Sound Site Somatics
Yoga with Sarah Gray
Sound Site Somatics promotes self-nurture and guides students to
reconnect with themselves, each other & their environment.
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Sound Site Somatics was founded by Sarah Gray in 2016 as a vehicle to explore
sound, movement and site-specific performance.
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Research interests include the conscious experience of mind, body, and place in the context of
ecological placemaking, community coherence, and the wellbeing of the individual.
Sarah Gray
Artistic director and teacher
of Sound Site Somatics
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Sarah is an arts and ecological educator, producer, and teacher supporting holistic, embodied learning through embodied facilitation, eco-somatics and improvisation.
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Sarah studied Theatre and Choreographic Practices at Dartington College of Arts and is certified 200 hr Scaravelli-inspired yoga teacher, and has been practicing Somatics, Authentic Movement and Body-Mind Centering for a decade.
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Sarah is BMCA Registered as a Student of Body-Mind Centering studying Somatic Movement Education and has been working with BMC Practitioner Rosalyn Maynard for nearly ten years as part of the School Of Experiential Learning.
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Sarah has lived and worked in the Totnes and Dartington area in Totnes for nearly 20 years and now works at the heart of Dartington at Schumacher College and Arts School as Head of Community Learning, and teaching on short courses and the MA in Movement, Mind and Ecology.
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Sarah is an alumna of Dartington College of Arts, served as elected President of the Students' Union for two years, and later founded and organised the performance art festival and alumni reunion, Stream.
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She is a member of Tree Charter Brance Sap Rising bringing forest bathing, foraging, arts and somatics together in service of trees.
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Sarah is Director of arts based community media organisation Soundart Radio, 102.5FM, and began broadcasting in 2010 since working with BBC and Stellaria Media. Inspired by deep listening, ecoacoustics, radio art, and digital sound art practices she creates sound walks, journeys, and poems, to offer immersive, ‘in-ear’ experiences as sensory invitations for participants to relate to their environment, particularly with a focus on becoming more aware of their perception of animal and plant beings.
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Sarah contributed over four annual international Sound Camps, founded by Reveil, with partner organisation, Soundart Radio as a facilitator guiding somatic workshops for listening with the whole body.
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Sound
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Sarah explores sound as a medium of touch,
listening as an act of both giving & receiving,
& voicing as a means of expression & somatization
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As part of self-led solo arts project Sound Journeys, Sarah produced a digital sound-walk for Dartington, presented at the Schumacher College symposium Language, Landscape and the Sublime in June 2016. For more information contact Sarah directly.
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Site
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Sarah facilitates experiences
to offer up the opportunity to rediscover
our relationship to place.
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Sarah explores landscape, memory, and ritual on rural and urban terrain. Her most recent work centers on the Dartington Hall Estate through walking, spoken word, and sound recording.
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Somatics
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The exploration of the relationship between body and mind through first-person perception;
To directly experience; To pay attention to; To notice;
To create the conditions for more choice.
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In a world of information,
can we embody and grow our felt knowledge?
Somatics is sensing and feeling the relationship between body and mind. By bringing greater awareness to our whole selves we begin to become present to embody the reality of this constant change.
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By turning in we limit how much we depend on the externals.
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Overcoming addictions and habits, being neuroplastic and available to respond - these are the benefits of regular somatic practice. Developing this response-ability is a process! It is one where love and patience are required. With regular practice, we develop a greater capacity for self-care and therefore community and place care. ​
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"The key to physical, psychological and spiritual well-being lies in our Soma, which can perhaps best be defined as the essence of bliss or Ananda
arising from the core of our being"
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-Frawley, D. 2013. Soma in Yoga and Ayurveda. Motilal Banarsidass: Delhi, India. p.13
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For me, somatics practice is a process of deepening my sense of trust in myself and the universe.
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