Training + Workshops

Movement Classes for Support Workers

Movement Classes for Support Workers are led by Rianne Švelnis and Alexa Mardon: dancers and dance teachers who have worked as frontline support workers in various capacities.

Fall Times and dates: 

Saturday September 14th 4:30-6:30pm
Sunday October 6th *ONLINE* 4:30-5:30pm|this class will be over zoom!
Saturday November 9th 4:30-6:30pm
Sunday December 8th 4:30-6:30pm
Register today.

Location: In Person - Q7 studios, 77 E 7th Ave., Vancouver BC

About the class:

The classes support movement, play, connection and strategies for those of us doing frontline support. We invite self-identified support workers, with the understanding that support work takes many forms, and is often not professionalized or even acknowledged.

We have been developing and facilitating these classes intermittently since 2017. We recognize that workers increasingly experience “burnout”: a reasonable nervous system response to unsustainable systemic conditions. We recognize that burnout is not an individual failure to cope with crisis but rather a symptom of larger violent systemic structures at work.   

Our belief is that we contain a multitude of responses in any given moment and that movement + dance with awareness can help us access and practice this responsive agility.  

The goal is not to ‘fix’ or ‘get you back to work’. These classes include exhaustion and refusal as part of what we are moving with. We hope to build solidarity amongst workers, and co-create practices of being together even when in separate places, weaving fibers of strengthening bonds between us.  

Learn more about the facilitators>>

Accessibility: 
Q7 is located at 77 East 7th Ave Vancouver, BC, on the corner of 7th and Quebec. The building entrance is on the north side of 7th, just across the street from Daniel Chocolates. There is paid street parking directly in front of the building as well as throughout the surrounding neighborhood, and multiple bus lines service the area with stops within three blocks to the south and east.
Q7 is a ground floor building with a manual-open front door. The building has 2 gender-inclusive, multi-stall washrooms with one wheelchair accessible stall in each washroom.
The workshop will take place in Studio A, a large dance studio, wheelchair accessible by ramp though has a 2 inch high lip to get onto the sprung Marley floor. 
If you have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility please send an email to marco@newworks.ca