Compassionate Contact with Brandon Schwinn & Chloe Loftus

Date

31 Jan 2025 - 03 Feb 2025

Time

5:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Dates: Friday 31st January – Monday 3rd February 2025

In this retreat we will explore contact between ourselves and our environment/community.

Using tools from Contact Improvisation dance, meditation, presence work, and play we will expand a sense of empathy and connection.

There is a spectrum of possibility between stillness and dynamic movement.

This retreat will offer space to explore that and allow the impetus for movement to come from the awareness of our heartfelt listening.

This retreat is for dancers and non-dancers. There will be open jams and creative non-verbal spaces for exploring new possibilities of interaction. By learning to trust the wisdom of our bodies, we will engage with our communities in more connected and compassionate ways.

About Brandon Schwinn

Brandon Schwinn is a dance artist and meditator living in Vancouver, Canada. He has been studying Dharma for over twenty years and finds it a fundamental tool for living a life that values compassionate action. He has always found creativity to be essential for his spiritual practice. He has studied visual arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and he has been studying contemporary dance in Vancouver Canada intensively for the past 6 years. He has also completed a transformative training program in the art of clowning, which is where his interest in presence work and creative process in community began to take an artistic form.

About Chloe Loftus

Chloe is a professional dancer, choreographer, mass movement director and Contact Improvisation devotee. She is best known for her mesmerising outdoor dance-theatre creations, cultivating communities through performances and participatory offerings. Italian born and Aotearoa bred, Chloe trained in the UK and established her early career there. Now, with 20 years experience of championing inclusivity, connection and imagination, she tours her work internationally but is delighted to call Whakatū Nelson home.

Links – www.chloeloftus.com @Loftyloftus (Instagram) @Chloe Loftus Dance (Facebook)

Costs

Costs include food, single room accommodation, a cooks fee and a small resource fee.

Rooms / Huts
Members $376
Non members $406

Camping
Members $313
Non members $322

About dana

The costs do not include any payment for the teacher who is offering the weekend on the basis of dana (generosity). Please bring cash with you if you would like to offer dana to Brandon & Chloe.

An offering of dana to the teacher, traditionally at the beginning of the retreat, and is a profound practice in itself. Giving can help us open; and through an open-hearted state of receptivity, we can find ourselves more able to receive.

Information

For further information contact Chloe at chloe@chloeloftus.com

Registration

To register please fill out our online registration form

Register now

Please consider becoming a Wangapeka member – click here for details.

photo credit: Ana Clara Ortega both of us dancing.

Welcome to the Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre. People visit from all over the world to meditate and enjoy the peace of this remarkable destination. The Wangapeka is a purpose built retreat centre, with fresh, clean air and beautiful vistas. It is very quiet and ideal for respite, stress relief and deep meditation. Delightfully rustic, we have a meditation hall, solo retreat huts, a main hall for dining and community, and a fully catered kitchen and an onsite vegetable garden.

The Wangapeka Study and Retreat Meditation Centre is a Universalist centre home to a wide range of teachings, paths, and studies. Retreats are held on Mindfulness, Vipassana, Insight, Buddhism, Heart-based practices, Loving Kindness, Calm-abiding, Metta, Compassion, Conscious Movement, Nature, Forest Walks, Yoga, Dance, Feldenkrais, Wellness, Wellbeing, Archetypal Integration, Western Mysticism, Non-Duality, Zen, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings with Empowerments and Sadhana Practice.

The Wangapeka Centre is located in the foothills of the Southern Alps overlooking the Wangapeka River, about an hour and a half drive SW of Nelson, in the South Island of New Zealand.

We have meditation retreats throughout the year, have huts available for solo retreats, and welcome bookings from external groups. There are also opportunities available to work on our land. Come and enjoy this uniquely vibrant and peaceful centre.

355 Wangapeka River Rd
R.D.2. Wakefield 7096
New Zealand
Phone: +64 3 522 4221
info@wangapeka.org


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