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UNIVERSITY OF CHOREOSOPHY (U.C.)
School of Humanist Art

The University of Choreosophy (UC) opened in 2017 as a new central pole of the Danza Duende community, thus joining the evolution of a project that has been bearing fruits for 13 years.

The Danza Duende community, or Danza Duende International Network, created in 2004 by Yumma Mudra, is the result of this artist's own artistic-humanist research through Dance. Since then, we have witnessed the growing throughout the last thirteen years of an intensive laboratory, an international collective, a sort of “artistic family”.

The Danza Duende Network can be somewhat considered as pioneer in what we call the Conscience of the Interdependence of all things, especially applied to the framework of art and creativity. This creativity is channeled through a communal discovery of the intrinsic human basic wisdom, which we aim to be for the benefit of each being in particular, but also of society in general.

A change in the name of what was formerly the Danza Duende International School, became necessary, since through time Danza Duende has mainly come to comprehend a community of dancers, artists or otherwise researchers in a path which is solitary, but leads and is interlinked with solidarity. (the Danza Duende International Network), while Choreosophy is a term that describes specifically the tools of our school, which embrace the wisdom (sophia) of the dance (chore).

the University of Choreosophy (U.C.) proposes a flexible dynamic between
3 Cycles, which take place in three consecutive years.

CHOREOSOPHY

Choreosophy is a neologism brought to us by renowned dancer Michel Raji, who has been offering his experience to the Danza Duende Network since 2013, as a result of his dancing path.

Born “in-dance”, as he calls it himself, M.  Raji has literally transformed his body through his own personal and alchemical research on the breath as a tool to an infinite discovery of the manifold dimensions of the human being through matter and movement, which he calls Sensorium.

M. Raji has been developing extraordinary keys and extremely efficient and varied tools for living ant teaching Choreosophy. His immense body of work is of great coherence, allowing the student to gradually decode the essence of the form and of the non-form in him/herself, as well as to find ways to manifest it in a powerful way.

M. Raji's acceptance to integrate Danza Duende Network as a master teacher has been infusing a new structural flair to our school. By Introducing powerful and efficient scientific techniques in the gesture/breathing dynamics, he unifies and vericalises more profoundly the breath of our community, thus bringing a whole new breath, at the core of our network, to our proposition of a global artistic teaching, with an unparalleled pedagogic precision.

Our invitation: to reunify human beings through dance physically, mindfully and deepening “the Art of riding our Breath” .


DANZA DUENDE TRAINING 

Since its creation in 2004, the intensive training in Danza Duende has been gathering the tools for "Dancing our Lives". Under this vision, every activity of our daily lives is seen as art itself, just as our lives are a dance. This "formless" dance can thus take just about any "form" and it is not limited to "dance" in a strict way.

Indeed, each student is guided to develop different activities according to his/her own profound nature and talents. Danza Duende school, an initiative of Yumma Mudra, has inspired an entire artistic network based on synergy.

Today, we have among us actors, dancers, puppeteers, tai chi practitioners, yoga practitioners, singers, musicians, computer scientists, fashion designers, cooks, consultants, managers, designers, filmmakers, psychotherapists, poets ... who work closely together and use the Danza Duende tools daily in their art.

Dance is a skillful way to promote an authentic synergy among people. Through the complicity that our groups have experienced, our artistic community - Danza Duende - has developed a certain expertise in the development of this synergy, facing together over the years the complex challenges of our times.


UNIVERSITY OF CHOREOSOPHY 

The University of Choreosophy offers 3 different Cycles of Expertise, each lasting two weeks:

•   The Cycle of the Dragon • It is open to students having participated in the "Dragon Retreat"
•   The Cycle of the Five •  It is open to students having participated in the "Retreat of the Five"
• The Cycle of the Mysteries (will take place for the first time in 2019) • It is open to students having participated in one of the following retreats: "The Intimate Breath of  the Sophia", "The Alchemists of the Breath", or the "Sensorium Retreat".

Students may attend 1, 2 or 3 cycles. They are independent, although interdependent. 
The first cycle covers the foundations of our artistic research; the one second is linked to a certain mastery of this research and the third one to an expertise in that same research. 

"The beginner's mind" is at the heart of the whole training.

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NB: if you wish to have more detailed information about the next Cycle, please contact: a.deketele(at)live.be