Summer School
for Stockholm
DANCE MOVEMENT THEATRE
7 DAY COURSE
STOCKHOLM SWEDEN
21st
Celebration
EVENING DANCE
HAMILTON HOUSE
BRISTOL - UK
The Flower Drum
2019
4 DAY DANCE INTENSIVE
CORNWALL
UK
The River That Finds
Us
1 YEAR FOUNDATION COURSE
CORNWALL
UK
SPIDERFLOWER
1999 - 2019
BABU GAIA!
Nature Based Dance Movement Theatre for Babies, Toddlers + Children
BABU GAIA! worked as the children's strand for Spiderflower and offered nature-based dance movement theatre to babies, toddlers and young children aged 0 - 5 years and their parents or carers.
Classes combined theatre, dance, movement, games, song and rhythm to open a creative forum with an educational strategy that was specifically interested in building a positive, intelligent and strong relationship between the child and nature through creativity and play. Day Workshops extended the content and expression of classes to community dances, events and celebrations.
A wide range of world music, either pre-recorded or live opened doors to other cultures as it offered children great sounds to groove to. In the mix Babu Gaia! got down to disco, funk, pop and classical music too.
Parents and carers were asked to participate fully in sessions. This work was passionate about inspiring a robust yet beautiful foundation of relationship between child and nature through the body - that would serve well as a foundation for the very young people of today.
PROGRESSION
Ethos & A Bridge to Sweden
ETHOS: THE VITAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATURE AND CHILD
From the moment a child is conceived they begin a momentous journey. Through their time in the womb to their birth, they go through probably the most powerful initiation there can be. Delivered into a strange and challenging world; what surrounds a child as they are just ‘arriving’ and the initial connections they make are vital as they will inform a child’s foundation.
Babu Gaia! worked consciously with that attitude and that principle. Also, through the fundamental principle that the natural world is astonishingly intelligent and is a great teacher.
Babu Gaia’s intention is to welcome the new little people arriving here, in someway make effort to assist their landing, and in landing, one of the main things that is happening is that Babu is arriving in their body.
One of the main ways a baby and young child will learn is discovery through movement. It is a process of constant unfolding and development, within that journey there is a crucial bridge to be made between the body and the natural world as part of that introduction.
The discovery of the natural world is a sensate experience. For the main part, these bridges or connections are best made in that way, through the senses, physically or creatively which brings in the imagination. Babu Gaia! teaches through this relationship and perspective. Babu Gaia’s interest is also to assist every child unfold into and expressing their creativity through the techniques employed.
Working in this way, a positive cyclical relationship develops; as a child engages with the natural world, in turn, they flower into their own body in a supported, creative and beautiful way, as they are empowered so do can relate to the outside world with confidence, a respectful awareness and appreciation, a bond even - with the forces that give us life. This can bode nothing but well for the future.
A BRIDGE TO SWEDEN
It was through an invitation from Ängsbacka for Babu Gaia! to provide sessions for Christmas 2010 that Spiderflower arrived in Sweden . . .