News

Poise 3 - 2020

SUNDAYS: February 16 - April 5 2020 ~ 10h00 to 13h00

VENUE: TAAC, Observatory, Cape Town


The global Body

...is the third in a series of movement workshops where the embodiment of our time is being explored. The many Bodies that we have – as we begin to understand our relationship with the 'non-human world' - each give us access to a better understanding of how we have already begun to adapt to a radically changing world.

This series of 8 sessions will continue to anchor the value of embodiment. Through Body-Mind movement in a group setting we will explore a specific theme each session of Poise 3. The practice-as-life-research is how to embody ourselves against the continuous awareness of climate, heat, drought, flood and the accompanying effects of these on our social spectrum. As what we call 'climate change' is no longer in our awareness as events outside of ourselves, but that we are it, our Bodies will make this adjustment themselves as largely unconscious processes. These unconscious processes give us a lead into how to be more conscious from now onwards. How might we adapt to what we now understand of our world and to which our Bodies have already made progress in their own ways?

Time: Each session will last 3 hours: 10h00 - 13h00.

This time will allow sufficient Body-Mind space for explorations and processes of self-knowledge in the era of environmental, social and psychological transformation. A different consciousness of our being in the world takes time. However, exploration of this territory will make consciousness easier. Poise 3 is a space in which we connect with this consciousness.

Full Fee: R2 640
  PAY NOW IN FULL  
Early bird - until 2 February 2020: R2300 paid in full
Drop in rate: R 330 per session
PAY NOW (1 Session)
Limited scholarships available
Referencing future events of Poise for your information:

Poise 4: May 3, 10, 24 and 31 (Four sessions)

Poise 5: July 5, 12, 19, 26, August 2, 16, 23, 30 (Eight sessions)

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Dans Mandela, Dans!

Dans Mandela, Dans!

18 March 2020

VENUE: TAAC, Observatory, Cape Town


Dans Mandela, Dans! is a dance performance to the recorded speeches, interviews and conversations of Nelson Mandela. It is being created to reaffirm the value of a specific past, belonging to all who participated in escaping a bloodbath – South African White and Black, and, Black and Black. The period is still deeply embedded in my Body. It is more than memory. It is an embodiment of that threat and, also of what we are capable of when we transcend our differences to transmit our immense humanity.

Along with my partner, Sandi Sijake, who shared 15 years of imprisonment with Mandela and whose life story I place alongside my own as our cultural history, I celebrate those who make large or minute shifts in their beings to do the work of the world.

Whiteness increasingly appears to be a way of being that is being judged by justice itself. The tensions between the past and all of our incalculable greatness, are being foregrounded. In this context I place my Body in Dans Mandela, Dans! as a source of wisdom and as a sacrifice.

The performance at Theatre Arts in March is an examination of whether the case of Whiteness ('a critique of sacrificed reason') is still in session, or whether it has been 'thrown out of court'. The 'verdict' is not yet in. And so, on this occasion I am calling in other artists to help me in this process.

At this site of all my post-dramatic enquiries, Theatre Arts, Cape Town, I put myself to the test of the possibility of a truly inclusive collective soul-in-healing. This I investigate at with sound artist, Jacques Van Zyl, and Mozambican musician and dancer, Sumalgy Nuro. By including these two artists, along with the lighting artist of Theatre Arts, Frans Mandilakhe, I do not imply that they are responsible, either as artists or as citizens of the world, for the way I deconstruct Whiteness. Each of these artists is self-authored — in whatever they do they operate from sense to reason, from reason to sense, with exceptional autonomy. Their participation in Dans Mandela, Dans! at this event does not make them artistically complicitous.

I wish to thank the Pan-African Creative Exchange, an initiative of the Vrystaat Arts Festival, a biannual arts market for African artists, for inviting Dans Mandela, Dans! to be performed in June 2020.

"...what does it mean to partake of human existence? Who is a human being and who is not, and by what authority is such a distinction made? If one is not a human being, what is one? And what is the relationship human beings should or can have with that on which it has not been possible to confer the attribute of humanity, or to which it has been denied? Finally, how do these matters relate to the birth of the subject, and the relation between freedom and bondage?" Achille Mbembe, On The Postcolony, p. 174.

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Poise 2

Sundays: October - November 2019 ~ 16h00 to 19h00

Venue: TAAC, Observatory, Cape Town

Embody aspects of the world and you embody new awareness in yourself.
Think planet and you think your body.

Move with emotional honesty and you respond to the biggest question.
Listen to your body moving and you become part of the changing season of our planet.

Poise 2 is a wise and transformative calibration with aspects of our largest context impacting our embodiment.
We access our materiality, our being-body, as an evolutionary act. We feel real ~ in a way we have not felt before.

 REGISTRATION REQUIRED

No drop in without notice to nobonke@mweb.co.za or 083 254 4669.

Tossie van Tonder: Poise 2 - 2019

Early Bird 15 September : R 2 200
Full fee: R 2 400 / Each Session: R 300
Scholarship available

PREPARATION:

Embody future.
Your own transition to stewardship of the
planet~as~body/body~as~planet
is an embodied experience of a New Materiality.
Ponder this.
Write your thoughts/experiences to me.
I want to be relevant to you personally on this journey.

Nobonke ~ 'we are all together now'
Tossie

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Poise

Tossie van Tonder

POISE is a five-week movement retreat with veteran dancer Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke

Sundays 12th of May – 9th June 2019 ~ 16h00 to 19h00

Observatory, Cape Town


Have these Frequently Asked Questions crossed your path?

How do I find a consistent belonging to myself sourced from my early childhood?

How do I wisely reflect versus being judgmental about my body?

How is body movement the natural home for my inclusive mental health?

How do I manage the political with the felt-sense in my body?

How can my daily practice integrate my deep humanity?


EARLY BIRD DISCOUNTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE NOW!     BOOK NOW 

POISE consists of five 3-hour movement sessions
exploring a different 'body' each week:

1) Primal 2) Sacred 3) Subtle 4) Humane 5) Integral

Your movement vocabulary, listening, social and spiritual being
is always integrated with your immediate consciousness.
Uncover your inherent bodily rhythms
restoring a movement vocabulary that is
integral to your sense of yourself in the world.

"Poised systems need no massive mover to move massively."  Stuart Kauffman

INFORMATION

Sunday May 12, 19, 26,
June 2 and 9 2019

Full fee: R 1 500
Early bird fee: R 1 250 before 18 April 2019

Scholarships available
Registration by email closes 30 April

nobonke@mweb.co.za or  BOOK HERE 


Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke is a dancer-psychologist, writer, mentor and specialist in the field of dynamic transformation.

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death's drum

Tossie van Tonder

Presented by Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke

Have you been touched by the idea of personal death?

What does the act of death ask of us living ones?

Living deeply today comes with death as a creative possibility.

death's drum

  • is where we explore the most profound transformation in, and of life
  • is where your creative experience groups with others
  • is aimed to integrate the subject of conscious ageing and personal death
  • is where specific themes, the body and the imagination enhances your individual becoming
  •  

This announcement is for interested groups to engage in death's drum during 2019. Click here for registration.

The aim of this facilitation – making invisible, inner human experiences visible, tangible and workable – is to assist participants to grow into this ultimate of transformative experiences. The approach respects the most profound moment in our lives, namely to leave life (as we know it) behind, and to integrate death as inevitability for personal evolution. This 27-hour process over a number of weeks will comprise
  • a structured introduction of a specific topic,
  • movement experience to embody the topic, and
  • artistic processes to add the imaginary to our learning for further contemplation.
The fee of R 3 000 for death's drum, includes 9, three-hour long sessions of creative processes, plus art materials. Discounted/sponsored places are available to those in need.

Your mere interest in becoming literate around death is enough. Absolutely no previous experience in movement or art-making is necessary.

You are welcome to contact me with further questions or to receive your registration form.

Do you now wish to form your own group of 8-10 people interested in this work?


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10th Drama for Life Conference 2018

Keynote speech by Tossie van Tonder

*Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 'Movement and Mirror Neurons: A Challenging and Choice Conversation, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.11:3. p.6.

'Anytime we care to pay attention to it, there it is'*:
Auto-ethnography as vital materialism. Self-interest as political guide.

Drama For Life 2018
This was in 1983. There has been a development since this photograph was taken.

To speak of your life and art in transformation - especially in South Africa and the larger African context - is filled with complexities. I say this with the hope that you all recognise and appreciate your artistic and life passions and to give form to an immanent and even divine force in yourselves. This, on the spectrum from being artists to healers, and beyond.

What a great honour to speak to you today - and on the 10th birthday of Drama For Life! With a feast of a program! What a Drama For Life! Thank you so much for the invitation. And it is great to share the stage with you Zimitri, Sibongile and Shelley.

I have a recurring dream that I dreamed again on the 15th of this month. I dream I dance for a small group of people under very informal circumstances. This time a few of my close friends stood in a loose circle around the dance area, almost like sentinels.

Now in this dream-dance I float in the air most of the time, coming down to the floor at my own aesthetic desire. I stay in the air in any position and don't find the witnesses at all surprised by this heavenly feature in my dance.

It is the only dream that I dream vividly, being aware that I dream... while fully being in the dream.

Then, in my dream, out of nowhere a group of youngsters were busy rehearsing the Cape Minstrel in their satin costumes and frills, marching with a brass instrument in somewhat of a loose choreographic jouissance.

And while I am dreaming I remember a real life story of a school in Mitchells Plain. This school showed remarkable success against the onslaught of gangs on the school grounds and surrounds.

The children participated in the art of drilling, creative drilling, marching, which they practiced during the break. I was astounded at the power and beauty of this new art form. A young girl was asked how it was to be a part of such a marching practice. These were her words: 'I talk to people differently now. And my mother is very happy.'

I will return to this dream-story later. READ MORE...

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 New Dance Lab

Workshop with Tossie van Tonder

New Dance Lab
Date:
Friday, September 7

Times:
17:30 to 20:00

Venue:
Theatre Arts Admin Collective
Wesley Street
Observatory
Cape Town

Bookings:
Fee:
R 100 / R 70

Hidden Rhythms to outlive the impossible state of emergency

Overstretched and chronic life conditions tax psychological resources. Your body has deep-rooted and perfectly intact rhythms of survival that does not only release strain but illuminate life processes.

You may want to recover access to these movements for Self-help and Other-help purposes. This is an introduction to a most liberating and powerful tool for lightness at all times.


Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.

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 Creative Movement for Robust Ageing

Presented by Tossie van Tonder

Dates:
July 30 until October 10, 2018
Weekly

Times:
TBA

Venue:
U3A Helderberg.

Bookings:
Twelve weeks of weekly, sovereign embodiments of body philosophy and wisdom for ageing praxis.

It is a fact that integrated body movement enhances robust ageing. Mindful movement activity heightens overall health and one feels more connected the world.

These classes will be offered weekly for 12 weeks, starting 30 July 2018 where a theme will be explored to enliven our being in the world better. You will learn that being alone is meaningful work when you age without borders.

No restriction in gender or age, as the spirit of movement brings honest and integrated feelings of aliveness. We practice to be present in the body.

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.

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 Creative Movement for Robust Ageing

Presented by Tossie van Tonder

Dates:
April 9 until June 25, 2018
Weekly

Times:
TBA

Venue:
U3A Helderberg.

Bookings:
Twelve weeks of weekly, sovereign embodiments of body philosophy and wisdom for ageing praxis.

It is a fact that integrated body movement enhances robust ageing. Mindful movement activity heightens overall health and one feels more connected the world.

These classes will be offered weekly for 12 weeks, starting 9 April 2018 where a theme will be explored to enliven our being in the world better. You will learn that being alone is meaningful work when you age without borders.

No restriction in gender or age, as the spirit of movement brings honest and integrated feelings of aliveness. We practice to be present in the body.

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.

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 Extreme Subjectivities

Extreme Subjectivities

Double Bill of Performance Works

Presented by Any Body Dance Lab.

I will perform a trio with the SA exponents of improvisational technique and revelation, Thalia Laric and Kristina Johnson. This is taking ensemble work into what Frantz Fanon might have meant by "complete liberation" when it is the task of each generation, social casting, politically fibrous complexity and body to engage with the following: "Not only can the human's being [l'être de l'homme] not be understood without madness, but it wouldn't be the human's being if it didn't carry within it madness as the limit of its freedom." Technical elements applied include extreme witnessing and aesthetic defined as awareness of being.

A duet in one percussion instrument and dance with Andrea Dicò. We performed together on platforms such as 021 Music-Dance and Edge of Wrong. Again the meeting point between two artists who only meet on stage (and not in rehearsal rooms) is an archaic one that invites the dark as much as the divine, the primal as much as the anatomical, the space as much as liberation into danger.

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.

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 Creative Movement for Robust Ageing

Presented by Tossie van Tonder

Dates:
Starts October 2nd 2017
In blocks of 6 weeks

Times:
TBA

Venue:
U3A Helderberg.

Bookings:
It is a fact that integrated body movement enhances robust ageing. Mindful movement activity heightens overall health and one feels more connected the world.

These classes will be offered in blocks of six weeks starting 2nd October 2017 where a theme will be explored each block to enliven our being in the world better. You will learn that being alone is meaningful work when you age without borders. No restriction in gender or age, as the spirit of movement brings honest and integrated feelings of aliveness. We practice to be present in the body.

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.
Her work Powers of Lightness, a bodymind response to South Africa, will be performed at TAAC (Theatre Arts Admin Collective) on 1, 2 and 3 July 2017.
THE HEALING MOVEMENT is presented in association with NEW DANCE LAB, a platform for movement research.

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 Powers of Lightness

A performance by Tossie van Tonder

Powers of Lightness
Dates:
Thursday September 21st
Friday September 22nd

Venue:
TAAC Observatory.
Opening of Cape Town Fringe Festival.

Bookings:
Powers of Lightness is a body-mind response to her embodiment of South Africa. The performance is a journey through dance that is subtle, inquisitive and brings to light where she finds herself as South African at this present moment. Steeped in the art of movement, wordless by choice, Van Tonder draws the cross of self-election, its inner subjectivities and righteous freedom.

Amidst the storm of national bewilderment, this work aims to reveal an intense and authentic power, that is light. Through her 62 year body and 317 years of African heritage culminating into her body-mind vocabulary, the work commands attention to the vicissitudes of an inner and outer 'enough!'

This is freedom of existence as translated through dance – brittle, inoffensive, authentic, subtle, direct and truthful. This may be a potential way as to how we could navigate our individual and collective identities as South Africans of various iterations. A possible answer to a civilised quest - how do we speak and move 'freely,' yet remain supremely aware of the impact of our actions? Would freedom obstruct awareness?...

"There is currently a dominating belief that only gross, sensory, empirical and colonial realities are real. Powers of Lightness answers with a body-mind language that places emphasis on subtlety, on inner sensation, empathic listening and a practice centred on inner observation as opposed to judgement, even engagement – a quality to benefit every South African. The excruciating closeness to the place of decolonisation is to allow as much light truth as mentally possible."

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.
Her work Powers of Lightness, a bodymind response to South Africa, has been previously performed at TAAC (Theatre Arts Admin Collective) on 1, 2 and 3 July 2017.

Some of the videos of Tossie's performances can be found here, in her archive.

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 Conscious Aging

VENUE:

To be announced: Somerset West

FEES:

Fee per workshop – R 2 400

Early Bird Discount: R 2 000

   June 30th (Workshop 1)
   July 28th (Workshop 2)

DATES & TIMES:

July - August Workshop:

   July 11, 18, 25 & August 1st
   18:00 — 21:00

August - September Workshop:

   August 8, 15, 29 & September 5th
   18:00 — 21:00
   (No session on August 22nd)

Dear Conscious and Robust Agers,

The spirit and matter of this workshop is vast and as in my case, I hope the journey never ends for you too. Conscious and Robust Ageing implies a transcending mindset and spirit to the core.

  • The beginning always asks for perspective. You recognise a deepening quest into your life as that of consciously ageing. How do you view your life span and what is really changing at this point?
  • Society that does not always consider ageing honourably. What are the necessary experiences and insights to this enquiry that will put you on a track (from which you do not turn back) and towards which you give form and content to your life?
  • Most people see ageing as a decreasing in meaning and participation in the world. What are the values that emerge when you have a conscious commitment to ageing as life enhancing and robust, powerful?
  • Generally ageing is seen as an increasing absence of body strength and mental powers. How has your perspective on your body, soul, mind and spirit begun to shift towards a far more independent and mindful presence and engagement with that which is becoming vital for a mature attitude towards the ageing process as a living process.
  • Your sense of social rank has begun to take on specific and subtle dimensions. How does conscious ageing shift the nature of relating, parenting, sexuality and spirituality with your renewed social position towards the younger generation?
  • You may have felt stirrings and pulses of creativity. How is the role of creativity shifting from expressing yourself, to the focus of your deep maturing and introspective life in service of the world at large?
  • The alchemy of being, the substance of what is shifting when one ages, requires insight, wisdom and compassion. How is this awakening vital in the stability of our personal and psychological hygiene?
  • Conscious ageing implies a robust practice of your primal spirituality. This is advisable as an early awareness and wake up call to our impermanence. But you may want the 'flesh', the 'matter' of spirituality as an easily articulated yet highly honoured facet of ageing that endows you with the sacred of this time of your life.

In order to keep the group(s) interactive, lively and with meaningful engagement I have decided to offer two workshops. These will follow each other on Tuesday evenings starting from July 11th until September 5th 2017. You may want to see which of the two suits you best in terms of time.

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 Conscious Aging

VENUE:

To be announced: Cape Town

FEES:

Fee for workshop – R 2 400

Early Bird Discount: R 2 000

   before July 17th

DATES & TIMES:

Sundays, August 6 & 13

To be a Conscious Ager and 45+ you are in the most mature place to start healing our country and ourselves. It is a bold statement requiring wisdom and compassion. It entails your intimate life, family, relationships, work and spiritual life.

Whether a new or an old Conscious Ager, we all have to take a step up. This workshop enlivens, understands and navigates the times we experience at the moment. You will walk away with a personal signature of yourself, embodied and intimate.

You will gain knowledge and experience various entrances
into your current and future life story.
It will make sense only because you have taken to Conscious Ageing
as a developmental stage. This is important.

Consciousness of this stage means to
wake up, show up, grow up and clean up
your act as crucial now.

Forward this to your friend.

For any further information contact me.

Tossie van Tonder

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 The Healing Movement

The Healing Movement
Your bodymind is part of a vast transcending movement
that absorbs, eliminates, nurtures, maintains and reproduces consciousness.
Learn from the body how the mind can purify itself.

Three progressing morning workshops, the first in a series of movement experiences.

  • You will experience healing with your own signature of movement.
  • You will discover the origin of your bodymind movement and heighten your sense of connected creativity.
  • Your range of movement will be that of infinity rather than shape or style.
  • A strong sense of your personal and collective maturity will remain in your deeper and silent movement vocabulary as healing capacity.
Dates:
Saturday June 17th
Saturday 24th
Sunday July 9th

Times:
10h00 — 13h00

Venue:
TAAC, ℅ Milton Rd and Wesley St, Observatory.

Fee:
Fee per workshop – R 150

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.
Her work Powers of Lightness, a bodymind response to South Africa, will be performed at TAAC (Theatre Arts Admin Collective) on 1, 2 and 3 July 2017.
THE HEALING MOVEMENT is presented in association with NEW DANCE LAB, a platform for movement research.

...the ultimate which can not itself be explained, but from which all that we experience can be made intelligible

The Healing Movement, Continued:

After a break in July we will continue into another series of 3 sessions:

Dates: Saturdays August 12, 19 & 26
Times: 9 am -12 noon at TAAC
Fee: R150 per session.

BOOK NOW

I am pleased to learn that these sessions have supported all of you in ways that brought clarity of purpose through the ease of de-clogging the body.

It brings me joy to see how easily participants wake into self-realisation by allowing consciousness of movement.

The work will take further steps into forms that assist our becoming, more on alchemy, more capacity to be in our beloved country, boldly.

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 Powers of Lightness

A performance by Tossie van Tonder

Powers of Lightness
Dates:
Saturday July 1st
Sunday July 2nd
Monday July 3rd

Times:
07:00pm — 08:00pm

Venue:
TAAC, ℅ Milton Rd and Wesley St, Observatory.

Bookings:
Fee:
R 100

Powers of Lightness is a body-mind response to her embodiment of South Africa. The performance is a journey through dance that is subtle, inquisitive and brings to light where she finds herself as South African at this present moment. Steeped in the art of movement, wordless by choice, Van Tonder draws the cross of self-election, its inner subjectivities and righteous freedom.

Amidst the storm of national bewilderment, this work aims to reveal an intense and authentic power, that is light. Through her 62 year body and 317 years of African heritage culminating into her body-mind vocabulary, the work commands attention to the vicissitudes of an inner and outer 'enough!'

This is freedom of existence as translated through dance – brittle, inoffensive, authentic, subtle, direct and truthful. This may be a potential way as to how we could navigate our individual and collective identities as South Africans of various iterations. A possible answer to a civilised quest - how do we speak and move 'freely,' yet remain supremely aware of the impact of our actions? Would freedom obstruct awareness?...

"There is currently a dominating belief that only gross, sensory, empirical and colonial realities are real. Powers of Lightness answers with a body-mind language that places emphasis on subtlety, on inner sensation, empathic listening and a practice centred on inner observation as opposed to judgement, even engagement – a quality to benefit every South African. The excruciating closeness to the place of decolonisation is to allow as much light truth as mentally possible."

Tossie van Tonder is a South African dance pioneer since 1980, clinical psychologist, writer and ethno-autobiographical performer.
Her work Powers of Lightness, a bodymind response to South Africa, will be performed at TAAC (Theatre Arts Admin Collective) on 1, 2 and 3 July 2017.
THE HEALING MOVEMENT is presented in association with NEW DANCE LAB, a platform for movement research.

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 ACT-YOUR-AGE: Deepening

Dates:
Friday 15th and Saturday 16th July 2016

Times:
09h30 — 16h00 with breaks for lunch and tea

Venue:
Somerset West: Exact address to be announced.

Fee:
Fee per single workshop – R 2 100
Early bird discount by 1st July – R 1 900
A few sponsorships are available.
There is a special discount of R3 500 available if you attend both workshops.

This is a second phase, follow up workshop to the previous workshop in June..
More dimensions of the remarkable gains from the June workshop will be explored and embodied.

"How do we make the ultimate - which can not be explained,
but from which all that we experience - intelligible?"

Diarise these dates now.

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 ACT-YOUR-AGE: An Extraordinary Journey of Enquiry Into the True Power of Ageing

Conducted by Tossie an Tonder aka Nobonke: psychologist|dancer|writer

Enlivening and Insightful Courses 2016
Are you a senior citizen, or over 50?
Then your quest to awaken to purpose might call
for a renewed and heightened sense of
what it means to be alive and of age.

Join us in a

  • two-day creative event that
  • will upturn all fixed images and perceptions of aging and
  • reinforce internal resilience
  • to redefine you purpose in the world as an elder.

During this workshop we will explore and embody an active restoration of dignity and meaning integral to your unique definition of your ageing process. It will entail creative and inspired movement, wise stories, group work, writing and contemplative processes and much more : an investigation and integration of the inner archetypal forces at work during the latter years.

ACT-YOUR-AGE

is
intellectually stimulating
emotionally engaging
physically energising
spiritually nourishing
profoundly transformative
Dates:
Friday 17th - Saturday 18th June 2016

Times:
09h30 — 16h00 with breaks for lunch and tea

Venue:
Somerset West: Exact address to be announced at email booking.

Fee:
Fee per single workshop – R 2 100
Early bird discount by 6th June – R 1 900
A few sponsorships are available.
There is a special discount of R3 500 available if you also attend the followup workshop: ACT-YOUR-AGE: Deepening.

The presenter Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke is a clinical psychologist, dancer and writer in her 62nd year. Her work as Human Experience Facilitator reaches communities, organisations and individuals locally and in African countries in transition. Her book My African Heart will be available.

What do people say about the workshop ACT-YOUR-AGE?

  • The Act-Your-Age workshop activated a real and vital but neglected elder in me.
  • We were led graciously into seeing through a different window and then embodying that vision, sharing it with each other and taking it out into the world.
  • The elders whom we are, became empowered and an honour to be with.
  • I want to acknowledge your mastery in shaping the whole workshop. I was moved. What a privilege.
  • I just want to thank you, Tossie, for your style, your approach, your gentleness, sharp thinking and depth of awareness. It has been a great gift for me. I hope to do more with you.
  • You are a true artist, a watcher, a listener, a feeler, a creative giver and a receiver. And it is these characteristics that make your work so profound.
  • Such fascinating new avenues of work.

NB: Note the second-phase follow-up workshop ACT-YOUR-AGE: Deepening
There is a special discount of R3 500 available if you attend both workshops.

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 ACT-YOUR-AGE: The Force of Character in the Latter Years

Enlivening and Insightful Courses 2016
Good day,

Let me introduce myself.

I am a clinical psychologist, movement therapist, writer and dancer in my 61st year. Over the past years I was deeply moved by the process of my conscious ageing. Many perspectives on relationships, the world, how to embody myself and my thinking have transformed. Engaging with my latter years (a Jungian concept) has come to me as gifts of ageing.

The specific vitality of these changes were enhanced when I began to teach these awakenings to my peers – people 50 years and older. Now I belong to a community of wise and compassionate elders, people who restored their dignity and honour in a complex world where elderhood is not necessarily revered. They gained this through an extraordinary enquiry into the value of their roles in their family, community, peers, organisations and also towards themselves.

When I ask myself what you now need to make this world work, I have two answers:

  • An embodied experience of wisdom and care guided by a strong sense of purpose and meaning;
  • An awakening to the inevitable challenges that global warming or climate change now brings and how this requires a high resilience in the world.

I will offer these to your community in the form of a workshop, running over two days.

ACT-YOUR-AGE
The force of character in the latter years.
April 22-23
Times:
09h30 — 16h00 with breaks for lunch and tea

Venue: Kilberry Terrace, Somerset West

Fees:
You may select to come to one only, or to both the workshops.
Fee – R 2 500
Early bird discount by 7th April – R 2 300
A few sponsorships are available.

Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke is a South African dance pioneer, psychologist and writer. The body, psyche, ecology and philosophy are her stamping ground as an independent artist operating in a complex world. In this, her 61st year, Nobonke is a dance-theatre performer and human experience facilitator of programs in African countries in political transition. Whether to feel terrified or liberated has become her major traversing question, as Climate Facilitator, addressing our psychological stability under circumstances of vast ecological change. Her work as Conscious Ager has been a major force of community transformation in diverse settings.

Testimonials:

Thank you for a creative and profound weekend.
The Act-Your-Age workshop activated a real and vital but neglected archetype. We were led graciously into seeing through a different window and then embodying that vision, sharing it with each other and taking it out into the world. The elders whom we are, became an empowerment and a privilege.
The experience you crafted for us all was huge! I want to thank you. I want to acknowledge your mastery in shaping the whole workshop. I was moved. What a privilege.

What else do people say?

  • We need more real voices, speaking from a place of embodied and experiential wisdom to act as a bridge and facilitate our journey from where we currently are to where we need to be environmentally. This is the big work. Thank you.
  • Enlightening.
  • A stunning insight into perspectives and understanding concepts which are difficult to express verbally but easier to explore non-verbally.
  • I just want to thank you, Tossie, for your style, your approach, your gentleness, sharp thinking and depth of awareness. It has been a great gift for me. I hope to do more with you.
  • You are a true artist, a watcher, a listener, a feeler, a creative giver and a receiver. And it is these characteristics that make your work so profound.
  • Such fascinating new avenues of work.
  • Untangling philosophical, material and spiritual issues was brilliantly done, Tossie.
  • I had a sense I was in expert, intensely compassionate and deeply intelligent hands. Tossie really listens right down and uses all contributions, however humble, wordy or obtuse. Nothing is wasted in her facilitation.
  • It is an extremely vast subject and I commend Tossie on what she was able to do in a short time.
  • I have a sense of myself being ‘bigger’, ‘deeper’, more connected to all parts of myself, as well as to my world and life.
  • A very valuable way of slowing down and learning how to think differently about vital issues.
Early registration will ensure your place in the larger scheme of things.
nobonke@mweb.co.za
Telephone: 021 858 1590 or 083 2544 669

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 Climate Resilience - Beyond Survival

   By Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke

Climate Change Resilience April 2016
Climate Change or Global Warming demands that we learn in new ways. A different language is needed to help us accommodate vast changes that will affect us intimately, socially, organizationally, nationally and globally. Our default is to flee or freeze, but Climate also shows us that we are much more resilient than we think. We are challenged to look keenly at our own evolution at this time of planetary changes.

This workshop addresses a selected facet of the vast effects of Climate on humanity, namely our psychological stability, its philosophical bedrock (aligned with ecological thought) and the manner in which these concepts could be accessible to us in simple and practical ways. Climate Resilience calls for a life-line awakening in the process of sorting ourselves out.

This facilitation is now available over 2 days. This will allow concepts that are vital for our understanding and adaptation to be fully integrated as hands-on tools for everyday living.

Due to the nature of the workshop a limited number of participants will be accommodated.

Dates & Times:

Wednesday 6 April: 09:00 — 16h00
Thursday    7 April: 09:00 — 16h00

Venue: Cape Town

Fee:          R 1 550 (Inclusive of teas only)

Sign up for this 'huge challenge to reason' and 'easy access to proficiency of evolution.'


What People Say:

  • We need more real voices, speaking from a place of embodied and experiential wisdom to act as a bridge and facilitate our journey from where we currently are to where we need to be environmentally. This is the big work. Thank you.

  • Enlightening

  • A stunning insight into perspectives and understanding concepts which are difficult to express verbally but easier to explore non-verbally.

  • I just want to thank you, Tossie, for your style, your approach, your gentleness, sharp thinking and depth of awareness. It has been a great gift for me. I hope to do more with you.

  • You are a true artist, a watcher, a listener, a feeler, a creative giver and a receiver. And it is these characteristics which make your work so profound.

  • Such fascinating new avenues of work.

  • Untangling philosophically, materially, spiritually these essential issues was brilliantly done, Tossie.

  • I had a sense I was in expert, intensely compassionate and deeply intelligent hands. Tossie really listens right down and uses all contributions, however humble, wordy or obtuse. Nothing is wasted in her facilitation.

  • The bodywork is brilliant and unlocks feelings and ideas. I apply this to my work and personal life.

  • It is an extremely vast subject and I commend Tossie on what she was able to do in a short time.

  • I have a sense of myself being ‘bigger’, ‘deeper’, more connected to all parts of myself, as well as to my world and life.

  • A very valuable way of slowing down and learning how to think differently about vital issues.

Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke is a South African dance pioneer, critical clinical psychologist and writer. The body, psyche, ecology and philosophy are her stamping ground as an independent artist and human experience facilitator operating in a complex world. In 2013 she performed What does the earth think it is?, a delusional depiction of the human being as 'centred' over Nature, a dance performance of mindful rigour in the flickering light of film footage from unformed masses, through the epochs of agriculture, industry and destruction. The work was reconstructed in 2014 to explore micro-life, bacteria, global warming and the post-human existence of the end. Whether to feel terrified or liberated has become her major traversing question, one that she takes into her work as Climate Facilitator, addressing a new materiality to revive the humanities. As facilitator she works in communities, organisations and African countries in transition.

For more information, see Facilitation.

Early registration will ensure your place in the larger scheme of things:

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 African Resilience

The emboldened spirit is what I gain from working in an African country under siege inspired by the hope of freedom.

See Facilitation | African Resilience.

 ACT-YOUR-AGE: Conscious Aging is Ground-Breaking

ACT-YOUR-AGE is a 2-day workshop in creative and conscious aging.

Act Your Age 2016

Conscious Aging – a profound contract with yourself
to value and stabilise your contribution to life in the world.

You are a candidate for this 2 day workshop when:

  • You are in your 45th year and older.
  • You wish to make a difference in the world.
  • You are curious about aging vitally.
  • You search for depth of experience to embrace this most transformative developmental stage of your life.
  • You wish to honour yourself as a future elder.
  • Your compassion and wisdom are looking for outlets that add meaning to your life.

This is a two-day workshop offered by psychologist-dancer-writer Tossie van Tonder aka Nobonke. You will clarify and experience your deepest values in Conscious Ageing. The years left are not just the final chapter, but rather what you have been preparing for all this time: fulfilment, meaning, passion and effective engagement.

This workshop is also available to your group or organisation.
Share this with those who call upon this work now.

Comments:

I learned a great deal, and it's still coming. I would love to work with you again.

Thank you for sharing an extraordinary weekend.

I hold your work in high regard and felt privileged to have had the opportunity to be part of the group of last week.

I have been looking forward to learn from you for a long time.

This sort of expressive exploring and healing work is new to me, and I was nervous though game. Why did I feel so safe and free? Mostly your particular presence, and also the (lucky?) trusting alchemy of the group. You are calm. And you are direct: in your speech and in your gaze. This combination of authority and vulnerability is powerfully facilitative.

It is not the years that weigh us down, the weight is the confusion of an incomplete transition from the pull of youth into the wisdom and serenity of elderhood...

Tossie with her impeccability, perspective, creativity and guidance ensures that the transitions with all the accompanying joys are accomplished...

For more information on this work and the context of van Tonder's work, contact her on www.theimageofyourperfection.co.za/contact/

Declaration 1

Declaration 1:

Conscious Aging is the plateau for the ultimate peak of my practice, one that is vital in the choices that would support my wisdom and compassion.

Image: Shoichi Ono

Declaration 2

Declaration 2:

The Body is the Idea of the Mind. En-mind the Body. Embody the Mind. One-in-All.

Image: Nobonke

Declaration 3

Declaration 3:

South Africa is a remarkable country with extra-ordinary people, each of whom strives for excellence in a distinctive way.

Image: Nobonke

Dance Umbrella 2015

Read More about the ideas behind this production and its collaborators.

Click here or on an image below! to download the program for Dance Umbrella 2015, also featuring Tossie (Nobonke) van Tonder and many other artists. (PDF, 665 kB)

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SAfm Radio Interview with Tossie van Tonder

Listen to Tossie van Tonder on Sunday Book Show
on SAfm, in conversation with Nancy Richards.

Tossie discussed her new book, "My African Heart".
Date & Time:
Sunday, February 1st @ 14:00

Program:
Sunday Book Show presented by Nancy Richards


No radio? Listen Live Online Here
Listeners can order their soft cover copies of My African Heart directly from Tossie van Tonder
for R230.00 (postage included).

Place your order using our contact form.

"My African Heart" is also available from these online book sellers, as a paperback or kindle ebook:

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 ACT-YOUR-AGE: The Force of Character in the Later Years

Act Your Age 2015
Photo: Shoichi Ono

Dates & Times:
Friday 9th: 17h00 — 20h00
Saturday 10th: 9h30 — 17h00
Sunday 11th: 9h30 — 17h00

Venue: Erin Hall, Rondebosch

Put your foot forward.

Are you over 45 years old?
ACT-YOUR-AGE is a fabulous workshop
where you will embody the
Force of Character in the Later Years.
  • Showing up for your aging process is a revolutionary idea.
  • The image of your perfection is embedded in your unique sense and definition of the archetype of elderhood - body, soul and spirit.
  • Becoming your age unconditionally and uncompromisingly marks your best work in the world.

AND MORE, SEE Elderhood: Act Your Age

"During this weekend's workshops you led me to affirm my image of myself as an elder and you deepened immensely my understanding of my role as senex. You also facilitated the re-emergence of the dancer within me, for which I am hugely grateful." VB

Tossie (Nobonke) van Tonder
Photo: Roger Metcalfe

Dancer-psychologist, writer, mentor, specialist in the field of dynamic transformation giving opportunities to unleash what is invisible and intelligible in the human being, group and organisation.

FREE access to my daily practice of

  • loosening your joints
  • deepening your breath, and
  • strengthening your eyes
  • is available to all participants on early mornings of this workshop.

The body and more...

ACT-YOUR-AGE is a creative engagement with a developmental phase moving you from information to robust intelligence, an experience in transformation that is not regularly in our culture.

Act now. ACT-YOUR-AGE, see Elderhood: Act Your Age

... the ultimate which can not itself be explained, but from which all that we experience can be made intelligible

Act Your Age

It is not the years that weigh us down, the weight is the confusion of an incomplete transition from the pull of youth into the wisdom and serenity of elder hood...

Tossie with her impeccability, perspective, creativity and guidance ensures that the transitions with all the accompanying joys are accomplished...
PE

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