Daphne Lowell and Alton Wasson

Daphne and Alton, Co-Directors of Contemplative Dance, share an abiding curiosity about and awe for the wisdom of the body’s way, and a deep, well-tempered respect for each other. They began working together in 1983, exploring Authentic Movement and teaching workshops and college courses. In 1989, with their friend and colleague Mary Ramsay, they began teaching annual Contemplative Dance summer workshops at Hampshire College, and in 1994 they began offering the Year-Long Programs. They have taught at the National Common Boundary Conferences, Omega Institute, Naropa Institute and the National Sacred Dance Guild Festival. They organized the first Authentic Movement Facilitators’ Retreat in 1995 and in 2006 the first International Authentic Movement Gathering. They have published in A Moving Journal, the Authentic Movement edition of Contact Quarterly (Vol. 27/2), and Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved (Jessica Kingsley, 2007).

Daphne and Alton are influenced by the work of Mary Whitehouse and their studies of Authentic Movement with Janet Adler and of Active Imagination with Edith Sullwold. They bring to their collaboration training in dance, meditation, ministry, Body-Mind Centering, Psychosynthesis, Jungian and Gestalt therapies.