Laura Geiger
therapeutic theatre:
liberation work for rascals, rebels, mystics, and makers of mistakes
"What Laura
sees and calls
forth brings an expansiveness
and a magic
all of its own."
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About Laura
Laura Geiger is a therapeutic theatre practitioner and artist working in private facilitation for individuals and groups both online and in southern Sweden where she lives. Laura uses a variety of applied theatre modalities and performing arts to help her clients explore and accept aspects of self, find agency through direct experience, divest from content-as-identity, thrive in not knowing, increase capacity for solidarity and connection, restore their poetic imagination and become a responding instrument, play and be silly, befriend self-consciousness, and resensitize to life, beauty, and enchantment.
As a self-appointed apprentice to the Fool, Laura is committed to keeping it weird, as well as "detached from the deadening edifice of clever ambitions, of power, and of the incredible vanity of knowledge, that has already dulled the capacity for the poetry of life in contemporary society." (Collins) This is why she is no longer on social media.
P.S. I’ve been doing this gig since 2011, fine tuning and redirecting toward what feels most alive along the way. You can see a list of my training here, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
The urgency you feel is not about needing to express yourself. The urgency is the pull to express the exquisite imprint of that which moves you.
How does clown liberate?
Clown is an intense direction of personal and relational liberation because a clown is not afraid to be wrong, to fail, to do less and be enough. A clown embodies hope and does not give up, back down, nor relinquish integrity when faced with a problem. A clown is never finished, never polished, always imperfect, and comfortable in the not knowing. Clowns are steeped in pleasure. Even in grief, even in anxiety, a clown finds the pleasure inside it. Your clown is the you who is not cynical, not obedient, and not finished yet.
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How does bouffon liberate?
Bouffon is unconcerned with social expectations and revels in challenging the relational space with an orientation toward radical truth-telling and general mayhem and mockery. Bouffon allows us to interrogate our complicity in our own silencing, shrinking, and socially-mandated sweetness. In bouffon, we get to break the social contract and be kinda gross assholes for a minute. The freedom in enjoying being bad is palpable - and hilarious.
How does fool liberate?
Fool is a lightning rod of presence, aliveness, and freedom. Fool is an enchantment practice that liberates our expression. This liberation is not only about authenticity and closing the gap between what we feel and what we say. This liberation is freeing our expression from the obligation of representing our truth, defending our worth, and validating our existence. Fool helps us reorient toward our infinite selves, by which our content (what we do, what we say, how we look) becomes playful, a bonus. The Fool helps us restore our poetic imagination and remember that we are, after all, responding instruments (Burroughs).
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How does voicework liberate?
Because the voice is the mirror to the soul and our acoustic identity, working with it in practice is an instantly intimate and concentrated act. We can access and integrate a newfound fullness and complexity of self when we explore range, volume, and tone quality. We can sound our shadows to occupy our edges - without flooding, without re-traumatizing - in the built-in container of voicework. The more diverse our vocalization becomes, the more of ourselves we are allowing into existence. Much of our magic is often locked up behind our vocal cords.
How does puppetry liberate?
Puppet is an ancient language filled with the echoes of our ancestors’ rituals. When we animate an object, we create profound opportunities for self-reflection. We embody the metaphor, steep ourselves in symbolic and poetic language, develop an empathy for the more-than-human, and ultimately divest from oppression as a living energy (in our bodies, in our art, in our expression) when we use our bodies and breath to give life to another. We do not manipulate or control; we listen to help the puppet fulfill its destiny and express its autonomy. And in doing so, we free ourselves.
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How does mask liberate?
Mask is another ancient, mythical inheritance that we humans instantly recognize as sacred and storied. Mask helps us straddle the both/and and reject reductive binaries. We are at once us and not-us, present and absent, embodied and transcendent. Masks give us instant permission to demechanize and dishabituate our patterns of moving, feeling, and expressing. By hiding or covering parts of ourselves, other parts are activated and feel safe enough to move through us. Mask work draws out what is chronically hidden by hiding what is habitually expressed.