Working on Self
These activities developed out of necessity during COVID 19 when I had to find creative ways of teaching many online Alexander lessons. Since then, I have refined these rudimentary ideas into a set of guided activities, using (self) touch, breath and thinking, indirectly incorporating the fundamental Alexander principles, to provide a tool kit for students and learners to continue the work on themselves. Going through this set of movements may develop an experience of groundedness, centredness and presence, greater awareness of being in space and the possibility of ease of and flow in movement. The aim is that it gives the students agency to take this work into their daily lives. I use this set of activities during introductory workshops to introduce the idea of the Use of the Self, as well as integrate it gradually into the students’ and pupils ‘course of individual lessons.
Feedback from students, especially performers and musicians, includes that they find this way of coming ‘back’ to themselves - into the stillpoint, where the dance is - extremely useful in coming into the present moment, in preparation for performance, or when experiencing performance anxiety, or just getting ready for playing and practicing. Others find that it provides a means for managing demanding work life, when stressed or experiencing difficult interpersonal situations in a more constructive way, or just helpful for coming to rest. As an artist, I find that practicing this set of activities helps me to find quietness, opening the opportunity for tapping into the well of creativity and going into the unknown.
About Dorothea
Dorothea Magonet, initially trained and worked as a physiotherapist, qualified in 1984 as an Alexander teacher with Misha Magidov. Since then, she has been teaching at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she organised and hosted three International Conferences on Teaching the Alexander Technique in Music Conservatoires. Side by side she had a full private practice for more than 30 years. She served on STAT Council for 10 years including as Chair, now she is a STAT Student Moderator and Assessor. She was the Main Assistant on John Hunter’s Westminster Alexander Training Centre. She regularly teaches and runs workshops in Estonia, Finland and Japan. She has participated in several International Congresses, giving workshops, lectures and running Continuous Learning sessions.
Being a latecomer to art she studied for BA in Fine Art in her mid 50s. Now Dorothea divides her time between teaching AT part-time and working in her London art studio as a practicing and exhibiting fine artist specialising mainly in sculpture.
www.dorotheamagonet.co.uk/
