What Is A Muse?
Somebody who inspires an artist – a source of inspiration, a breath of life that just comes to you, without effort. A muse is a reservoir of historical and personal relics (like the word, museum), a feminine source of inspiration and delight (like the word, amusement) who leads you to discoveries that you may yearn for and even have an inkling of, but can't quite reach by yourself.
To "muse" is an act of thought, imagination, and discernment. To muse is to ponder, brainstorm, mull over, reflect, weigh, fancy, kick about, and chew the fat...great acts of creativity! I have been inspired and informed by many mind-body disciplines and movement traditions all my life. These many traditions, along with a rich background in human movement science, have evolved into a mosaic of perspectives on how bodies are organized for movement.
Exotic Origins
My mother danced with Ruth St. Denis and Hanya Holm, two vital pioneers in Modern dance, and was an oriental dance soloist, performing dances from the Far East. Such exotic origins led me in turn to study multiple dance traditions, both western and eastern, and to find beauty in many styles of movement training. For the past 30 years, I also have studied "somatics," the umbrella term for the many mind-body disciplines where sensory awareness leads to improved self-organization. These have been catalysts for personal and artistic expression as well as insightful tools for unraveling problems of body support.
Ideokinesis and the Alexander Technique
The two main disciplines that have influenced my way of working over these three decades have been Ideokinesis and the Alexander Technique. Both are proactive, in that they engage a clients' active participation in becoming aware of their body and to hone this perceptual awareness towards movement improvement.