ON TOUR with Louisa Henderson and Alice McCabe
Mixing arts and medical sciences for light hearted emotional release
The Embodiment Cloakroom at Doune The Rabbit Hole Festival, 19th -21st August 2016
PROPOSAL
We want to create an uplifting space in which people can leave their emotional baggage: manias, fear of lectures, art frustrations, heartbreak or current distractions. By combining our backgrounds we hope to tap into unconscious patterns of stored emotional responses: the artist helps the cloakroom visitor to visualise their baggage, whilst the osteopath sheds light on its physical traces.
The cloakroom technique stems from psychotherapeutic and Buddhist principles but focus is not on talking but rather an embodied action (the cutting of attachment to the baggage).
Format
– Cloakroom is set up in entrance lobby, within a structure divided into two parts. The front half appears as a cloakroom with the artist sitting in front of a desk.
– The cloakroom visitor is invited to check-in their item, which is written on a cloakroom ticket, then guided to the back of the tent by the osteopath. The artist then represents the baggage with a charcoal sketch.
– The visitor speaks to the osteopath, who listens, helping the person to ground themselves, before asking them to visualise the osteopath as the baggage. A cord is held between osteopath and visitor, representing their attachment to the baggage, and scissors given to the visitor to hold. The osteopath asks them to close their eyes and feel where in their body they have emotional tension due to the baggage, and that when they feel willing and able, to cut the cord, helping to shed the burden.
– The charcoal representation is called for and passed through from the front partition to the back, where it is hung up using the cut cord. Hang up your hang ups!
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Louisa Henderson – Osteopath
Anthropology degree – focus on religion and ritual, medical anthropology
Embodiment theory – interest in how the mind, our thoughts, our emotions, are interrelated to our bodies
Osteopathy – in depth study of physiology, stress response, trauma leading to increased understanding of the intricate nature of unconscious processes on our well being
Alice McCabe – Artist
Interested in dada, use of language freed from meaning
Arts Education MA, focussing on experimental forms of arts education using nonsensical modes of interpretation
Fine Art relates to observation and relationships living within London
Contact us if you have an event which could use the services of the Embodment Cloakroom.
