Embodying Racial Justice for all Organizers, Activists and Coaches - Upstate NY
July 25-28, 2024
9am–5pm
Size: 28 people
Teachers: Dara Silverman, Maura Bairley, Michael Strom, Iman Boundaoui, Tyler Grillo
This in-person, interactive course will build your capacity, embodiment and understanding of yourself as an organizer/ activist/ community worker inside of liberation movements in the US at this time. Instructors Dara Silverman, Maura Bairley, Michael Strom, Iman Boundaoui and Tyler Grillo are embodiment teachers and race equity consultants whose work is based on their community experience in community, environmental and racial justice movements and training within the Strozzi Institute and generative somatics.
Somatics or embodiment is based on the Greek word soma, meaning the body in its living wholeness. By building somatic awareness, we start to grow our understanding of sensation and let it inform our actions. Somatic practices allow us to feel what’s happening in our bodies and make the connection with the impact on our lives.
This form of embodiment is a pragmatic way for us to feel for our purpose and organize ourselves towards what we care about, even under increased pressure.
“Somatics feels into how, in a collective or group, patterns of pain can indicate the mass, or intergenerational, trauma people are surviving. And how each of us has the power to help each feel more, heal, and move toward our longings for liberation and justice together.”
–Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism-
The budget for this course only works when participants register at the level that matches their income and/or their institution's budget.
Donations and sponsorships are always welcome.
The true cost per participant is $1250, which includes: paying living wages to the team of five trainers, shared breakfast and lunch as well as snacks, drinks, and treats.
We are offering this sliding scale for tuition:
Sustainer Rate - $3,000-$4,000+: for those who have generational or inherited wealth.
Supporter Rate - $2,000-$2,999: for those comfortably paying their rent or mortgage and those being sponsored by an organization with sufficient budget.
True Rate - $1,000-$1,999: for those who have a regular income and are paying their mortgage or rent.
Equity Rate - $750-$999: for those who are challenged to make ends meet.
Additionally, a minimum of 20% of funds will be redistributed to local Black and Indigenous groups, and Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, a national training intermediary focused on transforming the practice of Black organizers. In 2023, Embodying Racial Justice redistributed over $50,000 to Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity from course fees.
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✓ You want to deepen in your embodied awareness, practice and learnings from the body up
✓ You are interested in bringing your body/Somatics into action in your work and life
✓ You want a community of practice which will support you to keep exploring, letting your body reveal more depth, and unearthing your longings
✓ You are an organizer, consultant, trainer, coach, or activist. This is a place for you to be deepening and building your commitment to racial justice.
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✓ More access to aliveness- sensation- temperature, pressure and movement and how it informs your actions
✓ Greater groundedness in your work, clarity about your purpose and how to take focused action in the midst of the noise of the world
✓ Moving towards more choice under pressure and through the contradictions of this current moment
✓ Deeper understanding of embodied race equity and liberation frameworks
✓ Access to deeper resilience and mutual support under the increased pressures of the world
✓ Moving from old shape to new shape in current political conditions
✓ Becoming more congruent; aligning embodiment, words, and actions with your longings
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Four days of in-person practice in Millerton NY at the Watershed Center:
Pre-work and curated reading list
Embodied daily and weekly practices to take home
Up to 28 participants, 60% BIPOC
Covid ProtocolsTO PARTICIPATE:
With 28 spots, the course will fill up, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible. Please only apply if you are able to attend the full 4 days of the program: Thursday, July 25 through Sunday, July 30. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis.
“If you aren’t in your body, someone else is. The systems of this world have everything to gain from your disembodiment.”
–Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies