About LAVAN School
It is a school specialized in the development and improvement of the physical, creative and artistic potentialities through the body and its natural movement to apply on and off the stage, providing the student with their innate knowledge, security and power from the concept of embodiment, (connecting health and life learning to take care of the body and how we relate to it) inherent, Lavan is in different ways in contact with nature as a transversal axis for all knowledge and development of the human being.
An important part of LAVAN School is given by the artistic, educational and investigative work of the creator Vanesa Sandín. Her great desire is that everyone (from an educational, professional or personal perspective) can feel pleasure moving and expressing. For this you have to feel comfortable with yourself and in that setting: this is where the work truly begins, in discarding what the body does not need from movement and replacing it with tools and actions that create pleasure.
From her first classes shortly after qualifying (more than fifteen years ago), Vanesa observed that the student has much more material and internal depth than they are able to express outwardly. The tensions and rigidities that possibly accompany them throughout their life must be unlearned in order to be able to self-express, and there are a thousand ways to make a theatrical character one’s own without falling into clichés.
Subsequent investigations (Bioteatro, Corporales Cartographies, Bodydiary) have focused on this observation, and each one has provided depth and clarity to the expressive, creative and personal developmental process.
Throughout the years Vanesa has also collaborated with various highly recognized professionals in diverse fields of the performing arts: dancers, actors, performance and fine art artists; building bridges with professionals in psychology, sociology, education and art and movement therapies. This has nurtured her by forming a broad vision of the modes of application and processes in action.
From the beginning, Vanesa has always been clear in her working method that personal biography cannot be separated from the creative processes and she has made it a point to keep it in mind and be able to play with it later, making it more or less visible but never ignoring it. If it becomes visible, it is best to make it aesthetic but not obvious. Thus, both in group and individual processes, a space is given to verbalize or identify what is familiar and thus be able to modulate creation to one side or the other.
Space is also an important factor, which is why Vanesa has always found it important to take her students to different locations and to be able to experience work within the classroom and not only on stage. She has used any space of interest such as the stalls, the wardrobe or the window that overlooks the street; roads, squares or environments in direct contact with nature such as the sea or the mountain, thus giving an amplified vision from a wide and nourished Creativ lifeart that LavanStudio enjoys today.
The work method has been based in Barcelona and carried out in various schools of dance and interpretation; a center for holistic and artistic therapies, Institutes of psychology and even lectures at the University of Medicine UAB. Vanesa has also traveled to other parts ;f the country such as Madrid, the Canary Islands, Extremadura, Galicia …
The environment
Is Settled in Garraf (40 km from Barcelona, bathed by the Mediterranean Sea on one side and sheltered by the Garraf Natural Park on the other) where it continues to establish links with collaborative research, knowledge and interdisciplinary practices with colleagues from Barcelona and different parts of the world.
Vanesa’s idea has been to bring the arts, creation and the human closer to what is no less important than contact with nature.
The Founder
More than a decade ago I began to teach under other names, research projects and formations based on movement and expressive arts, in which the expression and development of the individual was sought across different disciplines. Although its search focus has evolved as a living organism itself, it has always had a common ethic, respect and empathy for the developmental processes of both the person and their creative process.
Vanesa Sandín Mendo has a long history in the world of expressive arts and therapies. From different perspectives within the artistic disciplines, she has always been involved in the realization of creations, festivals, conferences, lectures, urban workshops and retreats. Her passion and dedication for the arts has helped her to weave a personal look where introspection and autobiography have been the engine of her creations and projects. Believing in the importance of the arts as a way to heal and treat traumas, she applies both to her personal works, as well as to artistic and scenic advice and to the pedagogical and educational areas.
A life devoted to the arts, where each training, research and review has given her a clear way of working in order to give her best in each meeting, training or therapeutic session.
Her way of approaching art makes the encounter warm and close yet at the same time aesthetic and transgressive; facilitating an encounter with sensitivity and tenderness to allow facing the challenges that the encounter with one’s own shadow can generate.
One of its differentiating values is that technique is not incompatible with personal development. Throughout her career Vanesa has trained people from vastly different fields: actors, dancers, psychologists, social workers, therapists, nurses, doctors, computer scientists, biologists … and she always combines a professional application of the technique with personal introspection, doing a preliminary analysis of who is in front of her and the objectives they want to achieve (both at the group level and in agreements with the client).
This method opens the possibilities not only to professionals of the performing arts or art therapies but also helps everyone to acquire tools that they can implement in their personal and professional life, no matter how far away from the world of the arts they may be, since what it does is to connect with the creativity and inner and physical consciousness of each person.
Vanesa Sandín has an academic, extra-academic and vital training that gives her the possibility of being able to offer a look from different angles and perspectives from the creation and scenic interpretation, through pedagogy and expressive therapies, allowing her to approach with a spyglass and offer a range of solutions and questions in classes, sessions and trainings.
