Episode 72

Reacting to art with our bodies with Rachel Ropeik

Today I’m talking to Rachel Ropeik about her work. We’re talking about how we can use our bodies to react to art & the many ways in which we can incorporate movement into museum learning.

Rachel Ropeik is an educator, facilitator, adventurer, experience builder and pirate who brings thoughtful, playful, and progressive approaches to catalysing change in arts and culture.

She currently works independently, sharing her skills with various clients. Before going independent, Rachel’s arts education career spanned many a major art museum and travel company in New York, London, Paris, and the internet.

I first heard of Rachel’s work more than 10 years ago as part of a small group of educators that I admired and followed for their innovation and experimentation in the art museum education space.

In our chat today, we talk about Rachel's work past and present and the values and principles that guide her practice.

We focus on why movement has been and still is such an important part of her work and how we can incorporate more movement into our programmes. Rachel shares many examples of the different ways in which she has used movement in different programmes, with different groups and artworks over the years.

We talk about how we can create physical comfort and put people at ease so that we can use movement without any fear or feelings of uncomfortableness.

Rachel shares tools and techniques that we use to incorporate a range of movement into the way we lead our museum programmes. And also how we can use movement ourselves as a way to become more present, aware and reflective.

Finally, Rachel shares 3 amazing books that you all must read immediately. Do stay tuned for her recommendations!