http://www.livingartscollective.com/

Living Arts Collective, 410 W Geer Street, Durham, NC (2026)

05/29/2026

Watercolor workshop this Sunday! 🎨

You're invited to a mindful watercolor workshop this Sunday, May 31 with respected art teacher Amelia Shull ( ).

Amelia is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who teaches with the same care she brings to her making: she believes that showing up for yourself as a creative human is a real gift, and her workshops feel like it.

Join for two hours of experimental painting, texture-building, and creative play that doesn't ask anything of you except showing up.

You'll move through a warmup painting, explore techniques, and make work that's as meditative to create as it is to look at. No pressure, no experience required.

Supplies provided. Preregistration required — link in bio.

We hope to see you there!

Sunday, May 31 · 3:30–5:30pm · $40
📍 410 W Geer St (downstairs, under Durham Salt Cave)

05/20/2026

Relax and engage in the magic of mindful watercolor painting! 🎨

You're invited to a mindful watercolor workshop on Sunday, May 31 — two hours of experimental painting, texture-building, and creative play that doesn't ask anything of you except showing up.

You'll move through a warmup painting, explore techniques, and make work that's as meditative to create as it is to look at. No pressure, no experience required.

Amelia Shull is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who teaches with the same care she brings to her making: she believes that showing up for yourself as a creative human is a real gift, and her workshops feel like it.

Supplies provided. Preregistration required — link in bio.

Sunday, May 31 · 3:30–5:30pm · $40
📍 410 W Geer St (downstairs, under Durham Salt Cave)

05/17/2026

This afternoon, we're gathering for our Third Sunday Rhythm and Roots offering: you're invited to learn in community from our honored teachers. This vibrant gathering honors diasporic and folkloric traditions with live drumming, dancing, and connection.

Come for just the Shekere Workshop (bring your own or borrow one on site), Afro-Cuban Dance Class, or both.

No experience needed. All ages and abilities welcome.

3:30–4:30pm — Shekere with Atiba Rorie ()
4:45–6:15pm — Afro-Cuban Dance: Yoruba Dance and Afro-Cuban Rumba with Vladimir Espinosa + Vilmedis Cobas Silot ( and )

$20 per workshop · $30 for both · all proceeds go directly to the artists

📍 410 West Geer St., Durham

Link in bio to pre-register.

05/17/2026

This morning - DJ Lomain (Lauren Bartek) dj_lomain is sharing a LIVE set with our Living Arts Dancewave!

Sunday Dancewave Schedule:

11:11 am - Practice Space + Arrival
11:45 am - Opening Dancewave Guidelines (Please attend if it’s your first time!)
12:00 pm - Living Arts Dancewave
1:30 pm - Optional Closing Circle

Our Sunday sets are 90-minute guided movement journeys led by a rotating crew of setlist curators who weave thoughtfully crafted playlists (and occasional live mixes). Each set is constructed according to Gabrielle Roth’s Five Rhythms, following the energetic arc of a wave: beginning gently, rising into expressive peaks, and settling back into quiet stillness.

There is no choreography or expectation; participants are invited into improvised, intuitive movement, allowing the body to lead.

Registration: $20 is the baseline, suggested price which helps us cover our space and facilitator costs. You are welcome to contribute more, or use discount code options at checkout. Click the link in our bio to register in advance!

05/15/2026

The Living Arts Tea Tent was alive all weekend at the Shakori Grassroots Festival of Music & Dance 🌿

A place of rest, warmth, tea, conversation, music, art making, games, and simple connection. People of all ages gathered to pause, breathe, share stories, and nourish one another.

The tent stayed full through the festival — held by many hands, generous hearts, and the quiet beauty of community care. Tea was freely offered, kindness moved in many directions, and together we created a small sanctuary within the celebration.

Deep gratitude to everyone who helped tend the space, and to photographer 📸Landon Adams for helping capture the spirit of the weekend ✨

05/14/2026

Third Sunday is back. This month, we're focused on Yoruba and Afro-Cuban Rumba, combined into one class!

Every Third Sunday, Atiba Rorie opens the afternoon on Shekere, and Vladimir Espinosa and Vilmedis Cobas Silot lead the dance, with live drumming by community musicians.

It's participatory, it's rooted, and you don't need any prior experience to show up (but you're welcome if you do). Bring your own shekere, or borrow one on site.

3:30–4:30pm — Shekere with Atiba Rorie
4:45–6:15pm — Afro-Cuban Dance: Yoruba Dance and Afro-Cuban Rumba with Vladimir Espinosa + Vilmedis Cobas Silot

$20 per workshop · $30 for both · all proceeds go directly to the artists

No experience needed. All ages and abilities welcome.

📍 410 West Geer St., Durham

Link in bio to pre-register.

05/11/2026

CI + SOMATICS SERIES START THIS WEEK

Tomorrow marks the start of our May/June Contact Improvisation + Somatics Season with jams and classes to strengthen your practice in awareness, movement, perception, and self-trust.

One participant shared their experience in a recent class also helped them learn to "simplify, move from the core, and also breathe... open your eyes, make a choice, and feel the choice."

—-

THIS SEASON’S OFFERINGS

On Monday nights, we will have Open Movement Jams, hosted by Aubrey Roze, Brü Roze and Anna Whitaker. These will be unguided, except for the first week in June (6/1, warm-up led by Stephen Paul). We appreciate when you register in advance, but you are also welcome to sign up at the door. 7-9pm, Murphy School.

On Tuesday nights, emily liptow and Anna Maynard will teach CI Lab: integrating our improvisation skills. This 7-week open-level series will explore themes like modulating tone in our dances, offering and receiving bids for weight sharing, engaging with spiral movement patterns, and navigating emotional safety, boundaries, and consent. Alongside these fundamental teachings, this series will be shaped around the questions and desires of the students in the room.

On Wednesday nights, Toni Craige will teach Practicing Together: self, relationship, and collective co-creation. This 7-week series explores moving, witnessing, and touch as practices for expanding our sense of self and deepening our participation in collective life. Over the course of the series, we will gradually arc toward a group improvisation practice that integrates personal authenticity, relational responsiveness, and shared emergence.

Toni’s class is now FULL – email [email protected] to be added to the waitlist!

More information on this season’s offerings and registration is here~ https://www.livingartscollective.com/contact-improvisation/

photo credit

05/06/2026

We'll be groovin' and sippin' herbal tea at Grassroots this weekend 🌱

Living Arts Collective is proud to sponsor all dance programming and the Living Arts Tea Tent at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance (May 7–10).

This weekend you're invited into Flamenco and Cuban Rumba with Zuheil Alvarez Cortes and Vladimir Espinosa (), Double Dutch and Rhythm with Shirley and Joyce Thoms, and Bailamos with Oscar G. Cervantes.

Saturday brings Kids Dance and Play and the Living Arts Dancewave with live music by Høly River (), facilitated by Aubrey Roze and Brü Roze, and our friends the Sun Pups () play Saturday evening.

On Sunday morning, Toni Craige leads a Contact Improvisation jam, and Sunday afternoon Vladimir Espinosa and team are back for Salsa, right before Orquesta GarDel () takes the stage.

Every workshop is open to all ages and abilities. No experience needed, just bring yourself.

Throughout the festival, find us at the Living Arts Tea Tent at the top of the Rock Garden in the Peace Park: a place to rest, receive, and breathe between dances.

Full schedule at shakorihillsgrassroots.org. We'd love to see you there.

photos by Travis Bordley, Mike Shepherd, and Elizabeth Larson

05/04/2026

CI SERIES STARTS NEXT WEEK, jam tonight!

CI Lab: integrating our improvisation skills is a seven-week series for practicing the fundamentals of Contact Improvisation in a collaborative, workshopping container.

Guided by Anna Maynard and emily liptow, this series offers space and time to study, play, and integrate alongside your fellow dancers. It can support a deepening of personal practice, development of skills, and enrichment of the jam experience.

We'll explore themes like modulating tone in your dances, offering and receiving bids for weight sharing, entering and leaving dances, and spiral movement patterns, and will shape the content around the questions and desires of the people in the room. This is an open-level series, for those who've taken an intro CI workshop or have more experience.

Tuesdays, May 12 – June 23 // 7:00–9:00 PM

TONIGHT, May 4th: jam with us at the Old Murphy School

Irina Kruchinina will lead a 30-minute class on poetic transposition through movement, exploring how we can incorporate a logic of poetry by creating symbolic lines of thought individually and in movement dialogue.

We'll be on site at 7pm, opening circle at 7:10pm. For those with CI experience.

More details and registration on our website page at livingartscollective.com/contact-improvisation/

05/03/2026

Welcome to May ~

Here's our set weaver schedule for this month's Sunday Living Arts Dancewaves 🍃

Sunday Dancewave Schedule:

11:11 am - Practice Space + Arrival
11:45 am - Opening Dancewave Guidelines (Please attend if it’s your first time!)
12:00 pm - Living Arts Dancewave
1:30 pm - Optional Closing Circle

On the first Sunday of the month (5/3):

10:10 - 11:11 am Song Circle
You’re invited to join us in song as we honor the sacred life we share. Feel free to bring a song for the group to sing together: instruments welcome but not required

note NO dancewave on Sunday, 5/10 - we'll be at Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival!

Our Dancewaves are 90-minute guided movement journeys guided by Living Arts facilitators and a rotating crew of setlist curators who weave thoughtfully crafted playlists. These rhythms follow the energetic arc of a wave: beginning gently, rising into expressive peaks, and settling back into quiet stillness.

We theme our sets in alignment with the Seasonal Ousia wheel, attuning each gathering to the rhythms and qualities of natures patterns. This seasonal framework helps ground the movement experience in the larger patterns of the natural world.

There is no choreography or expectation; participants are invited into improvised, intuitive movement, allowing the body to lead.

Registration: $20 is the baseline, suggested price which helps us cover our space and facilitator costs. You are welcome to contribute more, or use discount code options at checkout. Click the link in our bio to register in advance!

Living Arts Collective

05/29/2026

05/20/2026

05/17/2026

05/17/2026

05/15/2026

05/14/2026

05/11/2026

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05/03/2026

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