Moving Conversations 

CMC's Moving Conversations are hosted conversations that take place while moving, both modeling and experimenting in whole body engagement while collaborating, planning, and strategizing.

Past conversations have included themes such as interdisciplinary pedagogy in Universities and the role of early childhood education.

Upcoming Moving Conversation:

Saturday, January 11,2020 at 9a.m.—Office Design for moving bodies. Meet at the Powderhorn Recreation center lobby (3400 S 15th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55407) for a walking meeting around Powderhorn Park.

Example of a Past Moving Conversation:

On Feb 20th, the Center for Moving Cultures hosted the first Moving Conversation of 2016. The 45-minute conversation centered on multidisciplinary approaches to teaching in higher education. Olga Gonzalez, Chair of the Anthropology Dept. at Macalester College, and Katja Kolcio, Professoar of Dance and Founding member of the College of the Environment at Wesleyan University, joined Lelis Brito, Director of CMC for a walk by the melting Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis.

As we scrambled and slid across the slippery ice, we discussed how to make interdisciplinary teaching meaningful--avoiding the model where two teachers teach their own intact subject matter in one classroom, but rather offer an integrated approach to teaching. Cross-pollination of teaching arenas should lead to a deeper understanding of the subject matter,that would offer more breadth of understanding than taking two classes side-by-side in different disciplines. Time and funding is needed to develop and research new curriculum, and as new pedagogies emerge, there needs to be built-in time for experimentation, failure, and redevelopment. Olga expressed the need to cultivate the process that would enable the cultural shift needed to implement these teaching strategies. Katja pointed out that cultural shifts require networks of people; that getting names of people who are already working on this shift would be helpful. Lelis emphasized the need to foreground embodied learning because abstract thought develops from concrete learning which means stimulating primary nerve growth through movement and touch. Experiential learning is not a video!