animate: (adjective) alive, living, breathing, sentient, conscious
arts: (noun, plural) practised skills, as in ‘the art of living’
About
‘Animate arts’ is an initiative of Sophia van Ruth, a freelance practitioner based in the Netherlands. The main intention of ‘animate arts’ is to bring people into embodied relationship with their world.
The focus is on health and sustainability…for you personally, for your workplace, for your community, for your school or university.
One of the first steps to a healthier world is awareness. Awareness of what is happening within our selves and our world. Reconnecting with our bodies and communities in very direct ways is the aim of many of the services offered. To help us to live, work and act with full ‘presence’.
Introducing Sophia…
I originally trained as an Interior Designer (but this is a profession I left behind many years ago). I began my career working with Urban Ecology Australia, an organisation dedicated to creating sustainable and vibrant urban environments. During this time I came to specialise in facilitating collaborative design and decision making processes and went on to work as a freelancer in this field in Australia for 10 years. Much of my work focussed on facilitating community involvement in urban development projects.
I am also a qualified massage therapist and shiatsu practitioner. Shiatsu is a Japanese healing art based on the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This training transformed my ways of seeing the world, as the oriental healing arts take a more holistic approach. Shiatsu seeks to work with broader patterns of health and illness that include how a person is integrating into their environs. The attitude is to expand our view to see the full context and patterns for a person as opposed to the approach of narrowing our view to identify and eliminate specific symptoms only.
In 2008 I completed the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College, where my dissertation project explored the potential for using the improvisational arts within education. Primarily, I was focusing on a form of improvisation called InterPlay as a tool for connecting people to more holistic ways of seeing and knowing, and for making authentic meaning of knowledge in a constantly changing, dynamic world. InterPlay works with improvised movement, voice, story and stillness in an affirming culture designed to make people safe in spontaneously expressing their creativity. InterPlay is highly accessible to people with no background in the arts or with improvisation. In mid 2007, I completed the InterPlay ‘leadership program’ and the facilitator training for this art form.
My current professional life I find to be a nice blend, I am practising shiatsu and massage part time which leaves me time to pursue other things dear to my heart. Since leaving Schumacher college I have been developing and running seminars blending InterPlay and holistic science, you can see more about these here. Most recently I have also been working enthusiastically with two fellow Hub members on a project called Urban Edibles to encourage, resource and support urbanites to grow food on their balconies and window ledges. Further to this I often run introductory shiatsu workshops, or public InterPlay sessions. Take a look around this website to see what’s on offer.
Essentially I see all of my work as focussed on creating health, either on a personal, community or global level. I have always sought to facilitate healthy ways of being in whatever field I was working.
Download Sophia’s bodywork resume
Download Sophia’s freelance resume
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KvK (Dutch Chamber of Commerce) number: 27338428
BTW (Dutch VAT, or GST) number: NL7817.03.712.B01
ABN (Australian Business Number): 16 928 031 661
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