“Taking the dance with you into the world with NVC” Rex Blazer
We offer gratitude and thank you for participating in a life-changing event
True Colors Compassionate Communication Contra Dance Retreat
shared in community with Summer Contradancers Delight Holiday 2019
at Appalachian Folk School in Mt. City, TN
Summer CDH 2019 partnered year with True Color Cooking to provide a unique opportunity. The True Colors Compassionate Communication Contra Dance Retreat will be offered in tandem to the full SCDH program. This opportunity was limited to 50 participants. Eleven generous souls joined us for a unique experiential learning opportunity to explore how compassionate communication can increase comfort, connection, and fun on the dance floor and in your daily life. Your presence, enthusiasm, passion for dance, shaped this experience and create a community. Our host for the NVC training, True Color Cooking will be crafted hearty, healthy meals for NVC workshop participants only. Registration was managed by Terry Doyle Summer CDH website. I hold boundless gratitude for Terry, for this gift! Boundless gratitude for Warren and Terry for the gift of this partnership!
Dave Pokorney was our photographer and videographer for the event. We invite you to take a few minutes and sample the weekend as experienced by the participants in this video and photograph.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zwr1cE1uc2BkQVjSA
True Colors Compassionate Communications Contra Dance Retreat:
Designed by dancers, callers, musician, organizers, sound engineers – our community – to experience “Nonviolent Communication” basics betwixt and between a weekend filled with dancing and dining. With authenticity and mutual respect, we will learn about the ways we communicate (both verbally and non-verbally) and consider strategies to live with more compassion, grace, and connection. Subsequently, we will benefit as individuals and positively affect those in our circles of contact beyond the weekend.
What Is “Nonviolent Communication” (NVC) aka Compassionate Communication*?
A communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s, NVC is a technique for clear, empathic, nonjudgmental communications proceeding through four areas of focus: observation, feelings, needs, and request. While NVC is taught as a process of communication to improve compassionate connections to others, it has also been interpreted as a spiritual practice, a set of values, a parenting technique, an education method and a worldview. “… an easy to grasp, effective method to get at the roots of violence and pain peacefully. By examining the unmet needs behind what we do and say, NVC helps reduce hostility, heal pain, and strengthen professional and personal relationships. ” – Marshall Rosenberg
Why is Nonviolent Communication Relevant to Contra Dancing?
Compassionate Communication/Nonviolent Communication provides a set of skills to request and receive something we need while dancing and ways to consider meeting the expressed needs of others. It keeps the dance community‘s “play space” safe and satisfying. The practice allows us to increase our capacity for compassion and then share this through whole-hearted dancing. Rather than exact moves making the difference in a dance, the value lies in the spaces between them.
Who Creates This Experience? You, yes You!
Your presence and passion for dancing in the community along with
a willingness to learn and share are key. In 2019 we share community with Warren and Terry Doyle’s magical Summer Contradancers Delight Holiday experience. Quite the unique experience is being designed with our community at the center.
From the Weekend Organizers:
Both on the dance floor and beyond, I am seeking relationships that align with my values and express my contentment. I imagine that you may be seeking the same. In 2008, while dancing to Lift Ticket’s https://www.facebook.com/Lift-Ticket-175278022512202/music at Contra Dancers Delight Holiday, I noticed that my partner in that dance seemed clearly content and that his intention to be present, to connect one-to-one was genuine and not sexual. Later, waltzing with this same dancer I felt in conversation with him, not just following “his lead.” I had danced with him before, enough times to know that something was different, not just about him but within him. Whatever it was, I wanted some (“Harry Met Sally” moment). During a break, he described his practice of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Over time influencing not just his conversation, but dance style as well. “Here are the words that describe my change: curious vs. knowing; inviting vs. demanding; experiencing vs. expecting.” I was hooked.
What is this NVC? A tool, a method of engaging to listen to what is truly alive within ourselves and others. The founder, Marshall Rosenberg Ph.D., was a clinical psychologist who observed humans habitually defend, withdraw or attack in the face of judgment. Yet we are connection-seeking creatures, and when our need for safety is met, we are capable of empathetic, non-judgmental, compassionate connections. Rosenberg grasped what is now well-documented in neuropsychological literature: our brains are wired for deep connection and for building community.
Fall of 2016 came and with it an awareness that an event blending contra dancing, nonviolent communication workshops, and great food were growing in my mental garden. Apparently, it had been growing while I reckoned with physical and sexual violence in the contra community, with the “Black Lives Matter” and “MeToo” movement, political climates around the world and the oral histories of my clients. All of these provided fertile ground for an idea, and the first True Colors Compassionate Communications Contra Dance Retreat was born.
With gratitude,
Harriette
Weekend Contact: Harriette Bugel truecolorcooking@gmail.com or 828-712-8278 cell/text
“This event was supported in part by the Gadd/Merrill Fund of the Country Dance and Song Society.”
*Per copy write request of Centers for Nonviolent Communication neither “Nonviolent Communication” nor “NVC can be used in the title of an event or presentation. The use of “Compassionate Communication” is a common alternative to address this request and gets at the heart of Rosenbergs’ intention to have whole-hearted connections, being a compassionate one to another. For some, the concept of taking a course in nonviolent communication implies to them that they are a violent communicator. The language of and invitation to explore more compassionate means to communicate is more appealing.
ServSafe Certified # 15255191 Expires 6/12/22; Member American Culinary Federation #192779 Chapter NC02; CNA Small Business Service Center – Liability Insurance policy #3012157985. True Color Cooking is a division of True Color Services, LLC