Your colleagues in Michigan cordially invite you to AmSAT’s 24th Annual General Meeting, “The Alexander Art of Being,” June 16th-20th at Concordia University (www.cuaa.edu) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Concordia's spacious 187-acre campus provides a retreat-like setting for being together, enjoying learning, and accomplishing the business of the annual general meeting. Meeting, workshop, and teaching rooms have large windows overlooking its scenic grounds that let in ample natural light. Campus housing is comfortable, inexpensive, and includes three meals a day. Detroit Metro Airport (DTW) is a convenient 25 miles east of Concordia. Concordia is easy to access by air, train, bus or car.

Ann Arbor's engaging pedestrian-friendly downtown is a short 15 minute drive or bus ride from Concordia's campus. A walking tour of downtown will take you past lots of galleries, museums,bookstores, coffee shops, and interesting places to eat. Ann Arbor attracts and encourages creativity, as evidenced by its thriving artistic community, top-notch research, and appeal to peoples of diverse faiths and backgrounds. See www.annarbor.org for more about Ann Arbor. Happily our AGM overlaps opening weekend of the celebrated Ann Arbor Summer Festival (www.annarborsummerfestival.org).

·         Back-to-basics workshops: “Thinking and Movement Habits that Interfere with Healthy Respiration” with Jessica Wolf; “A Sigh of Relief” with Geordie MacMinn; “Am I Thinking, Feeling, or Doing” with N. Brooke Lieb; “Inhibiting and Directing your Jaw and Tongue” with Ruth Rootberg; and “Security versus Adventure” with Giora Pinkas;

·         Dynamic-movement workshops: “Experience your Feet and Sit Bones in a New Way” with Michael Protzel and Margarethe Breuer; “Upwards from the Ground” with Caren Bayer; “The Interplay of Primary and Secondary: Directing through Dart” with Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier; and “Raising the Standard of Functioning” with Maedée Duprès;

·         Working-with-students-in-pain workshops: “Teaching to Back Pain” with Kitty Breen; “Teaching the Disabled and those with Chronic Illness” with Lisa First; and “Triage for Musicians” with Elinore Morin;

·         Meditative, consciousness-heightening workshops: “Alexander Technique and Thai Yoga: Tools to Heightened Consciousness” with Cecile Raynor; and “Zen Shin Jin and the Alexander Technique - Movement Mediation and Mindfulness Practice” with Sumi Komo;

·         Resiliency-encouraging workshops: “The Becoming-Bearable Lightness of Being” with Joan Frost; “Towards Resilient Plasticity” with Carol Boggs; “The Alexander Technique and Our Emotional Life” with Adam Bailey; and “Labyrinth as Metaphor for Alexander's Art of Being” with Nancy Romita;

·         Special trainee-only workshops with Rose Bronec and Rick Carbaugh on F.M.'s 1910 Supplement to Re-Education of the Kinaesthetic Systems; “The Baby on the Floor Discovers Singing” with Jane Heirich; and “Hit the Ground Running” with Lauren Hill;

·         Valuable, practice-building advice: “Using the Web to Grow your Practice" with Robert Rickover; “Attracting Your Ideal Student Through E-Marketing” with Emily Clark and “Launch a Thriving Practice” with Ellen Bierhorst;

·         In-depth semi-private lessons on “Relating the Dart Process to Chair or Table Work” with Marie Stroud; “Teaching Questions” with John Nicholls; “Breath and Balance” with Jessica Wolf; and “The Art of Running” and “The Art of Working Out” with Malcolm Balk;

·         Private lessons with Bob Britton, Rose Bronec, Yehuda Kuperman, Frances Marsden, Elinore Morin, John Nicholls, Giora Pinkas, Neil Schapera, Vivien Schapera, and Marie Stroud.

Joan Murray will present the F.M. Alexander Memorial Address. Joan began studying the Technique in 1955 while ballet mistress for Theatre Royal in London.  She worked and was friends with many first generation teachers including Marjorie Barstow, Dilys Carrington, Frank and Helen Jones, Patrick Macdonald, Charles Neil, John Skinner, Peter Scott, Tony Spawforth, Richard and Elisabeth Walker, Lulie Westfeldt, Kitty Wielopolska, and Peggy Williams. In 1962 she graduated from the Constructive Teaching Centre, where she then assisted Walter Carrington until 1967. Joan will share how the process that she and Alex Murray developed, known as the Dart Procedures, continues to inform her understanding of the Alexander Technique and her teaching.

On Opening Night Yehuda Kuperman and Giora Pinkas, in conversation, will share anecdotes about their training, a friendship that grew in parallel with their skills in the Alexander Technique, and insights honed over decades of teaching and training teachers. Afterwards enjoy light refreshments and classical music with friends and colleagues. As a backdrop to the evening there will be remembrances and tributes to Patrick Macdonald, a man who continues to inspire us, in honor of the centenary of his birth.

On Friday evening take an outing into downtown Ann Arbor where you can join the Opening Night Celebration of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival www.annarborsummerfestival.org, see the impressive collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art www.umma.umich.edu ($5 donation appreciated), browse through galleries, bookstores and shops, or simply enjoy a bite to eat.

Saturday night is Party Time! Join us for a casual dinner and evening festivities (at a recession-friendly price). First, partake of pizza (regular or special needs), salad, dessert and a cash bar. Enjoy some Alexander-approved carnival games testing your skill and balance. Next is our annual auction, hosted by the fabulous Bob Britton. We top off the evening with a live band and dancing. Don’t miss it!

It’s not too early to think about donating items to the AGM live auction.  Use your imagination and dig in those closets!  It all goes to benefit AmSAT. Let us know what you'd like to donate at https://sites.google.com/site/agm2010auctionitems/. Or, contact Michelle Obrecht, our auction coordinator, with details/provenance of your donation items. Michelle can be reached at mobrecht@umich.edu.

AmSAT’s Pre-AGM and AGM give us an opportunity to learn, share and connect with each other.  Ann Arbor is at its best during the summer --- a perfect balance of laid-back and lively. Concordia has a beautiful, tranquil campus. Michigan has the world's longest freshwater coastline, lakes that feel like oceans, shimmering beaches, miles and miles of cherry orchards, glorious sunrises and sunsets, daytime skies of the deepest blue, nighttime skies scattered with stars. We're delighted to share the ‘Great Lakes State’ with the Alexander Technique community, and look forward to welcoming you in person to the 2010 AGM!

Cordially,

Aida McGugan
AGM 2010 Coordinator