DEEP SEA is a seven-week laboratory of deep creativity dedicated to discovering and developing one’s artistic identity through dance, movement and imagination.
We will explore what fascinates us, which images, stories, dreams, visions, symbols and themes repeatedly appear in our imagination, and what we long to express through art at this particular moment in our lives.
Drawing on practices that bring together art and personal experience, such as the Halprin Life/Art Process, alongside perspectives from the psychology of creativity, we will explore our individual sources of inspiration and develop personal artistic material. Through dance improvisation, movement, drawing and writing, we will experiment with different ways of giving this material form.
This is not a conventional “unleash your creativity” or “awaken your inner artist” programme in the spirit of The Artist’s Way. Here, we go a step further — acknowledging and honouring our creative longing.
We are interested in where artistic material comes from, what carries energy, fascination or particular significance, and how we can enter into a relationship with it through the body.
Above all, we are interested in what remains hidden within us, what has not yet entered our awareness and is waiting to be discovered. This is an invitation to deepen our relationship with our unique creativity — to discover what is authentically ours and develop our own artistic language.
How We Work
At the centre of our practice are dance and movement — ways of entering into a relationship with our imagination, experience and creative psyche.
Each week will bring together two dimensions: the intellectual and the embodied.
For each session, participants will receive a text to read, usually sent a few days in advance, offering a conceptual understanding of the theme. During the sessions, we will work through movement explorations, improvisation and creative tasks, seeking ways to embody, experience and personally engage with the proposed themes.
Throughout the laboratory, each participant will be encouraged to keep a personal artist’s notebook. This will be a space for recording images, dreams, reflections and artistic visions, as well as documenting the personal and creative material emerging over the course of the process.
Laboratory Structure
1. Creativity as Instinct
The body as a source of creativity, sensation and spontaneous expression.
Through somatic practices, improvisation and free movement, we will explore creative instinct and our natural impulses towards expression. An introduction to the process and our shared practice.
2. Artist as Psychopomp
The artist as someone moving between visible and invisible worlds, the personal and the collective. Creativity as instinct, vocation and a response to the needs of the contemporary world.
We will explore creative archetypes and examine the images, figures and themes that attract us. We will also seek connections between our personal creative longings and our place in the world.
3. Life/Art Process I
Self-portrait practice inspired by the Halprin Life/Art Process.
Through drawing, movement and reflection, we will explore our personal experience of the body, its history, and the images, feelings and associations that emerge.
4 & 5. Christmas Break — Personal Life/Art Practice
Time for independent exploration, keeping an artist’s notebook and developing the material discovered during the first sessions.
6. Life/Art Process II
A continuation of our self-portrait work.
Deepening the relationship between personal imagery, embodied experience and artistic expression. Experimenting with material that emerged through earlier explorations.
7. Image as Portal
Inner images and symbols as sources of creativity.
We will work with motifs, places, figures and imaginings that recur in our inner worlds, exploring ways of embodying and artistically developing them.
8. Moving the Dream
Dreams as a source of personal creative material.
Through movement, improvisation, imagination and writing, we will explore dream images, their atmospheres, figures, relationships and qualities, allowing them to take on new forms of expression.
9. Image & Dream
Integrating the experiences, images and materials that have emerged throughout the laboratory.
Returning to motifs and themes that have felt particularly alive, continuing to experiment with them, and reflecting together on our individual creative processes and possibilities for continuing our artistic practice.
The structure of the sessions may change according to the needs, energy and dynamics of the group.
Who Is It For?
DEEP SEA is a space for:
People with rich inner worlds and a curiosity about exploring their imagination.
Those wishing to deepen their creative expression and discover more personal sources of inspiration.
People who enjoy expressing themselves through dance and movement, improvising and experimenting with different artistic forms.
Dancers, performers, actors and artists interested in the relationship between personal experience, creativity and the world — self = art = world.
Those interested in dreams, symbols, deep imagination and their role in the creative process.
People curious about approaches such as the Halprin Life/Art Process, soulcraft, depth psychology and creative practices rooted in personal experience.
You do not need to be a professional dancer or artist. What matters more is an openness to exploring through the body, improvisation and your own imagination.
Please note: This programme is neither therapy nor a dance technique course. It is a space for personal and artistic exploration, where creativity becomes a way of encountering ourselves and the world more deeply.
What You Will Receive
Seven creative laboratory sessions (10.5 hours) — dance, improvisation, embodied practice and deep imagination in an intimate group setting.
An introduction to the Halprin Life/Art Process — selected principles and practical explorations involving self-portraiture, drawing, movement and personal experience.
An introduction to depth psychology in relation to creativity — selected perspectives on the creative psyche, the unconscious, archetypes, symbols and the role of the artist.
Practical tools for working with imagination and dreams — exercises exploring personal imagery, symbols and dream material as sources of artistic inspiration.
An exploration of your artistic identity — recognising the themes, images, fascinations and questions that are particularly significant to your creative practice.
Opportunities to develop your personal artistic language — experimenting with translating inner imagery and experience into movement, voice, text, drawing and other creative forms.
Educational materials for each session — selected readings and resources introducing theoretical perspectives and artistic inspirations.
Independent creative practice assignments — suggested explorations between sessions, including a practice inspired by the Halprin Life/Art Process during the Christmas break.
A personal artist’s notebook practice — a collection of images, dreams, sketches, reflections and creative material that you can continue developing after the laboratory.
A space for sharing experiences and artistic exploration — collective reflection, exchange and the opportunity to develop your individual creative practice in a group of no more than ten participants.
Practical Information
Dates: 4 December 2026 – 29 January 2027
Sessions: Fridays, 7:30–9:00 PM
Location: Kontakt Przestrzeń, Kraków, Poland
Format: Seven sessions, alongside suggested independent creative practice during the Christmas break, inspired by the Halprin Life/Art Process.
There will be no sessions on 25 December or 1 January.
Included: Educational materials for each week, alongside readings inspired by the programme’s bibliography.
Fee: 1,350 PLN for the full programme.
Discount: 10% for current and former participants of We Speak Body and The Fluid Body.
Limited places: Maximum 10 participants.
Registration: mjburtan@gmail.com
Facilitator: Magdalena Burtan
www.magdalenaburtan.com
Sample texts and inspiration:
Mary Antonia Wood — The Archetypal Artist.
Daria Halprin — The Expressive Body in Life, Art and Therapy.
Kim Gillingham — Creative Dreamwork.
Kim Hermanson — Deep Knowing: Entering the Realm of Non-Ordinary Intelligence.
Bill Plotkin — Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche.
Gloria Anzaldúa — Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality, red. AnaLouise Keating.
R. Sandford (2019) — A Jungian Approach to Engaging Our Creative Nature. Routledge.
K. Madden (red.) (2016) — The Unconscious Roots of Creativity. Chiron.
P. Ariadne (2006) — Women Dreaming-into-Art: Seven Artists Who Create from Dreams. Galde Press.