We have the means to go deep into the state of creating, drawing resources from a well within that is there explicitly for our personal use to make into action.  Our bodies have the capacity to move in space and time with uninhibited rhythm and gesture.  The theatre is a place of permission.  It's where we discover, and live the dynamic forces inside of us away from reductive conclusions.

Dance or creative workshops with Margaret are opportunities to taste the purity of commitment to each movement, and the thrilling joy of play.  When we consciously move in and with this field of gravity, an ease arises.  Movement becomes effortless.  Our attention can then be focussed on the material that we are creating, on what wants to be made.

Margaret guides a room with gentle instruction and example, predominantly through exercises and improvisation.  It is for individuals to discover their own unique source of embodied creativity, to expand and grow in all directions, with the ground as the foundation and the constant.  It's a place for the body to speak.

What's beautiful about these kind of courses is that we get to have a good dose of failure come into our pocket.  Although it's something perceived as potentially threatening during our day-to-day lives and something, perhaps, to be avoided, within the investigative realms of training, failure is a friend and pivotal to our growth and evolution.

Wholesome training acknowledges the interconnectedness of our bodies and that even when we move specific parts of us in isolation, the entire organism is coordinating this possibility.  Coordination includes timing, availability, proprioception, interoception, spacial awareness, strength, flexibility, and ease.  It requires a high level of collaboration between our neural pathways, reflexes, and our cellular intelligence.  In order to create and develop efficient coordination, we need to constantly expose ourselves to increasingly complex situations or tasks.

Failing to achieve a task is seen as a stimulation for the dynamism of this process.  We have succeeded in exposing ourselves to new learning and have set our inner workings into motion.

Because the majority of us learn faster and thrive in an environment of play, Margaret's light and joyful approach encompasses the determination and focus needed to stay in the game, so to speak.  Movement nourishment is practised via different forms to mobilise and activate physical awareness and ability for health, athletisicm and longevity.  She guides the group through different exercises that involve balls, sticks, rhythms, balancing objects, and collaborative and combative partnering games.   

Perhaps even prior to the post-COVID world, touch was widely misunderstood and misused.  Now, we get even less practise at being a fully interactive human being, with more of our daily lives spent on digital devices as a way of 'staying in touch' rather than actually meeting in person.

Whatever we share a space with, we are navigating with our physical bodies.  We practise it daily with objects, animals, plants and other people.  We sense the space between us and them, and communicate directly, or express, by engaging with that space.  Physical contact is the potential.  It's that potential which heightens the state of being together.

The multiple ways to touch, the how's and where's to communicate accurately what wants to be said to a friend, a stranger, a lover, or to a pet is a worthwhile investigation.  Patting a dog on the head is not giving the same message as patting the same dog on its stomach.  A light palm on the arm to indicate you'd like to pass someone by is not the same as barging them with your shoulder.

We practice holding phones, cutlery and steering wheels for hours every day.  We know exactly what pressure is required in each situation and we're able to adapt to new ones quickly due to a physical familiarity.  Yet, unless we engage in a martial art, specific form of dance, or have an open-minded partner, the majority of us don't get to explore and widen our sensitivity to the vast range of contact that is possible or feel how our bodies respond to each one.  A massage therapist, a chiropractor and an osteopath all use their hands on our bodies but each one feels very different.

Workshops that involve physical contact are often structured in a way that participants are able to focus on one new thing at a time.  Margaret allows a healthy amount of time for individuals to familiarise themselves spacially first and advance towards contact organically, with great awareness of each participant's capacity.  Whether the aim is to improve at sliding, sticking, brushing, pulling, collapsing or making contact with another's centre of gravity, the exercises are designed to allow understanding to arise from direct experience.  Sometimes a workshop partner can be there to challenge us beyond our own familiar patterns, sometimes they're to increase our sensitivity where we may have lost it, sometimes they're there to teach us the difference between what we think we're doing and what we're actually doing.

Touch is a tool, a need, a dynamic, and a life-long gift.  It's fundamental to our continued health both physically, mentally and spiritually.  It is one of the most basic things that exists, and yet one of the most complex things to master.  By actively engaging with it, we can enhance our myriad of relationships as well as deepen our experience of life.

Our understanding of the body is constantly being shape-shifted by leading-edge research, with still so much to discover.  The mental image we carry of our anatomy has a huge influence on how we hold ourselves, move and interact.  Sometimes, it's simply a matter of refining the understanding of how we function that allows a completely new experience and response.  By clarifying what we are made of, what its role is, and the complex synergies of how every part affects the whole, we begin to grow an appreciation for our complexity and potential, choosing environments that allow us to continue toward health.

Classes in Living Anatomy are engaging and active, as Margaret gets the group involved in activities or individual exercises to feel their way through understanding different systems or tissues of the body.  Her teacher, Gary Carter is one of the leading fascial experts in Europe today.  This course is a wonderful way to bring more depth into movement practices and daily choices.

Breath is a world to explore and engage with.  It is, as James Nestor calls it, the new science of a lost art.  Our breath gives us access to different states, it can enhance wellbeing or degrade it, and it is the foundation of our life, and also, our voice.

The quality of the inhalation, exhalation, the pauses in between, and whether it arrives through our nose or mouth completely affects our inner ecosystem of systems.  Our lung capacity, body mobility, tissue tension, facial construction and thoughts all have an impact on how well we are able to breathe, and thus, how much support we have for sound.  By working with our voice we automatically participate in each of these dynamics.

The human voice is measured to be one of the most effective instruments for sound healing.  Our bones and body fluids are excellent conductors of sound waves, so when we sing, chant or tone, we are creating internal vibrations, a form of massage.  As we hum, our exhale lengthens and one of the benefits of this is our parasympathetic nervous system being stimulated, bringing us a deeper sense of calm.

Margaret almost always starts any voice workshop with bringing awareness to the breath and working from there into tones and colours of the voice.  She is an advocate for the foundations, as everything it seems, starts there where the breath is.

Observing animals, without disturbing them, in their familiar and safe environments can offer gems of learning and discovery.  They know time and space with every cell of their being.  They know breath, voice and gesture intricately and honestly.  They know comfort, in the deepest sense.

They play, fight, and rest wholeheartedly.  They move with ease, grace and dynamic as individuals and as a herd, shoal, or flock.  They also respect those who take clear leadership.

Different animals bring about different states of nature that we can embody and learn from.  Whether it is prey or predator, each has a way of being that is responsive and sensory by nature, efficient in its movement, and dynamic in its relationship to constant change.  When we drop down from the vertical stance, or physiologically backward from the frontal cortex, we have the potential to come closer to the spirit of the animal and thus become familiar with instinctual behaviour.

Margaret often guides these workshops in a natural setting where the complexity of the environment itself invites a more animalistic approach.  It's all about opening the senses, recognising breath as an ally and as a reflection of one's state, and feeling free to drop down into the wilder parts of ourselves.