Why a Teachers Training?

Anja Grundner: When did you realize that you wanted to start your own dance education? Was it a single formative moment or a process of growth?

Sabine Parzer: I had thought about creating my own training program for probably 10 years before I started my own…being influenced by different teachers and trainers over the years I realized that I enjoy it most, when people really create their own mix of methods/ forms, that that feels the most authentic to me…many conversations with colleagues also helped to understand what it takes to write and hold a concept over a longer period of time.

What motivated you to form and offer the Holistic Dance Teacher Training?

I began teaching what later became „Holistic Dance“ in 2005 in open workshops, a compilation of methods and forms that have inspired and influenced me strongly. At one point I was asked by my participants to offer a teachers training, which had its first run in 2010 in Zagreb. This is when I also founded my Holistic Dance Institute in order to give the teachings a home. Having taught at the rehabilitation center in Austria at that point for 10 years I wanted to offer an easy access training to people from all different kinds of backgrounds, because I saw how healing movement, dance, expression, working with body awareness, simple choreographies and relating through movement was for people. Coming from the stage as a professional dancer and choreographer I was so touched by the impact I had by working with the same principles I had been trained in and applying them to a variety of people from different social, economic, professional backgrounds with different injuries, illnesses, restrictions and life circumstances. I felt like offering a training that could be useful not only in the art context but in many different professional settings and help people access their BodyMind.

How does it differ from many other dance courses?

I think that the improvisational forms, we work with invite an open mindset about being in the present moment, working with „what is“, and accepting that we all fail and succeed at the same time. The Holistic Dance Teachers Training provides an approach to working with underlying principles rather than a method. We practice movement and relating principles such as listening, using I-language, witnessing, relating to gravity, reaching, sharing weight, touch qualities, communicating boundaries and many more in order to find the common ground and individual expression in each person and group. Also people come from a variety of professional backgrounds such as art, social work, bodywork, coaching, therapy and medicine, with an age range from early twenties to late sixties. This makes for an inclusive and interactive environment across different life circumstances and experiences.

What should the training perhaps change in the lives of the participants or what should the training make tangible and perceptible?

I have seen beautiful individuation processes in the course of the Teachers Training and the Advanced Teachers Training. Of course, for most people the professional application is in the foreground (although participants don't have to know wether they want to teach and can do the training for self experience only), but the overall arc of development is that of self assurance, a sense of authenticity, daring to stand up for their boundaries and gifts in the world, a stronger sense of embodiment and its importance in all areas of life.

What does the training do to you, even after several years of teaching?

The gift of doing this work is that it always unfolds more depth. I keep on learning and diving deeper into the never ending possibilities of creative explorations, different somatic forms, new findings in science and therapy such as polyvagal theory and research on touch and its healing effects. And of course all the of the individual participants are each a gift to me, no one is the same, no process is the same and I keep on being in awe of peoples ability to grow and unfold their abilities. Really a big gift!

(c) Cristi Serban