SHADOW PLAY
A Movement Workshop Through Imagination, Play & Possibility
As the season turns and the veil between worlds grows thin, we are invited to notice what quietly lives beneath the surface.
The ways we hold back.
Push too hard.
Lose ourselves in the noise.
Perform the version of ourselves we think the room wants.
Disappear when we'd rather not be seen.
We all have our moves.
And given enough time, practice has a way of revealing them.
Shadow Play is a weekend-long movement workshop rooted in the 5Rhythms® Shadow Map—an embodied exploration of the patterns that shape how we move through the dance floor, our relationships, our creativity, and our lives.
Through movement, expressive arts, imagination, ritual theatre, live music, and play, we'll give these patterns somewhere to go besides around and around in our heads.
We'll give them a body.
A shape.
A gesture.
A voice.
Maybe even a sense of humor.
And then we'll see what else becomes possible.
THE SHADOW MAP
The 5Rhythms® practice moves through five rhythms—Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness.
Each rhythm carries an essential quality of being. And each has a shadow: the places where that energy can become distorted, restricted, exaggerated, performed, or stuck.
These shadows aren't character flaws.
They're human strategies.
And chances are, you've danced with a few of them.
FLOWING invites us into receptivity, grounding, instinct, and trust.
Its shadow, inertia, is the place where movement gets stuck. We drag our feet. Procrastinate. Collapse. Wait for motivation to arrive. We know something needs to shift, yet somehow we cannot get ourselves moving.
STACCATO gives us clarity, direction, boundaries, passion, and the ability to choose.
In shadow, that same energy can harden into rigidity, control, force, or the relentless need to get it right.
CHAOS teaches release—the capacity to loosen our grip, move with uncertainty, and let something larger than our plans have a say.
Its shadow, confusion, is what happens when we lose the thread. Everything is moving, but we have no idea where we're going. Uncontrolled. Scattered. Disoriented. We spin in too many directions, unable to find our footing or make sense of what comes next.
LYRICAL opens the territory of imagination, authenticity, creativity, and possibility.
Its shadow is a particularly clever performer.
We become who we think we're supposed to be. We shape-shift for approval. We make ourselves palatable. We say the right thing, wear the right face, read the room—and somewhere in all that adaptation, lose track of what is actually true.
The people-pleasing two-step:
One step forward. One step back.
STILLNESS brings us toward presence, perspective, compassion, and the ability to simply be with what is here.
Its shadow can pull us toward numbness, disconnection, withdrawal, or disappearing altogether.
You may recognize yourself immediately in one of these.
You may recognize yourself in all five.
Good. You're human.
And recognizing the pattern is only the beginning.
BECAUSE KNOWING YOUR PATTERN ISN'T THE SAME AS MOVING IT
You can understand perfectly well that you're a people pleaser and still say yes when your entire body means no.
You can know you have control issues and still feel your jaw tighten the second the plan changes.
You can have tremendous insight into why you shut down, over-perform, disappear, cling, push, accommodate, or resist—and still find yourself doing exactly the same thing when life turns up the volume.
The body learns through experience.
So rather than standing outside these patterns and analyzing them, we'll step inside them.
The Shadow Map becomes a compass rather than a prescription, helping us move between each rhythm's shadow and its essential nature.
Rigidity may reveal clarity.
Resistance may uncover release.
Performance may make room for something more authentic.
Disconnection may begin finding its way toward presence.
There is no predetermined answer we're trying to reach.
I'd much rather see what your body discovers.
WHY PLAY WITH SHADOW?
Because shadow can get awfully serious when we only talk about it.
Play gives us another way in.
Through movement and imagination, we can become curious about patterns we've spent years judging, hiding, managing, or trying to improve.
We can exaggerate them.
Interrupt them.
Try something ridiculous.
Make another choice.
Discover a movement we didn't know was available.
And in a room full of other bodies doing the same thing, we begin to recognize something else:
We aren't the only ones with these moves.
Our stories may be different, but the ways human beings protect, brace, accommodate, control, disappear, resist, and perform ourselves are remarkably familiar.
Shadow becomes less something lurking in the dark...
and more material for imagination.
Something we can move with and learn from.
We might even be lead somewhere we haven't been before.
FRIDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 2: WE OPEN THE DOORS
Friday evening is a three-hour, open/drop-in exploration and your entry point into the world of Shadow Play.
We'll move through the 5Rhythms® Shadow Map, begin exploring the relationship between shadow and essence, and use movement and imagination to notice some of our familiar moves.
Come for the evening.
Come curious.
Come shake your ass.
No previous 5Rhythms or movement experience is required.
SATURDAY + SUNDAY: WE PULL BACK THE CURTAIN
For those joining us for the full weekend, the room gets smaller and the inquiry goes deeper.
With more time and a more intimate container, we'll move through the Shadow Map using 5Rhythms®, expressive arts, imagination, ritual theatre, live music, creative inquiry, witnessing, and play.
We're not arriving with a prescribed idea of what your shadow should look like.
I'd much rather see what shows up in the room.
What happens when stuckness gets a shape?
When rigidity gets a dance?
When the part of you that always knows how to behave gets permission to misbehave a little?
When something you've tucked away gets some space, some music, and perhaps a little mischief?
That is where things tend to get interesting.
COME PLAY WITH US
Join 5Rhythms® accredited teacher and Somatic Expressive Artist Alyssa Jurewicz Johns, playwright, director, and Jungian Analyst Lena Rose Williams, and musician, producer, and dancer Drew Bayura for a weekend of movement, creativity, live music, imagination, and embodied discovery.
EARLY BIRD
Early Bird registration is available to the first 10 full-weekend participants.
Once those 10 spaces are claimed, registration moves to general pricing.
Saturday + Sunday are intentionally kept smaller to support the depth and intimacy of the work.
If something in you is curious, follow it.
You don't have to know what you're looking for.
That's rather the point.
DATES & LOCATIONS
Friday, October 2nd - 7PM to 10PM @ Wightman Community School Bldg - Class is Open to the Public
Saturday, October 3rd - 11AM to 6PM @ Metta Healing Arts on Penn Ave - Registration Required
Sunday, October 4th - 10AM to 5PM @ Metta Healing Arts on Penn Ave - Registration Required
REGISTRATION
Early Bird Registration - Available to the first 10 registrations