Skinner Releasing Technique & Improvisation | Lily Kiara

Ljubljana, Slovenia, 30 June – 5 July 2025 (6 days); 10:00 – 17:00

A six-day intensive workshop in Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) offers a deep exploration into how principles of releasing open pathways to creating dance in the moment. Through experiential practice, participants will discover how SRT supports improvisation, instant composition, and how movement develops in dialogue with the body, space, and time.

We will explore questions such as:

• How does softening the body and accessing inner states affect our perception of time?
• How does softening the body and accessing inner states affect our perception of time?
• How does presence support clarity and expressiveness?
• How does embodied listening influence relationships and creative choices?

As these practices become embodied, they expand possibilities, deepen sensitivity, and can profoundly shift how we create.

Creating dance in a spacious, layered moment invites us to listen: What is this moment asking of you? Can you sense it and respond directly, intuitively, through your dancing self? In this attentive state, a sense of ease may arise—an opening to what is already present.

The workshop will culminate in a collective performative experience, open to the public. The form of sharing will be shaped by the dynamics and development of the group.

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) is a visionary approach to dance and movement training, developed by Joan Skinner (1924-2021); a detailed, refined and expansive technique. It is designed to find greater ease in our dancing and dynamic alignment with our environment and a refined tuning with our bodies and imagination. The teaching strongly draws on guided imagery and hands-on partner studies, supporting an experiential understanding of both the technical and the creative process in movement.

There is an ongoing fine tuning in allowing ourselves to consciously fall into unknown creative territories. We allow ourselves to be intimately in touch with our inner body as well as align with something greater than ourselves through embodied listening. As we move with imagery that guides us through different layers of the whole self, the imagery can begin to move us. The poetic imagery can atune to physiological layers and includes the mystery of intangible layers present.

Embodied listening, inner spaces, presence, dynamic stillness, softening and allowing are some of the essential areas of practice in Skinner Releasing (other than release), that support action into newness. Softening supports the releasing of strength through efficiency and responsiveness. Allowing encourages listening, to one’s own dancing first. This way we can become more available. In the technical work and in creating dances, directing and allowing are side by side, as are stillness and action, receptivity and fierceness. Joan Skinner says »Letting go is a discipline.« ”. It is a continuous practicing. Giving something up, in order to give in.

“you do not have to be a fire
for every mountain blocking you.
you could be a water
and
soft river your way to freedom
too.
-options”
– Nayyirah Waheed, in Salt

PEDAGOGUE

Lily Kiara is a dance artist, singer-songwriter, facilitator through teaching dance and Biodynamic Craniosacral practice. She danced her first improvised performance on invitation of her dance teacher at the age of eight. She started her professional training at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam (1990-1994), at Bennington College (1992) and Movement Research in NYC. Further on, Skinner Releasing Technique (certified teacher since 2001), martial arts and training in Instant Composition with teachers such as Julyen Hamilton and Lisa Nelson have greatly influenced her work and evolving vision. The work of her late teacher Suprapto Suryodarmo, Joged Amerta Movement through practicing and performing in Indonesia, continues to inspire her on numerous levels. In 2021 she graduated in London as a Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist and has a practice based in Amsterdam.

Lily also is active as a folk singer-songwriter, solo and with her bands The RIVER and The Tall Tales. Lily Kiara has been teaching classes and workshops in Skinner Releasing Technique and Creating (Instant) Dances, sometimes together with a musician or lighting designer. She has been teaching at independent studios, companies, festivals, academies and art institutions throughout Europe, USA, Australia and Indonesia and also guides artists in their process of making their own work, tuning into exactly what it is they are making this moment and what could support them in doing so with their highest potential.

LOCATION
Center kulture Španski borci → Location on map

PRICES
“Early birds” (registrations until May 31, 2025): 230€
“Late birds” (registrations after May 31, 2025): 260€

APPLICATION
You can submit your application via the online form → APPLY HERE! We will send you an invoice for the registration fee, which will secure your place in the selected workshop.
The amount of applicants is limited to 25 people.

DISCOUNTS
If you motivate a friend to registe, each get 10€ discount.
New: Possibility to pay in two installments.

CONTACT
[email protected]
+386 51 695 008