What it is and Why

6 months of experience-based learning and creative experiments, exploring how we can integrate The Creative Principle into all elements of our living in order to grow more robustness & capacity with uncertainty.

There is a generative principle at work in all organic life, that follows a cycle of birth - life - death - rebirth, that bears little relationship to the unsustainable, dominant narrative of 'continual growth'.

This course will support you to build practices that dismantle these false narratives and grow pathways towards articulating your heart. You will learn tools for BEING IN every stage of the cycle of creation: from unknowing and getting lost on purpose, via the envisioning stage, then the making process, to the part where you must meet your audience, right through to the eventual letting go . . . .

These are ways of working with uncertainty that Creativity understands deeply...How can we learn to play and experiment in the territory of unpredictability and flux? How do we keep the spirit of adventure and curiosity alive at the level of our being?

This course will lead you back to the part of yourself that knows all about this innately.

We will do this via tools that come from theatre, improvisation, shamanic practices, creative practices, somatics and embodiment. We will learn from the practices of visiting professional artists, then support our work with creative allies for accountability. We will have extra time to do this via personal practice spaces and optional weekly Maker's Exchanges.

Introduction to the Course

'You cannot use up creativity. 

The more you use it, the more you have'.

- Maya Angelou

Working With Artists...

To help bring some of the themes to life, we will be joined by three brilliant guest artists, each of whom approaches their art making and life in a way that speaks deeply to that adaptive creative principle. The gift of bringing in practicing artists is that they are used to working with uncertainty as a resource. Perhaps even courting it. So we have much to learn from them. Details of our three amazing Guest Artists below...

[photo of Rachel in rehearsals for Moon Project - photographer: Greg Allum]
Rachel in rehearsals, photo by Greg Allum

Kerri McLean

Acting  l Producing  l  Kerri McLean 


Dave Rock profile photo


Kerri McLean is a multifaceted interdisciplinary creative artist working in the film, tv, theatre and audio industries as an actor, director, writer and audio artist.

Starting her career as a stage actress, Kerri has gone on to perform within a vast range of film, tv, theatre, radio and live art productions around the world including Poldark, Bodyguard, Line of Duty, The Ritual, Small Island, and Unforgotten.

Along with her freelance theatre work, Kerri continues to direct for screen, audio and theatre projects. She directed Formula 1 title and promo films for 4-years for worldwide broadcast and ‘Lockdown Town’, London’s first socially distanced immersive performance and music event within vast underground tunnels in London Bridge.

Passionate about sound and music, currently she creates sound designs for theatre and film, and records radio, voice, computer games and audio projects.

Kerri wrote her first play ‘Memories of Mermaids’ in 2014, whilst artist-in-residence at London’s Bernie Grant Arts Centre, which she went on to stage and direct in London and Brighton.

Kerri continues writing commissions and new projects, and to date has written several scripts for stage, screen and radio. She is currently in development for a new long form TV series, a feature film, and podcast series.


What are you into at the moment, Kerri?

"I’m loving the James Webb Space Telescope images currently beaming back to us, I find them so mind blowingly exciting, and an excellent way of putting everything in perspective, it’s always good to look at the bigger picture."





Dave Rock

Flow Speaking l Poems

 Dave Rock profile photo

Dave is a prize-winning spoken word artist and storyteller, and a conscious writing, speaking and performing arts teacher. He's worked with thousands of people, including award-winning comedians, actors and inspirational figures, as well as alternative communities, asylum seekers and teens. Dave's teaching has included authentic speaking, storytelling, creative writing, comedy, comedy improv, freestyling, conscious creativity, Laughter Yoga, visualisation, secular ritual, conscious communication, leadership and team skills, conscious relationships...... and other stuff he has since forgotten!

Dave's mission is to help his clients feel their greatest selves and act from their greatest potential, stating, "When we start to embrace and express everything alive in us, magic happens on the page and the stage, and everywhere else in our lives".


What are you into at the moment, Dave?

"Something I've been falling back in love with lately is the way creative energy plays its own musical movements through the body. We've all seen musicians' bodies ripple and pulsate as they play - it's an extra composition, unwritten and unrepeatable, coming through completely of its own accord. Well, sometimes when I'm writing, or rehearsing spoken words, this dancing pulsation comes through me too, so my body is swaying, hips pulsing, arms upraised playing imaginary instruments all around me, as the words take shape....I love how vital, and extra, and somehow smuggled in this is...."




Antonia Grove

Antonia Grove l Probe Projects 


Profile photo of Antonia

Antonia is an Independent Dance artist working in contemporary dance, dance theatre and all it's related forms and cross artform collaborations. Her roles have included choregrapher, lecturer, performer, dramaturg, mentor and artistic facilitator. 

"I have always been a shapeshifter and continue to thrive on adapting to the many roles I practice. These include Choreographer, lecturer, performer, dramaturg, mentor and artistic facilitator."

Antonia's present research practice centres around her lived artistic experience in relation to chaos, disorientation, rebellious thinking and risk-taking, and explores the relationship between her biology and creativity. 

"I am interested in playing with opposing binaries of empathy and anarchy and stereotypes of the carer and enfant terrible within the power dynamics of the performer."

As a mother of 3, having a family has become part of Antonia's professional journey and an important part of life to be integrated into her working practice. Recognising the organisation, resilience and determination necessary to balance work and family, she is a firm believer in organisations or companies working alongside independent artists to find solutions to the issues faced by parents. 

"I am not just interested in being a responsible human, but in carving out the space to keep life playful and usefully unpredictable. This is naturally present through my work as an artist, but not so easily kept alive within the challenges of everyday existence!"


What are you into at the moment, Antonia?

"I’m writing up my research project for my masters at the moment, transcribing interview conversations with women creatives and weaving them into the bigger picture around the female experience. It feels such a privilege. Most of the interviews are not dissimilar from the honest, impassioned chats I might have with friends, but seeing the words in front of me in black and white has given them a whole new sense of weight and charge…it has been an unexpected surprise, watching how the words concretise, strengthening their intention and power. I'm curious about this transformation, and about how we hear words differently..."


Photo of Antonia dancing on stage

Photos by: Jo Thorne, Stephen Wright, Zoe Manders, Tim Copsey







Click here to view a Taster video of some of our past Guest Artists...

Course curriculum

16 x live workshops, including sessions with visiting professional artists, practice weeks, Creative Practice gatherings, optional Maker's Exchange drop ins, Creative Ally support teams, support to develop your own creative habit - and more...

*Please note that dates/themes of sessions are subject to change

    1. What it's All About Really...?

    2. Welcome Video and Orientation

    1. Lesson One: Attention As A Creative Resource

    2. Noticing Where We Are Placing Our Attention - Creative Task - PRE WORK

    3. Focusing tools - Asking the body for creative idea generation - Live Zoom class - 1st November 2022

    4. Recording of Lesson 1 Session

    5. Audio Only Recording of Lesson 1 session

    6. Body Listening for Creative Practice

    7. First Creative Ally meet up.

    1. Lesson 2: Vulnerability and Discomfort

    2. Neurosis Cocktail Party: All The Reasons Why You Can't, Daren't, or Probably Shouldn't - PRE WORK

    3. Creative Ally Meet Ups

    4. Feeling Like An Idiot Practice / Failing at Something that Matters - Live Zoom class - 8th November 2022

    5. Recording of Lesson 2 Session

    6. Audio Only Recording of Lesson 2 session

    7. Beginning a Habit Breaking Habit Practice - daily practice

    1. Intro to Lesson 3 - Video

    2. Different forms of Conscious Attention - Pre session reflections & Writing exercise

    3. Ways In And Down - Not Knowing As Creative Opportunity - Live Zoom Session - 15th November 2022

    4. Recording of the Live Class - Lesson 3 Session

    5. Audio Only Recording of Lesson 3 session

    6. Home Enquiry: Go to Sacred Space and use it as a starting point to generate some creative material

    7. Creative Ally Meet Ups

    1. Lesson 4 - Pre-session reflection - identifying sources, lineages and limmerance (the erotic)

    2. Lesson 4 - Pre- session Exploration - Opening to the Ordinary & Non Ordinary World

    3. Lesson 4 - Intro - Genies, Guides & Muses

    4. Genies, Muses & the More than human world - Live Zoom Session - 22nd November 2022

    5. Recording of Lesson 4 session

    6. Audio Only Recording of Lesson 4 session

    7. Creative Practice Room - on Zoom - 23rd November 2022

    8. Lesson 4 - Home Enquiry - Support from the Human and More than Human World -

    9. Genies Guides and Muses - Creative Ally Suggestions

    1. Break Week - No material this week

About this course

  • £1,200.00
  • 147 lessons
  • 41 hours of video content
  • A rainbow of chalks

How it works

The course takes place via a combination of live zoom workshops, creative provocations, visiting professional artists, video classes, peer 'creative ally' sharing, home adventures (as opposed to 'homework' ;-) and practice weeks.

There will be opportunities to follow approaches you are enjoying as well as invitations to test out your edges. This course is also about application - so ultimately, you will be supported to bring this new (old) toolkit out of the practice room and into your life. It is set up so you can move as deeply or as lightly through the material as you want. You choose the level of intensity.

It is a great place to bring an idea you are brewing and nudge it forwards. It is also a great place to come if you have no idea what you want to brew, but you know you want to grow some ideas and feel more alive creatively.

There are 13 two hour long live sessions on Tuesdays (10am to 12pm UK time) where we cover the core course content and meet with our Guest Artists.

In addition, there are 3 Practice Weeks, where we meet for one hour to guide your focus and get the ideas bubbling for the week's activity.

For deepening your relationship with the course materials, there are fortnightly creative practice 'rooms' provided at alternate times of the day. These are facilitated spaces that you can use as you like - with a space for quietly working in company, or if you prefer, a separate space for social connection.

There is the option of a Maker's Exchange - a space you facilitate (organised by us), where you can bring a question about a thing you are growing to the group. Kind of like a scratch or a beta-test for moving an idea forwards.

Then moving towards the end of the course, there are 4x facilitated creative practice spaces, one per week, for continuing the work. We found this to be a much longed for thing - requested from previous cohorts - so we decided to build it in officially.

If you can't make any of the live practice sessions, they are all recorded and made available within 48 hours on the course hub.

Finally, 'break weeks'. Another thing we have learnt from previous students, is that we need down time. So. There's also...

...breathing space...

ah, that's better!
Sign me up!
Seedling sprouting up through tarmac

Click to watch a short video on what's behind it...

'Magic doesn't sweep you away; it gathers you up into the body of the present moment so thoroughly that all your explanations fall away: the ordinary, in all its plain and simple outrageousness, begins to shine -- to become luminously, impossibly so. Every facet of the world is awake, and you within it.' 

- David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology

Your Facilitator - Rachel Blackman

Theatre | Somatic Education | Tiny Failures

Rachel Blackman will be your guide and lead facilitator through out this course. Most of your course content will be either be hosted by or led by Rachel.

Rachel is an artist, somatic educator, theatre maker, trainer and mentor. She has been creating original theatre since 2008 and collaborated as an actor, director and movement coach and creative consultant on many artistic projects for others.

Her latest piece is a celebration of the creative potential of failure, called, You Aren't Doing It Wrong If No One Knows What You Are Doing and is an interactive solo performance commissioned by Brighton Festival. It will emerge in late 2023

Rachel is a Feldenkrais Practitioner, runs the Pure Creation year long mentoring program and trains coaches to work with Embodied Intelligence at The Somatic School.

She is also an actor & you may remember her best when she had a lot less hair, as Charra in Matrix Revolutions....

One of Rachel's great pleasures is bringing people into their own innate creative resourcefulness.

Photo by Hugh Fox

What Will I Get Out Of It?

The short answer is 'what you put into it'... but the long answer is:

* Get Braver with Creative Risk and Uncertainty.

* Own the ability to feel your YES and get curious about it.

* Act more for the pleasure of it (and less because you feel like you should).

* Processes for getting the hell out of your own way.

* Trust yourself more.

* Processes for putting your attention where you want it to be (and not where you don’t!).

* Learn to do more of what you love (and less of what you don't).

* Find ways to make what you already do more interesting and bearable.

* Be more ready to experiment and take clever risks.

* Trust in sources of energy that are larger than yourself.

* Ways to take yourself less seriously.

* Tools for thinking creatively and laterally under pressure.

* Tools for metabolising difficulty.

* Give less of a shit when you make a mistake.

* More confidence to know the difference between genuine fear and fear that is simply masking opportunity.

* Clever ways to track and pay attention to your hunches, inklings and instincts.

* Get better at making it up as you go along.

* Learn practical ways to initiate and cultivate your unique vision and creative gift.

* Learn processes for bringing your visions to life.

* Get braver with meeting your audience and doing it in a way that feels more fun.

* Make the experience of not knowing more enjoyable.


image by I am Nah
Watch Intro Video

Creativity as Intrinsic Birth-right

From an earlier course

Being in Community

We learn best when there is also a relaxed social element along side personal exploration. So when you join, you'll be offered a peer support group, a community environment via a social platform, and regular connection via WhatsApp. The peer groups will be allocated according to the level of involvement you want ... this might be weekly, bi-weekly or 'now and again'. It can also change as we go.

The bi-weekly Creative Practice Rooms are a place to get on with the course material in connection, and deepen social connections. And the Makers Exchange sessions are a chance to get a feel of each other's practices and active creative enquiries.

photo by Annie Spratt

What past students are saying....

(scroll right & left to see more)

I now have tools to hear the whispers

Maddy C

I came to Rachel feeling pretty much defeated by the cacophony of critic figures, cop types, dragon teachers and fake parents in my head, who daily insist that I focus on work, get the household chores done, keep myself in a narrow worn groove, never play or risk. The weeks with Rachel turned the volume down on those voices enough to hear another, offering permission. Working with care, and with a deep well of experience, Rachel gifts her participants a set of questions, suggestions and rituals that support you to develop a different way of listening to body and deeper self. I now have tools I can use whenever I need them, to hear my own permission, however quietly it whispers.

This course held me and helped dance me

Anna J

This course is a magnificent act of creation. There are so many layers of discovery, exploration, consolidation and inquiry to be experienced within it. The course had a way of meeting me and inviting me into new territories, wherever I was at week to week. I found I could hold a very light attention on it and still be fed, or some weeks if I wanted I could take a plunge right in and see what was there for me…. Whichever way I approached it, I was met with great rewards of discovery and feeling. The ability for the course to meet me exactly where I was at any time, I put down to the masterful, rich, delicate and deeply felt design of the course, steeped in Rachel's knowledge, experience, care and curiosity. As well as her masterful facilitation skills. This course held me and helped dance me out of a period of low spirits and depression into an enlivened and deeply centred place of commitment to and delight in my creative agency once again. The course material will continue to feed me as I revisit it over the coming months. Thank you Rachel for creating this course-being, drawing on so many threads of your experience, training, practice and personal inquiry, which have it be such a multi-layered, wholistic, alive vessel for learning.

'I can't recommend this course highly enough.'

L V

I can't recommend this course highly enough. Rather than being just another course on improving creative output, it takes a wholesome approach to transform the ability to live as a creative being in the world. It helped me not only to be more inspired and more confident with my creative work, but also with my overall connection to spirituality and wellbeing. This is partly due to the perfectly picked, placed, and developed skills, topics, and methods, and partly due to Rachel's brilliance as a teacher. She knows how to create a space that feels not only warm, but also safe to show vulnerability in order to transform it. I still use her methods to approach new and challenging tasks, and I still have her voice in my head to remind me to be more confident and playful.

'I wish I could have a course like this always...'

L W

All classes were explorations rather than ‘have tos’, all ‘homework’ was optional, and I did all of it as I wanted to explore, see where a prompt can lead me. Very interesting guests, varied people who shared their own creative processes. I wish I could have a course like this always, to be accompanied and cared for and carried through without intrusion on my own process, in a knowledgeable nurturing way as Rachel is able to do. Also to be reminded, while going through the thicket of every day life, that we have a body, there is a lot more out there and we could just dare: as being creative is everybody’s birthright.

'I got so much out of it - connection, tools and methods, new ideas and inspiration, and plenty of fun'

H F

It was magic! So glad I joined the course, got so much out of it - connection, tools and methods, new ideas and inspiration, and plenty of fun. I loved how immersive and integrated the course was, so that I could see the blossoming of ideas in most surprising ways. I'm still drawing on the wisdom of it all! Rachel seems to be breathing creativity, and designs and holds this (co-)creative space with amazing clarity and grace.

'I honestly surprised myself with my bravery in sharing and making in this space.'

C P

I was kinda blocked last year, had a hunch Rachel might bring just the right amount of humour, curiosity and care to challenge that. Her somatic explorations were a new way of working for me, took me to unexpected and often uncomfortable parts of myself, which of course are a ripe place for creating from. The open and playful nature of the course was a safe container for student sharing and experimentation and the regular co-practice exploration with fellow students works incredibly well online and some of us have continued to meet. I honestly surprised myself with my bravery in sharing and making in this space. Rachel is incredibly skilful to tease that out of me. I’m most grateful. I put together my first live art piece for Brighton Fringe next month.

'I loved this course...like a magical pop of colour.'

M C

I loved this course. It came along at the perfect time and was a great source of both creativity and curiosity. It reminded me that creativity is always available even if you think you’re not that creative. I started to dream more and see the world more curiously. I naturally wanted to create tiny normal things during my normal day to day life. It was like a magical pop of colour during an otherwise not very eventful Covid winter.

'It helped me redefine what creativity is and helped me fall in love with my practice again'

M M

I’ve been an artist for 20 years and I thought I knew what an artist was. This course opened up a permissible space, all manner of undiscovered avenues within myself and within my practice. It issued the invitation for honesty, authenticity, mutual exploration with both the teacher and the group members. It was a journey we took together and it changed me. It helped me redefine what creativity is and helped me fall in love with my practice again.

'A perfect blend of structure and freedom, support and allowing to go with your own flow'

AS

Rachel is an incredible teacher who creates a very supportive environment for exploration a growth. The tools and principles she shared in the course allowed me to dive deeper into the nature of creativity and explore it as an embodied experience. The course was a perfect blend of structure and freedom, support and allowing to go with your own flow. I was not sure if the course was for me as I am not an artist, but it is absolutely relevant regardless of what you do and deals with creativity as principles applicable to anything in life. I highly recommend it to everyone, especially if you, like me, are tired of 'creative thinking' as the only way to focus on being creative.

It felt refreshing to free up my own limitations ...and reignite my spark and sense of wonder.

AH

I enjoyed the subtle variety of all the practices. It felt refreshing to have several "ways in" to creativity, to free up my own limitations of myself and reignite my spark and sense of wonder. Rachel has a brilliant way about her- able to encourage, invite, and challenge us all with a deep delight, curiosity and genuine love for this work that radiates.

Sounds good...

How do I know if this course is for me?

This course looks at what creative practice can teach us about navigating uncertainty with more courage, playfulness and application. This course is for you if you want to rekindle your relationship with the Creative, Generative principle in any aspect of your life and work. Or if you want to grow strategies for navigating uncertainty with more playfulness and ease.

It is a great antidote to inertia and taking yourself too seriously. It is also brilliant for deepening your unique relationship with an inner life and wild imagination.

You don't have to want to be an artist or have any experience of being intentionally creative in your life. Curiosity and openness are the only prerequisites.

egg image by David Jericó
Eggs image by David Jericó.

'The most interesting moment of a person's life is what happens to them when all their certainties go away. Then who do you become?  And then what do you look for? That's the moment when the universe is offering up an invitation saying, 'come find me.'

- Elizabeth Gilbert  

What's The Investment?

Time, Money and Process...

There are 29 hours of live lesson times spread over 13 x 2-hour workshops and 3 x 1-hour live set up sessions for the Practice Weeks, about 24 hours of hosted practice time and about 25 pre-recorded mini classes and creative explorations you can do in your own time.

If you can't make any of the live classes, they are all recorded and made available with in 48 hours on the course hub.

You can scale the intensity of the course based on how much you want to get out of it and what time you realistically have to invest in it.

If you're a deep diver, there is up to 6 hours of content you could be engaging with each week, not including home explorations.

And if time is not on your side this time, but you still want to join, you can access all the material in your own time for up to a year after sign up and you will be supported to find ways to continue the process long after the live course ends...

There are options to add on private mentoring sessions with Rachel during the 6 month enrolment period. These sessions go for 90 minutes and are a chance to work in a bespoke way with what ever it is you are creating. This might be anything from a business or workshop idea to a stand up routine! Sessions are half price to students for the duration of the course and limited to 2 per person.valued at £180 per session.

Prices for the course are based on an honesty system. Here is the sliding scale:

£1200 - Full Price
This is the recommended price if you are ok for money. This price is worked out on the basis of £23 per live face to face hour.

£1060 - Price 2

For those on low incomes or with higher than standard expenses. £20 per live hour.

£795 - Price 3

This price is designed for those for whom money is tight and is based on £15 per live hour.

There are also instalment options for each price bracket.

If money is the only thing preventing you from saying yes to this course, please get in touch. We want to find ways to support your YES! where ever possible.

image by Leo Rivas

Pricing Options

Please select the price that is best reflective of your living conditions

Like to know more?

If you're interested but unsure about a few things, you're welcome to get in touch and ask me anything you'd like. Before you do, please take moment to watch the video and re-read all the content here to make sure your question isn't already covered.
Rachel x
get in touch