Alain d’Ursel
Physiotherapist and teacher – teacher of movement: awareness of the body
Born into a family sensitive to art, Alain d’Ursel began to study theater and poetry at the age of 16, creating a pantomime scene and directing his first play.
At 18, he tried medicine, then architecture at the St Luc School of Architecture in Brussels. He then put his future aspirations on hold and worked in a bookshop for a year. Something clicked. He then decided to dedicate himself to studying the intertwinement of the body and the movement from an art perspective. Dance? Theater? He finally chose to train at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris, from which he graduated in 1976.
He experimented for a while with street theater and directed an amateur theater company. He then organized introductory theater courses for children and adults.
In parallel to his theatrical career, he became interested in the anti-psychiatry movement and worked in an institution for psychotic children. This led him to complete his training by studying physical therapy. At the same time, he followed a course on Muscularl Chains of Godelieve Denys Struyf and wrote his dissertation as part of this teaching.
« The concept of muscular and articular chains arises from the observation of the body, its attitudes and its modes of movement. The foundations of the method are derived from the fact that all the muscles are linked together to form 6 major sets that correspond to the 6 major fundamental gestures, themselves corresponding to the 6 directions of space. Each of these 6 sets can be dominant and sculpt the body by giving it a specific attitude and gesture. The skeleton, a living architecture, organizes the cohabitation of these great antagonistic sets according to the formula « the mode of use of the body is registered in the shape of the bones. »
After graduating, , he worked with Mrs. Struyf and her team in her medical center. Since then, he has been following this holistic, person-centered approach, combining treatments, courses and internships.. He also has been teaching according to this method at a school of physiotherapy (Parnasse- Deux-Alice) in Brussels.
Eager for knowledge and discovery, Alain d’Ursel took courses on:
- The F.M. Alexander technique
- A training in Qi Gong (5 basic movements as a range of all possible movements)
- A training in Chinese medicine and Shiatsu
He also participated for a few years in the European project of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, which involves artists in school programs in order to enhance balance and encourage tolerance among children.
Since 1983, Alain d’Ursel has been teaching at the LASSAAD school, bringing all the richness of his knowledge. There he pursues his work with the aim of letting pupils rediscover the human body as it is, relying on simplicity, humility, and reality; like a craftsman who, little by little, removes all that is useless in order to gradually better understand the tool in hand.
Since September 2020, he has been teaching the course « Anatomy and Practical Kinesthesia » in the new section dedicated to BaRR (Rhythm and rythmics) at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels.