Shantigar Foundation Offers Small Artistic and Meditative Workshops on a Beautiful Old Farm

    ROWE, MA, June 07, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- "Shantigar means "Peaceful Home" in Sanskrit, legendary playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie, founder and artistic director of Shantigar tells us. "Shantigar was named by my Tibetan Buddhist teacher Trungpa, Rinpoche who did a year's retreat there."

Garden, Cabins and Movement room at Shantigar, photo by Jean-Claude van Itallie

Jean-Claude van Itallie

Van Itallie believes that, "Interacting with nature while taking a creative and meditative inner journey, nourishes and enriches."

On a peaceful gorgeous farm in Rowe, Massachusetts, Shantigar deliberately keeps its workshops in the arts and in meditation small in order to give everyone personal attention.

Experienced artists who delight in teaching workshops offer inspiration within a disciplined structure. Workshops are open to everyone - the merely inquisitive, writers, dancers, psychotherapists, actors, administrators, carpenters, teachers, college students, retired folk, or whomever.

Shantigar offers a diverse selection of artistic and meditative workshops:

June 20-22: Voice and Music with Jonathan Hart Makwaia.
Jonathan, a teacher at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU, is an experienced composer, singer, and an amazingly gentle teacher. This workshop is for anyone who wants to free their natural voice.

Jonathan Hart Makwaia, photo by Hanna Lippmann

June 27-29: Women in the Wild - Face to Face with Feminine Nature: a women's retreat with Bobbie Ellis. Bobbie Ellis says, "Art gives us a way to fit together the impressions of our lives. In nature, using movement, drawing, writing and enacting, we will explore our life experiences and themes in order to develop more internal resources for our life's journey.

"A beautifully crafted gift of love and wisdom."

Bobbie Ellis

July 18-20: Writing on Your Feet, a writer's retreat with Jean-Claude van Itallie.
Shantigar's charismatic founder and legendary playwright offers a unique physical way of writing which inspires many.

"Jean-Claude is the only play writing teacher I've ever had." -Tony Kushner.

"I take Jean-Claude's workshops because they're fun." -Kathy Benners

Jean-Claude teaching, photo by Peter Meyer

August 15-17: Acting and Being with Parlan McGaw, Rae C Wright and Jean-Claude van Itallie.
Parlan, an actor and meditation teacher in the Buddhist tradition, with Rae, an OBIE-Award winning off-Broadway actor, join Jean-Claude in offering a unique blend of acting exercises and meditation in nature designed to encourage spontaneous expression in actors and everyone.

"I particularly enjoyed transitions from meditation into acting games and into silence--cultivating space sans words, giving potency to gesture, movement and authentic being."

Acting and Being Workshop, photo by Peter Columbus

August 22-24: Art of the Storyteller with Laura Simms.
Laura, an experienced artist, writer, and teacher, is Senior Research Fellow for the International Peace Institute. She guides people in exploring the healing aspects of engaged storytelling.

"Irresistible! A major force in the revival of storytelling in America." -New York Times

Laura Simms, photo by Kent Miles

August 29-31: Continuum Movement with Bobbie Ellis.
Music accompaniment by John Bianculli. This summer's Continuum workshop is a tribute to the late Emilie Conrad, the founder of Continuum who taught annually at Shantigar for many years.

Emilie Conrad, photo by Tony Allicino
Continuum is a slow and spontaneous way of moving that opens deep places in body and mind. "In the world we live in with all the frenetic noise and distractions, it is easy to lose connection to our universal selves, to become isolated and to close off that part of us directly linked to creation. My time with Continuum was an awakening in my heart that I will nurture."

Continuum Workshop Bobbie Ellis

All workshops start promptly at 3:00 PM on Friday, end Sunday at 1:00 PM. Fee: $333. Meals with breakfasts: $65, meals but no breakfasts: $45. Early Registration: $306.00.

After a Shantigar workshop, a participant wrote: "This was a healing, meditative, artistic feast. In a world that texts and emails but isolates, at Shantigar I found space to breathe, laugh, and run."

Mission
To teach and inspire people to engage with the world from a more profound place within themselves, on an old farm in the Berkshire hills to offer personal retreats, open-to-everyone workshops blending art and meditation, and the opportunity to create theatre.

Vision
Believing that interacting with nature strengthens the body, deepens the spirit, and is essential to human growth, and that authentic artistic, healing, and spiritual practices are parallel and feed each other - Shantigar provides a "peaceful home" in nature where individuals come to learn from inspired teachers of art and meditation, be nurtured and rejuvenated, and return to the world with a renewed sense of commitment.

Shantigar Foundation
63 Davenport Road
Rowe, MA 01367
Phone: 413-339-4332
Email: [email protected]

www.shantigar.org
https://www.facebook.com/ShantigarFoundation
https://twitter.com/ShantigarORG
https://www.youtube.com/user/ShantigarORG

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