Nurture Your Creative Muse with Restorative Yoga and Writing Workshop

Combined Restorative Yoga and Creative Writing Workshops

Saturday, July 9, 2016
Two sessions: 9am-12pm and 1pm-4pm
Theatre on San Pedro Square, 29 N. San Pedro Street, downtown San Jose, CA
  
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Appropriate for all levels and capabilities of movement; ages 16 and up.

For creative individuals who want to develop and deepen their artistic practice, Nurture Your Creative Muse workshops integrate restorative yoga and creative writing to access pathways to the imagination. These workshops are appropriate for all levels and capabilities of movement, ages 16 and up.

Whether you’re a journaler, journalist, novelist, lyricist, playwright, poet, actor, or storyteller of any kind, whether you’re seeking a new spark of inspiration or a breakthrough from writer’s block, this opportunity to explore your muse through restorative yoga may be a key to unlocking new ways of wordsmithing and/or deepening your connection to your craft.

Alternating between restorative yoga asanas (poses) and writing opportunities encouraged by prompts, you will deepen your physical and mental vitality, ignite your imagination, and develop an attentive awareness between mind, body, and spirit that will refocus your physical, intellectual, and inspirational energies.

What to bring: yoga mat, bath/beach towel, eye pillow/small hand towel, notebook, pen/pencil, your imagination and desire to embrace a new experience

WORKSHOP FACILITATORS
Cathy Spielberger Cassetta, RYT, is the founder and artistic director of The Tabard Theatre Company at Theatre on San Pedro Square in San Jose, now entering its 16th season. Building on her many years in the Hollywood television industry, Cathy created, produced, and co-hosted the weekly So. Bay television program Theatre This Week in the mid-1990s. A theatre artist who has worked both on- and off-stage, she has taught dance as well as theatre and playwriting to every grade from junior kindergarten through college. A produced playwright, her most recent work was Tabard’s acclaimed world premiere production of Homeward Bound: An Orphan Train Journey.    Her journey with yoga began as a result of a personal quest to regain balance, health, and peace after a series of family losses and career stress. Yoga offered a physical workout her dancer’s body yearned with the introspective calm her soul embraced. With teaching yoga as a natural next step, she completed her 200-RYT in February 2015. Collaborating on a yoga/creative writing workshop is an organic extension of her creative expression and a sweet blend of her life paths.

Amy Kweskin, RYT, believes in building a community of mindful practice through gentle and restorative yoga. She brings this intention to her yoga classes where she creates a supportive environment for finding balance and ease. Her inspiration is her Grammie who taught yoga until she was 94 years old. In her grandmother’s tradition she incorporates yoga asana, pranayama and meditation to foster open-heartedness. Amy graduated from The Yoga Room Berkeley’s 500-hour Advanced Studies Program in June 2014. She earned a Diploma in Neurolinguistic Programming from the Coaching Academy in London and has a Masters degree in Arts Administration from Golden Gate University as well as Bachelors degrees in Cinema/Photography and English from Ithaca College. In addition to teaching yoga Amy is an arts management consultant, facilitator and coach. Additionally, she is a member of the faculty at The Art Institute of California, San Francisco where she teaches in the Fashion Marketing & Management and Advertising departments.

I Love to Facilitate!

In March I presented a session on Succession Planning: Starting the Conversation at the Theatre Bay Area annual conference hosted at Berkeley Rep Theatre. Lorenz Angelo Photography captured me facilitating the session in front of several idea capture sheets and illustrations. This image really does catch the essence of my style - collecting, culling, synthesizing, and sharing. 

The colorful words on the left were actually written by the participants who were invited to come up to the front and write down their stakeholder concerns related to arts leadership succession planning. Behind me is the GROWS coaching model: Goal, Reality, Options/Opportunities, Will/When and Success. The final set of illustrations are the Lifestages on the organizational and career Lifecycle that I first learned from Dr. Susan Kenny Stevens and have since evolved into images of seeds-seedlings-trees.

#PR and the #Game of #Telephone

This quarter I am teaching Public Relations and each time I present this course I think about a lesson Publicist David Perry taught my class when he was a guest speaker. Public Relations is like being at a party. If you are in a circle of people and start talking about your current venture that is marketing. However, when someone moves from that circle on to another group of people, and they start talking about you, this is called publicity. How that message is communicated, received and perceived is the game of telephone.

So, for the first day of class I am going to have the students play a game of telephone and we'll actually have several messages moving around the room at once. Since it is an election year, I will likely use statements made by the Presidential candidates. It will be interesting to hear if and how the messages change from start to finish. It reminds me of an old party line telephone where you could pick up your extension and overhear the conversations of neighbors. At what point does this become gossip?

My intention is for the students to get a real-time lessons in the importance of crafting and communicating a message, and how the public, in Public Relations, can influence the wording and meaning.