Seminars – DuVersity

DuVersity Seminar Series

with Anthony Blake

The DuVersity seminar series came out of Anthony Blake’s encounters with some remarkable people. His academic background was in physics and the history and philosophy of science, endowed with a thirst for meaning. At an early age he encountered John Bennett, one of the leading exponents of Gurdjieff’s fourth way, David Bohm one of the twentieth century’s important quantum physicists and Edward Matchett, teacher of design and ‘genius’. He spent 15 years in close association with John Bennett, right up until Bennett’s death in 1974 when he was then one of the staff assisting in ‘The Sherborne Experiment’. He carried on investigation and experiment, inspired by Bennett’s example, embracing such practices as social dreaming and dialogue – just as Bennett had taken on board the spiritual elements of Subud and Sufism and many other influences – in the search for what he had called ‘integration without rejection’. Over the 80s and 90s, Anthony’s seminars started with the idea of ‘inner movements’, then went on to explore some of the projects Bennett had opened up enquiring into such things as time and higher intelligence, continuing with the approach called ‘the working group’ which brought together fourth way practice with modern psychology and techniques. He cofounded the DuVersity in the 90s and launched a series of conferences bringing together proponents of several spiritual movements. By 2000, the seminars began to take up the thread of systematics as ways of integration and fulfillment. An outline of this series can be found here.

Since 2000 the seminars have evolved to include ever more diversity, especially of the arts of music, dance and theatre. And also to bring together multiple talents with creative inputs in a performance of meaning rather than teaching and explaining.

Recent Events

Exploring Gurdjieff’s Sacred Dances through the Lens of Performance
Claymont Society for Continuous Education

May 16-19, 2024

In this seminar, three diverse but kindred spirits – Deborah Rose Longo, a well-known teacher of the Movements; Elan Sicroff, a pianist who has worked extensively with the music of Thomas de Hartmann; and Anthony Blake, writer and student of J.G. Bennett – who was a leading exponent of Gurdjieff’s ideas – will come together to ask questions, experiment and encourage a fresh exploration of many different aspects of the Movements.

The primary activity for the seminar will be the presentation of a number of Movements for performance. This will enable us to also address the following issues:

Three Lines of Work as they relate to the Enneagram and the process of preparing and performing the Movements.
The role of the audience in contributing to an event: how to move from passive observer to active participant in the search for meaning.
The interrelationship between the Movements and the Movements music.
Utilizing improvisation as a tool for understanding the underlying structure of the Movements.
Talks/discussions on a wide variety of subjects, including the history of the Movements, the intelligence of the moving center, and much more.

The seminar will be held in the historic Claymont Mansion and begins with dinner at 6:30 pm on Thursday May 16, and end after lunch on Sunday May 19.

For complete details, please click here.

HIGHER MOVING CENTRE

A DuVersity Event
Claymont Court, West Virginia
7-10 May 2020

This is the third in a series of seminars devoted to exploring the movements and potential of the moving centre as indicated by Gurdjieff.
They explore the ‘hidden depths’ of the body and the pivotal role of action in realising who we are. The primary thing in this is movement and not consciousness (which is a secondary phenomenon). We will use Gurdjieff movements to reflect the inner reality to us.
In this event we will take as a centre of gravity the Gurdjieff movement known as The Great Prayer. Various dimensions will come into play, including aspects of sensation and feeling elicited by the methods of Moshe Feldenkrais as well as a understanding of the gestural language it manifests as a manifestation of death and resurrection.

Work on movements will be bracketed by music, poetry, art, visualisation, virtual reality and even algebra. We will begin with the movement of babies and may end with our prayers and the discovery of ourselves on the world stage. A great deal depends on our imagination!
Many contributors will be involved. Here is the line up as it stands now in February (it may evolve further).
Curt Golden: Guitarist. Senior member of Robert Fripp’s Guitar Craft
Lavinia Plonka: Feldenkrais instructor and movements teacher
Roberta Chromey: movements teacher
Darlene Franz: Classical oboist
Ruben Yessayan: pianist
Steven Rhodes: Researcher in the spontaneous development of movement in babies
Mattias Ribbing: Grandmaster of memory
Jason Joslyn: Developer of Virtual Reality systems
Michael White: Travelogue writer and poet
Travis Jarrell: Dancer
Anthony Blake: Philosopher and writer. Head of research for the DuVersity
This is a participatory seminar based on Gurdjieff’s principle of the harmonious development of the Thinking, Feeling and Moving centres. Gurdjieff spoke of higher centres of thinking and feeling and we seek to complete the trinity. This is supported by the belief that over the last few thousand years, the felt centre of gravity of intelligence was first intellectual and then in the heart but, in our time, it is moving into the body. What the ‘body’ really is, is mysterious. It may be the closest thing to will.

Dates: May 7-10, 2020. The seminar will begin with dinner on Thursday evening and end with lunch on Sunday.
Location: The Claymont Society for Continuous Education
Charles Town, WV 25414
(See www.society.claymont.org for more information about the Claymont Society)
The cost of the event including lodging and meals is $545. ($495 if registered and paid before March 15, 2020.)
For more information and to register:
Please contact Matt Zenkowich – [email protected]