Cathy Madden

Teaching as Deep Play

“Above all, play requires freedom. One chooses to play. Play’s rules may be enforced, but play is not like life’s other dramas. It happens outside ordinary life and it requires freedom.”---Diane Ackerman Deep Play

Cathy Madden’s study of the Alexander Technique began in 1975 when she had her first lesson with Marjorie Barstow. Barstow’s ability to make learning fun and to teach students how to use the Technique in everything they did is at the heart of Cathy’s teaching. In this session, Madden will create a learning environment for the group, an interactive playground, exploring constructive conscious thinking/moving. The topics she will be highlighting are: 1) using the Alexander Technique “in the moment” 2) group teachings’ gifts to the Alexander Technique; and 3) how to create the deep play that is important in our teaching and our learning. Participants can expect to have more group teaching and communication tools from the experience in the workshop, and can expect to play as they learn.
Module 2

Teaching in Activity

In her second session, Cathy will offer a model from F.M. Alexander’s The Use of the Self as a guide to teaching and applying the Alexander Technique in any activity. The form of the session will alternate between Cathy demonstrating the model, answering questions about the model, and offering experiments that you can use both for yourself and your students. Participants are asked to select an activity and to be prepared to experiment with it during the session. Cathy will provide written materials in several languages to help everyone participate. The session concludes with applying the model to the activity of teaching the Alexander Technique. The theme of “deep play” as a teaching model will continue to inform the work in this session.

Cathy Madden began studying the Alexander Technique with Marjorie Barstow in 1975 while she was a graduate student in theatre at Washington University in St. Louis. She moved to Lincoln, Nebraska to continue her studies with Marjorie Barstow and began teaching the Alexander Technique in 1980. After nearly 8 years in Lincoln, Cathy moved to Seattle where she was a founding member of The Performance School, and began teaching for the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program. Cathy assisted Marjorie Barstow for many years in Lincoln and internationally. Cathy travels regularly to training schools and does workshops in Australia, England, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, She is Associate Director for ATA in Japan. In Seattle, she is Senior Lecturer for the University of Washington’s School of Drama, and Director of the Alexander Technique Training and Performance Studio.
She is also active as a Theatre Director for the University of Washington.

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