Bridge to Terabithia: A Somatic Exploration of Childhood Self

with Mark LeRoy

Thursday, April 16, 10 am – 12 pm

ImprovLab (MCKN 108)
University of Guelph

Accompanied by Bridge to Terabithia, this creative and interactive single-day book club invites us to enter a liminal space of intrapersonal embodiment, where we will attune to, be witness to, and be witnessed by our childhood selves.

Through exploration and play guided by sensation, image, behaviour, and affect, we will explore how parts of us emerge within Terabithia, as we collectively hold space for embodied knowing and self- and group-coherence.

Terabithia becomes our imagination’s site of exploration and experimentation, where we are invited to lay down our certainties to wonder and explore the beauty of our fragile highs .

For this workshop, we invite and encourage participants to return to a childhood space of wonder and read or re-read Bridge to Terabithia before we meet. Reading Bridge to Terabithia is not a requirement for participation in the workshop.

Copies of Bridge to Terabithia are available through the Guelph Public Library. If you are unable to find a copy, but would like to participate in the workshop, please e-mail sharon.engbrecht@uoguelph.ca. A limited number will be available through The Bookshelf at no cost to participants. 

While reading Bridge to Terabithia prior to attending, you may consider:

  1. How might ritual support your temporal encounter of reading Bridge to Terabithia?
  2. As you immerse yourself in Jesse’s and Leslie’s world, how does your body emerge as a co-narrator?
  3. How might we extend curiosity towards what our 10-year-old selves might be experiencing or want to share?
  4. The name of your own magical land.

Who: We invite everyone who is interested in participating to join the creative workshops. We aim to make these events as accessible as possible, and they are open to everyone regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, political beliefs, or status. Folks with children are also welcome to bring them along and their participation will not be part of the study.

To confirm participation and/or for more information, including about consent forms, please email sharon.engbrecht@uoguelph.ca.

If you decide to join us spontaneously, please do. Doors will be open 30 minutes before each event. There will be coffee, tea, and light snacks provided.

Bios

Mr. Mark LeRoy (he/him) is a PhD Student in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph, researching how the liminal spaces of improvisation and negative capability, emerging from postmemory, might function as a rite of passage to embodied knowing. As a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist, Mark is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Internal Family Systems Therapist, supporting those affected by the silencing narrative of trauma. 

Dr. Sharon Engbrecht (they/them) comes from a background in theatre and visual arts, narrative theory, and critical studies in gender and sexuality. They have a knack for event planning and facilitating group events focused on storytelling and improvisation. Their research investigates questions of embodiment, identity, and relationality.

A head shot of a woman with blond hair and blue eyes looking directly at the camera with a friendly smile.

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