BROADMOVEMENT

Hey, I'm Katie Broad!

Growing up in Alabama, I was always a mover, making up routines to my mom's Simon and Garfunkel records (or her Jackson Five 8-TRACK!) when I was 5, then starting Ballet and Jazz classes when I was 13, I was drawn to how our bodies move on this beautiful earth, and how it can affect and develop our inner needs and emotions.

In this blog I hope to bring an awareness of what breath and movement can do for you and your family or your classroom using guided movement ideas through word and video, as well as sharing both my positive and negative experiences with movement, professional dance, and body image. It will also serve as a guide for parents involved in my classes.

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At the age of 17 I moved to New York, to study the craft of Acting at Circle in the Square Theater School. There I had a teacher who would challange me to go "outward-in" which is fairly against the mainstream idea that emotions come from inside and move outward through expression. This teacher challenged us to simply put our body in a "sad" postition, to breathe and let it grow until you felt genuine sadness.

It worked. Our bodies have very intense muscle memory that attaches itself to any and every emotion we feel. If we can harness our muscle memory of JOY, we are totally unstoppable.

Children have a unique understanding of the connection between movement  and joy, an understanding that isn't taught but must be cultivated so it can continute to grow and become apart of their adult selves.

Creative movement is not in any way only for the Dancer or student. Our bodies are longing to rejoice, to move, to explore, or to mourn and ache if that is what we need. All we must do is open up and listen.

-Katie