Dance for Health
based on the 5 elements

Our body is our personal territory in which life is happening. Equally this territory is the dancers' stage where they unfold their dance. Our whole life story is stored in this space-body. This is why we can contemplate our body as if looking on a map as we constantly leave traces of our past.
But does this storing of information work?
Our emotions and thoughts decide on the flow of energy in the body, they send commands to our muscular system, which reacts adequately. This succession of commands and its reaction serves as the information to be stored.
The movement in the muscular system is shaping our body. The vitality and tension of the muscels influences our charisma. The interaction of hundreds of muscles has an effect on our individual expression, which on its part is reflecting what happens within. Equally this conscious perception of the muscular system is giving numerous informations about ourselves.
George Goodheart, founder of Applied Kinesiology believed that muscels correspond with certain acupuncture meridians and that the function of particular muscles can give information about the energy flow in their relating meridian and vice versa. In Traditional Chinese Medicine the meridian channels are arranged into 5 elements (earth, wood, metal, fire and water), of which each corresponds to muscles, meridians, emotions and metaphors.
The workshop will analyse and highlight the five elements as well as examine which muscels, postures, gestures, blockages, rhythm, emotions et cetera belong to it. We will learn to develop a general alertness of energy flow and fluctuation of tension in the muscular system and how to become consciously aware of the relationship between feelings and expression. Equally we will activate the energy flow in the body by practising specific kinesiologic exercises and self-massage in order to dissolve blockages and correct possible disfunctions. The aim is the creation of an energetic balance of the self.
A journey to the inner self and the exploration of the own lanscape of our personal map will start.This is an opportunity to discover our living space, our body, which is our home, observe and start to consciously inhabit it.

In the centre of our work is the :

energy flow of the body
techniques for the creation of a balanced energy flow
the meridian channels and their corresponding muscle-groups
learning which muscles give information about which emotions and how they influence our expression
the individual self-perception of the own body and therefor the decrease of injury-tendency




Fabiana Pastorini
Fabiana Pastorini is a graduated jurist, who has put her original love for dance into practice in her later second-chance education. She is currently teaching at the Conservatory of Vienna. In her workshops she combines her passion for dance with specialised knowledge from her education in Kinesiology, which is a fascinating combination as it provides the opportunity to find an exciting approach to self-perception and to read the very own map of the body, for each workshop-participant.