Workshops at the Dharmakaya Retreat Center

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Gathering safely in an idyllic landscape.

Watermark Arts has been invited to a new mountain top retreat location in Cragsmoor NY, in the company of oxygen rich forests. 

With a spacious outdoor pavilion, currently under construction, where Continuum movers can safely practice, as well as a vast indoor studio.

Revel in the expansive quiet of the natural landscape; our gathering will be the only workshop meeting at Dharmakaya.

Farm to table vegetarian cuisine, prepared and served with enhanced health and safety precautions, for all workshop participants. Serene private rooms available. Commuters welcome.

To allow for physical spacing group size will be very limited.

July 30 – August 1st
My Body, The Wetland: A Somatic Movement Workshop
with Elaine Colandrea, Continuum Guide

The somatic movement practice of Continuum opens the door to experiencing the tangible reality of connection and wholeness deeply rooted in nature. Based on biological awareness and the primacy of the fluid system as the connecting thread uniting humans and the planet, this program combines fluid movement with Continuum breath and sound explorations. Students will learn to work with their own health and wellbeing, gaining awareness of the parallels between caring for themselves and for the environment.

Register here

September 17 – 19
Continuum Explorations: Dissolve. Dwell. Discover.
With Elaine Colandrea, Continuum Guide

Dissolve habits of mind and tensions of body with the Continuum process of breathing, sounding and fluid movement. Dwell in the liquid pool of being, universally available to everyone. 
Discover your own stream of vitality, renewal, self care and creative living. In this program you will work with your own health and wellbeing, connecting with nature’s life force; it’s the perfect antidote to today’s overly programmed and homogenized world.

Register here

 

See you in the countryside!

Treasures: Past, present and future

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From the new Watermark Arts newsletter:

Moving beyond pandemic fatigue by deepening engagement with living art processes is our inquiry of the moment. We offer you past, present and future treasures from our endeavors to support you as you move with what is.

Feeling a sense of belonging is nourishing.  Belonging = longing to be.

In this present moment: 

Sense yourself inhaling through the pores of your skin, which cover every surface of your body. Sense yourself exhaling through the pores of your skin. Lower or close your eyes for this exploration. 

Upcoming Continuum retreats this July and September at Dharmakaya in Cragsmoor, NY are future treasures. This idyllic retreat center may be the most perfect setting for Continuum movers to gather for soul satisfying, heart supportive, tissue releasing, Covid-safe practice for overall well-being. 

Presenting artist and Continuum teacher Barbara Mindell’s complete body of paintings – new to our galleries – is a treasure from the past. Steep yourself in artistry delivered from the process of Continuum.

Our hope is to support your creative flourishing in all times!

The Watermark Arts Creative Team

Elaine Colandrea, Artistic Director

Prue Jeffries, Creative DirectorSandra Capellaro, Galleries AdministratorRori Smith, Editor & Writer

Teeming with Life

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The Spring 2021 Watermark Arts Newsletter is here.

“Peepers are back. Spring has sprung:
What an awe-inspiring tribute to water. 
Gorgeous – every piece of dance, poetry, and song. Moving me to tears.” 
~ Bea Ehrsam’s response to the March 21st Watermarkings. 
 
After the multidisciplinary performance dedicated to water, the world-wide audience danced together to Frank Carbone’s To Listen is to Love, a beautiful theme to carry in each of our lives. View or review the performances of Watermarkings at your pleasure! Below you will also find the World Water Law video, which highlights an important global citizen initiative to protect water. 
 
Next up, you can find us presenting The Elemental Nature of the Body and What is Refuge? at the World Dance Alliance Conference and Virtual Assembly. Scroll down to learn more about the conference theme Ecologies of and Through the Body and to join us.
 
As Spring breaks through, the new season makes visible the growth and creativity we are dedicated to sharing with you!

With excitement,

The Watermark Arts Creative Team

Elaine Colandrea, Artistic Director

Prue Jeffries, Creative DirectorSandra Capellaro, Galleries AdministratorRori Smith, Editor & Writer

 

World Dance Alliance Conference

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The World Dance Alliance Conference will be held this year virtually, April 22 – 29. This year’s theme is Ecologies of and through the Body.

Watermark Arts will be participating in the conference with a workshop entitled  “The Elemental Nature of the Body: A Continuum Workshop.”

Craft an embodied understanding of the four elements, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, through the somatic awareness practice of Continuum. Continuum breath, sound, and fluid movement slow perception, so that sensations from deep within our living tissues emerge, leading to a sense of wholeness and belonging with nature.

By investigating the vital chemistry of all life, we can move with empowerment, creativity, and courage, manifesting meaningful contributions in the world.

We will tune into our bodies through guided breathing and sounding practices. This preparation will lead to the exploration of movement patterns from nature – spiral and waves, folding and unfolding, branching, and more. This class is appropriate for and inclusive of all bodies and all levels of movement experience. 

What is Refuge?

Additionally the site specific dance film, What is Refuge? Che Cose il Refugio?, was accepted into the World Dance Alliance Online Concert Program. This collaboration between dancer Elaine Colandrea, film maker Prue Jeffries and composer Morena Boschetto examines the timely concept of refuge. Filmed in a Unesco World Heritage site in Matera, Italy.

Honoring Water, Honoring Life ~ World Water Year 2021

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At Watermark Arts we think deeply about water. The Watermark Arts name came from a dream about the transformative qualities of water, and many Watermark artists are inspired by the fluid movement practice of Continuum.

During the month of March we offer you myriad ways to engage with your own fluid body and the waters of the world. 

First, we are thrilled to introduce you to artist and planetary activist Shelley Ostroff, who along with co-creators, has initiated World Water Year 2021and the World Water Law. The World Water Law is a global call for citizen action to protect water sources.

On Sunday March 7, Elaine Colandrea, Melanie Gambino and Elisabeth Osgood-Campbell will guide participants in a Continuum Water Blessing during the ISMETA conference, “Engaging Embodiment: Somatic Practices for Health, Education & Social Justice.”

All are welcome to celebrate the life affirming properties of water on Sunday March 21, the day before World Water Day, for Watermarkings – a dance, poetry and music performance. Register for this free online event below.

Throughout the month, experience your own internal fluidity each Wednesday with Megan Bathory-Peeler and Elaine Colandrea in Moving Body Meditations, part of Shantigar Foundation Online Programs.  

Could concern for the world’s waterways, and the well-being of all life forms, be a unifying cause? We look forward to your engagement.

Please join us!

Read the newsletter here.

The Watermark Arts Creative Team

Elaine Colandrea, Artistic Director

Prue Jeffries, Creative DirectorSandra Capellaro, Galleries AdministratorRori Smith, Editor & Writer

 

New Year, New Artists, New Retreat Location

ElaineNews, Newsletters

2021 has arrived; flux is inherent in all beginnings.

At Watermark Arts, we are aswirl with fresh artwork, a new retreat location, and a blossoming of spring projects.

Our new artists, both deeply informed by Continuum, deliver you to the waters of creation. With joy, we introduce you to dancer/poet Lumini Merced and to an expanded selection of Judi Bachrach’s poetry. 

Peer into the world of Dharmakaya Center for Well Being,steeped in the nature of Ulster County, NY. Elaine Colandrea will present two Continuum weekend workshops in the coming year at this scenic, tranquil, private retreat.

March will bring a Water Blessing sponsored by ISMETA (3/7), a World Water Day performance (3/21), and a 5-week Moving BodyMeditations online series with Shantigar Foundation. Look for more details about March events in our next mailing.

Further on the horizon, Omega Institute for Holistic Studies has invited Elaine and Watermark Arts to organize a Summer 2022 workshop. 

From this potent space of new beginning, please contemplate the somatic art in our winter 2021 newsletter here. 

The Watermark Arts Creative Team

Elaine Colandrea, Artistic Director

Prue Jeffries, Creative DirectorSandra Capellaro, Galleries AdministratorRori Smith, Editor & Writer

 

Like Venus come ashore, WATERSENSE, the new 2020 Journal is here!

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Dear Friend,

As the wild, crashing currents of 2020 ebb and a new year flows in, I reflect upon the quality of water that has been most instructive in meeting unprecedented times: Adaptability.

If ever there was a time for opening oneself to new possibilities through life-affirming somatic art, it is this present moment. I am awash with gratitude for everyone who has viewed our exhibits and films and attended our online offerings. Your participation makes Watermark Arts whole and complete.

At the heart of Watermark Arts are the nearly 60 artists whose sensuous and alive artwork graces our online galleries, newsletters, exhibits, performances, films and publications.

As our annual capstone, Watermark Arts invites you to delve now into our fourth journal, WaterSense, featuring My Body, The Wetland, a reflection on interdependence, collaboration, and vitality. In the 2020 Journal, we bow to those whose contributions made possible numerous Water Blessings, the Elemental Art Exhibits, Susan Harper: Heart of Continuum, and Materadancescapes – all included in WaterSense.

The 2020 Journal will remain available on the Watermark Arts website, along with our three earlier issues: The Artistry of Water, Continuum & Creativity, and The Creativity of Health. All of which offer potent reflections on the gift of adaptability – meeting what is.

Together, with love, we head into the unknown,

Elaine and the Watermark Arts Creative Team

Elaine Colandrea   Prue Jeffries         Sandra Capellaro          Rori Smith
Artistic Director      Creative Director  Galleries Administrator  Editor/Writer

View the newsletter here.

A Moving Inquiry: The Art of Personal Practice

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A Moving Inquiry: The Art of Personal Practice is an invitation to discover the inherent gifts of living an embodied life. 

Beginning February 16th 2021, this 7-week course is also an introduction to Continuum, the somatic movement modality that has informed, infused and inspired my own movement practice, as well as my teaching, writing, relationships and professional life for the past four decades. 

Continuum is an inquiry into the nature of all movement.  It invites you to directly experience your body’s interconnectedness with the wholeness of life.  The simple yet profound practices we will explore in this course make an art form of dissolving constraint, welcoming the liberation of the entire person at every level.

Using breath, sound, and somatic movement, you are invited to enlarge your capacity to live from the inside out – your capacity to move, speak, think, love, play and work as a fluid organism in a bio-intelligent world. Stepping outside of the cultural models of “body” and “shape” you discover the deep inner world of flourishing life that reveals itself with grace and ease.

Continuum has revolutionized the role of somatic movement in health, education, relationship, physical fitness, creativity and spirituality. I am honored and delighted to share this work and guide you in creating life-enhancing personal movement practice.

This course is for anyone who longs to more fully inhabit this life, and anyone who senses the need for more authentic, embodied engagement in the world we share. All are welcome.

Guided by Beth Pettengill Riley for more info: https://sutra.co/circle/rqh3ra

With Grace & Gratitude ~ Water Blessings 2020

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On November 1 dozens of participants came together in the virtual stream for a global Water Blessing. From the Pacific Ocean to the Nile River, each participant moved in resonance with a cherished body of water.

While we were geographically dispersed, our collective practice unified us as we slipped magically into the guiding currents of water’s elemental nature.

The poetry of Judi Bachrach and Beth Riley, included in this newsletter for you to absorb, invited us to explore water’s multitude of qualities. Musician Cory Blake bathed us in glorious live music so that we might “move like water.”

We welcome you to immerse in the photographs, quotes, and videos from this culminating Water Blessing event, along with all the Water Blessings of 2020 – our year dedicated to learning from water. A special thank you to all who attended on November 1 and to the myriad contributions documenting Water Blessings worldwide.

I wish you well as you surge, drift, bubble, melt, and more…

Elaine

Read the newsletter here.