release them, resulting in experiences of healing and creativity.   That’s why we go dancing!   Movement workshops at cinema antiplastique are a bit different than dancing at house parties (like the one’s we go to ;) slower and more intentional around our personal depths.  

2. why move with moving images?  

Modern life has isolated us from the care and healing that nature provides.  Nature offers a  wordless sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves, magic and creativity.  For bipoc people in new york city, the problem runs deeper still:  our communities are often systematically denied access to nature, and often made to feel unsafe when and if we manage to get there.  Cinema antiplastique is designed to offer the healing of nature through moving images: videos kinesthetically designed for us to slow down, feel safe and attuned with.  

3.  do i need prior movement experience to participate?cinema antiplastique’s movement and moving image practice is designed for the people: no prior movement or workshop experience is necessary.  we are devoted to helping people of all backgrounds, body types, ages, flexibities and (dis)abilities re/connect with the inner love of movement that accompanies us out of the womb.  Our practice is designed to put participants more deeply in touch with their own self directed movement and embodied intuition, which expands over time.  

4 are cinema antiplastique’s workshop for fun or for healing?
At cinema antiplastique we understands that perhaps unlike our animal and plant relations, human beings have as much capacity to repress joy and happiness as we have to repress grief and sorrow.  

healing does not to be a form of work, nor do art and dance need to be only escapist activities.  Healing can be joyful, playful and embodied.  Self directed movement can be wholesome and healing.


5. your workshops look pretty far out, are they for people on drugs or for medicine ceremonies?

they are far out, yet but not because of drugs or plant medicine - on the contrary - we ask that everyone who comes to our movement workshops please be alchohol and drug free (unless prescribed by a doctor) from the morning the workshop begins (24 hours is preferable)!  we request this so that participants can best listen to and attune to their inner selves and others in the room.

please understand that this request does not come from a moral place!  we have deep respect for plant medicine and other drugs for the ways in which they allow humans to regulate, open and access positive and expansive feelings.  we request this because of the specifics of our practice: being drug and alchohol free for some hours better ensures that participants can inner information with clarity and without distortion. we also ask this because we need everyone in our workshops to be self possessed for the physical and emotional safety of others in the room.  


8.     is there music at cinema antiplastique?  
unless otherwise noted, our workshops are silent so that we can hear the sounds, songs, beats, rythms and vibrations within ourselves.  available to us then can be the sound of our hearts beating, the sound of our joints or breath, quietness within that can be harder to hear in the hustle of everyday life.    


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