About Gurdjieff Movements

By Jivan Sunder

I find it very difficult to describe the Movements: they are something to be experienced. What they are for me - and why they are such a powerful practice - are, quite simply, truth embodied in movement: Truth....dancing: they are the work of an enlightened man, Gurdjieff.

Another enlightened man, Osho, said that truth can only be experienced directly (and indeed, Gurdjieff said much the same thing in 'Meetings with Remarkable Men.'). That's why, for me, the only way to 'understand' the Movements is to practise them.

In this website I offer a small cyber-taste of Gurdjieff Movements, and also news of my upcoming workshops.

I've been teaching and practicing the Movements now for over 30 years. My teachers are Avrom Altman and Deborah Rose Longo, who are basically from the Bennett lineage. As well as them, I've been taught, albeit for just a few odd days many years ago, by Margit Martinu, whose words and movement are for me like pearls. As a young student I also attended a workshop with Solange Claustres: she scared me to death and taught me loads.

During the 90s, I was based in India and for over 10 years I led the 6-week Gurdjieff Movements Intensive at Osho Commune International (now re-named Osho Meditation Resort) in Pune, as well as leading 10-day silent Movements Retreats.

But I also have, since the mid 90s, travelled to many different countries giving Movements Workshops and Intensives - UK, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, India, Taiwan, the US and Costa Rica.

Since 2006 I am based in Israel, but for the last 10 years I've worked almost exclusively in the Far East: Mainland China - I've probably worked in around 15 different cities, including the now famous Wuhan! - Taiwan and Hong Kong.

I've worked many times since 1996 with U Theatre Company in Taiwan (www.utheatre.org.tw), the most recent time being in January 2020.

In September 2006, U Theater premiered their Movements production, 'River Journey', at the National Theater of Taiwan in Taipei; and at the same venue in November 2011 premiered 'Beyond Time', also featuring Gurdjieff Movements.

I almost always say at the beginning of my Workshops: "this is not a dance workshop – and I am not a Dance Teacher!"

I'm not working with dance (even though we spend almost all of the time in my Workshops learning Movements!); what I am working with is what Gurdjieff called "Presence of Being"

Gurdjieff said that man, as he is, really cannot do anything; he hurtles his way through life like a driverless car, driving on and on, but really having no idea of where he is going; he is simply a collection of automatic and unconscious reactions – or as Gurdjieff sometimes put it – Man is fast asleep. He is totally unaware.

Gurdjieff Movements are a way of waking up to who we are, a method of waking up to our true potential – and they work purely through the body/mind connection, purely through the medium of dance.

But unlike many forms of dance as used in therapy or meditation, Gurdjieff Movements are not about expressing our feelings and emotions through our movement;

Rather, through the learning of precise sequences of positions, the Movements hold up a clear mirror to allow us to begin to see who we are, to become more aware of ourself and all of our life strategies, to become more present to the reality of what our life is about. When we become more aware of our reality, we start living our life from a more authentic place.

The Movements are what we may call Awareness Work; awareness work functions primarily through seeing: seeing clearly who we are – in this case through the medium of the Movements; once we begin to see who we are, and simply say yes to that, without any judgment or opinion about what we see, then this opens up the opportunity for changes to occur in our life – not that we have to actively find means to change, not that we have to actively do something; rather change occurs naturally through our understanding and our awareness.

Apart from teaching Movements, I also facilitate another kind of Awareness Work: a Retreat called Satori (5 or 7 days), and I also train people in the process.

but you can read more about these kind of retreats at www.awareness-academy.com, a site run by my friend and colleague, Ganga Cording.