A 4-day Programme in the Gurdjieff Movements

2 - 5 April / Tue - Fri

6pm - 9pm all days

18+ years

Rs 2,500

About the Workshop:

We invite you to a 4-day programme on the Gurdjieff movements that seek to bring one’s attention to neglected and subtle facets of our lives at the most fundamental levels of existence.

Drawing from sacred dances in traditional religious systems such as the Cham dances of Tibetan Buddhism or the dervish dances of the Sufis, the Gurdjieff Movements can help to evoke an inner condition which is closer to a more conscious existence or a state of unity. Gurdjieff Movements can illuminate our organic life, help us work together and understand, how to understand. The dance represents harmonious patterns that occur and form the very fabric of nature and existence. Through shared participation, effort, and intention of a group, certain phenomena may be accessed that is not possible individually. 

The movements consist of abstract gestures and positions that have mathematical precision, with deep emphasis is on active inner self-study. The implications for life, education, health, relationships and community, of this cooperative way of working, become obvious in the experience of it. Music has a vital role to play as well. Each movement has a piece of music specially composed to facilitate the desired effect on the practitioner. We will use processes of movement, contemplation and conversation. The programme will give you time to draw breath and pause.

The programme is open to all.

Those with or without prior experience of the work are invited to attend.

‘Sensation' can be experienced at many different levels, depending on one’s degree of relaxation and attention. These levels include the automatic sensation of aches and pains; the deeper sensation of muscular tensions and contractions; the more subtle sensation of temperature and movement: the uniform “prickly” sensation of one’s skin; the living, breathing sensation of one’s internal organs, bones, tissues, and fluids; and the integrative sensation of the body’s energy circuits, connecting all the organs and functions of one’s being.

Those who continue the work of conscious relaxation through a deepening contact with their own bodies may eventually come to one more level of sensation: the profound, all-encompassing sensation of space and silence that lies at the heart of our somatic being.

For many who undertake the inner work of self-observation, however, observation of their bodies seldom goes beyond a mental “projection” of sensation. For others, it involves only the sensation of their skin or their most superficial tensions. This is understandable, since to go deeper into our organism means to open ourselves to the contradictions and confusions of our inner life, to the real forces, the “animals,” as Gurdjieff has said, that move us. These forces include not only our deepest aspirations and desires, but also the traumas, fears, anxieties, worries, and other emotions buried in the complex interrelationships of brain, nervous system, skeleton, muscles, and viscera that we call our body.

About the Facilitator:

Tabasheer Zutshi began her journey with this work, in 2001 when she met Akash Dharamraj in New Delhi, who had recently set up a school called ‘Akhaldans’. Here Tabasheer was introduced to Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way work and the Movements. It was an environment where addressing issues at the most fundamental levels of existence was made accessible and possible to study. Over the next decade her practice deepened. Parallel to her inquiry of the Fourth Way, she began learning Transactional Analysis as a means to compliment her practice from a psychological perspective. As her study intensified, she met, mathematician, physicist and philosopher Anthony Blake, who had encountered Gurdjieff’s work through his (Gurdjieff’s) direct student J.G. Bennett. It was this encounter that steered Tabasheer towards expanding her perspective. She understood that by taking in new influences, the spirit of the search is kept alive. She learned to create her own independent methods of imbibing and sharing the Work with the intention of universality, holism, empowerment and realizability.

Tabasheer now explores Gurdjieff’s teachings from the perspective of contemporary life, constantly enriching her facilitation with new research and collaborations that includes, the study and practice of Iyengar yoga, psychosomatic/dynamic techniques and dialogues that demand active listening and presence. She proposes that mutually beneficial coexistence with self, others and nature, are core ideas to study and understand. Only is coexistence can a human being claim to be a combination of self and body.

Born in Bombay in 1975, Tabasheer Zutshi graduated in Ancient Indian Culture from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay and later studied painting at The Delhi College of Art. Professionally she is a Production and Costume designer. Her work extends to theatre, site-specific installation and performance and sound art. Her artist collaborations as Costume Designer and Art Director have been part of art and theatre festivals.

She views environments as possessing a metaphysical quality that impacts the viewer’s perception of the narrative and characters. She experiments with the minutiae of everyday life and found objects to bring an emotional and sensorial response to her work. For the past few years she has spent most of her time gardening.