Body Tales®, founded by Olivia Corson, is a somatic practice that integrates inner-guided expressive movement with personal storytelling. Clear and imaginative instructions invite participants to engage and strengthen their innate capacities for creative expression, embodied resources, and inherent kinship with the larger Earth.
Simple and respectful guidelines create a strong container that fosters empathy, curiosity and nonjudgmental presence. Group sessions include inner-focused movement time, exchanging roles as “mover” and “witness” with partners, and one person at a time sharing their own unique “body tale” while being supportively witnessed by the whole group.
The stories that emerge represent a full spectrum of experience. They can be tender, fierce, hilarious, contemplative, inspiring, and illuminating. People grapple with challenges, celebrate, grieve, learn, remember, and envision. Through this self-revelatory process, we transform personal experience into community wisdom and gain a deeper understanding and respect for ourselves, one another, and our world.
More About Body Tales & Founder...
Body Tales was developed by Olivia Corson, who has woven together the healing power of expressive movement and the art of sharing our real stories, with a fierce love of this Earth. Body Tales is rooted in improvisational dance and theater, eco-feminism, and the understanding that our personal, political and environmental realities are biologically and spiritually inseparable.
I have worked in close partnership with Olivia since 1997. Together we’ve continued to evolve the Body Tales practice, and have co-created a comprehensive range of Body Tales programs including: classes, performances, retreats, and teacher trainings. Our wonderful certified BT teachers, and growing number of BT teachers in training, are actively bringing elements of BT into their work and communities.
“We humans have an immense need to share our artistry, our embodied values, our depth of love and caring. There is something about being seen, heard and appreciated – in community – that is tremendously affirming.”
— Olivia Corson
“Body Tales is a place free of judgment and full of human connection.”
— L. H. Retired Waldorf Teacher