About
What does it mean to work? Does work need to be arduous or boring? Are things like meetings, spreadsheets, emails, rehearsals, and drafts necessarily hostile to reverence, intimacy, authenticity, pleasure, and play? As part of the Spring Semester of Fractal University, this course will explore these questions through three body-mind systems.
Body-mind systems come with implicit yet potent philosophies, capable of answering fundamental questions and supporting a vivid way of life. Yet their practice is often confined to isolated settings: the mat, the cushion, the dance studio’s hardwood floor.
This course is for people who wish to break these systems out of isolation, letting them not only teach us how to move, breath, and play; but also present a variety of possibilities for the broader question of how to be. We will apply their methods to one domain of modern life that might be the most resistant to enchantment: work.
The foundation for this course is a self-selected project. It could be a startup, an event series, a theater piece – anything that requires (ideally collaborative) work. During the 10 weeks we will practice three body-mind systems – tai chi, tango, and clowning.
🗓 10 classes, Jan 21st-March 24rd
🕰️ Sunday 3pm-6pm (with optional group dinners afterwards)
🗺 Fractal University: 248 McKibbin St 1G, Brooklyn
💰 Sliding scale: $110 (scholarship level) to $600 (standard hourly rate for movement classes) to $1200 (supporter)
👥 Class limited to 16 students
Class schedule
Here is the current schedule (there may be a couple of changes based on teacher availability). Each week starts with at least one hour of practice followed by a variable activity.
Jan 21 | Tai chi: inquiry + potential collaborator speed-date |
Jan 28 | Tai chi: inquiry + applications discussion |
Feb 4 | Tai chi: project applications |
Feb 11 | Tango: inquiry |
Feb 18 | Tango: inquiry + applications discussion |
Feb 25 | Tango: project applications |
Mar 3 | Clowning: inquiry |
Mar 10 | Clowning: inquiry + applications discussion |
Mar 17 | Clowning: project applications |
Mar 23 | Project showcase (invite friends and family) |
Example class agenda:
- 3pm-4:30pm – Tango practice
- 4:30pm-6pm – Discussion-based inquiry into the nature of tango + brainstorming how tango can be applied to our projects
Projects
The course will center around each participant’s self-selected project. We ask that you arrive on day one with a few project ideas, but also the openness to meet potential collaborators in the class. Here are some examples of what we mean by projects:
- Creating a play
- Building a small online business
- Hosting a salon series
- Applying to grad school
- Starting a magazine
- Coordinating friends to create a group house
- Organizing a neighborhood trash cleanup
- Running a fashion show to fundraise for a humanitarian cause
- Building a residency program for artists or entrepreneurs
- Finding the cure for cancer :)
The facilitators
Alicia Botero is a writer, urban planner, and dancer from Bogotá, Colombia. Tyler Alterman is a writer, entrepreneur, and occasional performance artist from NY. Both are dilettantes in many forms of moving, meditating, and mentating with an enthusiasm for synthesis and application.
Tuition
Tuition is a sliding scale of anywhere from $110-$1200:
- $110 is a scholarship-level tuition for those who can’t afford higher tuition. It covers our space rental and guest teachers.
- $600 represents the standard hourly rate for movement classes in NYC (~$20) and means that we, the organizers and teachers of the inquiry and application portions of the course, get paid.
- $1200 is supporter-level tuition; it supports the wider community university project, making it possible to expand class offerings, rent more classroom space, host residency programs, and more.