Seriously Fun | Curiously Addictive
Founded by Nina Wise
A program of Motion Institute
An original form of autobiographical improvisation, Motion Theater® is simultaneously performance art and a refreshingly authentic spiritual practice. Motion Theater was created by award-winning Bay Area performer Nina Wise, and further developed with her longtime collaborator Corey Fischer. Motion has been described by both participants and audiences as funny, moving, liberating and transformational. Motion is playful, mindful self-expression where you’re likely to experience a freer more spontaneous you.
Discover more about Motion Theater
"When you become addicted to what frees you instead of to what keeps you unhappy, your life changes."
— Nina Wise
"Doing Motion Theater was one of the most transformative experiences of my life."
— Halya, Filmmaker, CBC Canada
about Motion Theater
an Interview with Nina Wise
This interview is part of the Thriving in Your Third Act Summit, a free online event here ou'll discover powerful practices and profound wisdom to ignite your life after 50! For more information, please visit thrivinginyourthirdact.com. This recording is a copyright of The Shift Network. All rights reserved.
Take a Workshop
Take a Workshop
Take a workshop
Become part of the welcoming, growing Motion community. Motion has a strong movement component, so we teach movement as part of the training. It also has a strong narrative element, so we teach what we call writing on your feet, as the narrative is spoken rather than written for the page. Combining these elements, the body as well as the voice is used for a full out form of improvised autobiographical expression. Move like you’ve never moved. Sing, growl, chant. Tell the stories only you can tell and experience a bone-deep, soul-deep liberation. Feel lighter, wiser, sweeter, and, yes, hungry for more Motion.
"FABULOUS! Absolutely the best thing on the planet for grown ups — to have fun and be spontaneous and open their hearts."
— Rhys, Professor of Psychology
"One of the most transformative experiences of my life."
— Nancy, Attorney
"It was absolutely the BEST workshop of my entire life (and I'm old!!). I felt inspired to stretch myself, give myself to the process, and LIVE!"
— Judy, Psychotherapist
In a Motion Theater® class, you’ll:
In a Motion Theater class, you’ll learn to tell your stories on your feet, utilizing language, sound and movement as your tools of expression.
In each workshop you’ll:
Warm up and free up your body and voice
Move in response to your inner impulses
Play theater games that open you up and generate creativity and well-being
Hone your writing and storytelling skills
Embody your personal narrative
Engage in uplifting adult play
Motion Theater practices are designed to raise your spirits, inspire personal insight, deepen intimacy, create community, expand awareness, enhance self-confidence and develop presence and craft as a leader or performer.
Performance Lab
This advanced Lab meets once a week for three to six months and is intended for people who’ve already taken a Motion Theatre workshop. You’ll hone your Motion Theater skills practicing solo, duet, trio and ensemble forms with other trained improvisers. Advanced Lab culminates in a public performance. Through this expressive, transformational practice, you’ll cultivate presence, advance your artistic craft and develop your leadership and presentation skills.
Motion Theater Workshops
Our stories live in our bodies, in our cells, so we move from the inside out, giving voice and form to our personal characters and realities. We unwind, we engage in gentle and vigorous movement, we vocalize, we tell stories. Expect to surprise yourself, to become more playful and at ease before an audience, to enhance your use of language, and to gain greater insight and appreciation of your stories, your life, yourself and others. Weekly classes, daylong, and weekend workshops offered throughout the year.
Motion Theater Immersion
Immerse yourself in both the therapeutic and performance aspects of Motion as you hone your skills in the solo, duet and ensemble forms that are the essential building blocks of the practice. Through this intensive practice with a group of committed colleagues, you will unleash your creativity, discover an innate freedom of being, gain insights about your past and present, and develop proficiencies in self-expression that are likely to spill over into all aspects of your life. Motion Immersion consists of six weekend workshops and one five-day retreat. There are no pre-requisites for Immersion.
Upcoming Performances
Upcoming Performances
What Just Happened
Performance by Nina Wise
Saturday, January 25, 2025, 7:30 pm
Marin Shakespeare Company
514 4th Street, San Rafael, CA
We’re offering a $5 discount for friends of Motion.
Enter the code WISE FRIENDS at checkout.
Daunted by the news of the world? Come relieve your heart and mind as Nina gets up on stage and through movement-fused storytelling conveys the personal, political and social events that have transpired over the past 24 hours with striking insight and her always unpredictable rendition of life on planet earth. She has been described as a cross between Lily Tomlin, the Dalai Lama and Jules Feiffer. And audiences repeatedly report they have never seen anything quite like one of her performances before — that they are at one instant laughing so hard they are falling off their seats and the next moment moved to tears. Don’t miss this soulful entertainer whose work is steeped in wisdom, compassion and humor.
“Every so often an artist comes along and when watching her perform, you say to yourself, ‘I’m so lucky to be alive to witness this.’ Nina Wise is that kind of artist.”
“Nina is an empowering, joyful and celebratory guide to a fuller life.”
“Nina Wise is like the Jules Pfeiffer dancer come to life. She says in public what I’m thinking and feeling but musn’t reveal. After the audience experiences her performance art, we can’t stop talking about her. We care about what she cares about. And we care about her.”
Tickets
We’re offering a $5 discount for friends of Motion.
Enter the code WISE FRIENDS at checkout.
Join our mailing list to receive notifications about upcoming events and workshops.
Become a Teacher
Become a Teacher
Motion Theater® Teacher Training
If you’re ready to go more deeply into the art of Motion Theater and teach others this liberating practice, take Motion Theater Teacher Training. Motion Theater Immersion or the equivalent Motion Theater training is a prerequisite to the Teacher Training.
Motion Theater Immersion
Immerse yourself in both the therapeutic and performance aspects of Motion as you hone your skills in the solo, duet and ensemble forms that are the essential building blocks of the practice. Through this intensive practice with a group of committed colleagues, you will unleash your creativity, discover an innate freedom of being, gain insights about your past and present, and develop proficiencies in self-expression that are likely to spill over into all aspects of your life. Motion Immersion consists of six weekend workshops and one five-day retreat. There are no pre-requisites for Immersion.
Motion Theater Teacher Training 1
Gain proficiency in the core Motion Theater forms and become certified to teach beginning and intermediate levels of Motion.
Meet our Teachers
Meet our Teachers
We’re thrilled that Motion Theater® is making its way out into the world through our widening circle of certified teachers.
Nina Wise
Performance Artist and Motion Theater’s Founder
Nina Wise has given solo performances and taught Motion Theatre in prestigious venues in the U.S., South America, Europe and Asia. She’s won awards for playwriting, innovative design and new theater, including three NEA fellowships and seven Bay Area Theater Critics’ Circle Awards. After having many shorter writings appear in magazines and anthologies, Nina wrote “A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life” (Broadway Books) to give people who aren’t able to take a Motion workshop a way to move their stories out and live freer happier lives.
“Since I was a student, earning degrees in religious studies and the aesthetics of movement, I’ve been dedicated to understanding the relationship of body, mind and spirit. I’ve sought out everyone from great choreographers such as Twyla Tharpe, Anna Halprin and Margy Jenkins to spiritual teachers such as Jack Kornfield and HWJ Poonjaji to chaos theorists, neuroscientists, cosmologists and economists in an endlessly fascinating journey. Early on, I discovered that the body holds knowledge the mind knows nothing of and, that if given voice, those understandings can fuel and free the spirit. This is why I created Motion Theater. I wanted to give people a way to transform their lives through self-expression.” — Nina Wise
Nina lives in San Rafael, California. She teaches workshops and performs worldwide.
Book Nina for a Solo Performance • Visit Nina's Website • Email Nina
Sybil Meyer
San Francisco East Bay
Sybil Meyer is a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT) and expressive arts therapist. She has studied, performed and taught various disciplines of dance and movement arts for most of her life. As a therapist, she has brought the healing and expressive aspects of those disciplines to clients and students in colleges, private studios, and clinical settings. Practicing Motion Theater since 2006 has strengthened her belief in the value and necessity of creative self expression. She sees the Motion art form as a way of addressing the profound need people have to be seen, heard, and witnessed in their efforts to make sense of our increasingly chaotic world; and to articulate their personal stories.
Annie Kunjappy
NYC
Annie first trained in Motion Theater with Nina Wise in 2000 and 2001, a period that coincided with her father's illness and death, which gave Annie particularly immediate and profound evidence of the power of this work to excavate and illuminate one's experiential life. Until moving to Brooklyn in 2004, Annie performed with Nina and assisted her in teaching Motion workshops. Now living in the hamlet of Milton in the Hudson Valley, Annie continues to teach and perform Motion Theater. She’s also co-director of Woof Nova, a Theater collective that creates ensemble-devised performance works.
Jenn mccandless
Santa Barbara
Jenn McCandless is a Performance Artist, a Movement Educator and a Creativity Coach. She is passionate about movement and the artful, authentic and playful expression of the experience of life through the intrinsic language of the body- movement, sound, narrative. Ignited 30 years ago, she has since delved into several unique practices dedicated to this form of creative expression. They include: The 5 Rhythms, Body Tales, Action Theater, The Tamalpa Institute Life/Art Process, and Dance Improvisation. Since 2004, she has immersed in the practice of Motion Theater. She finds the sourcing and giving of voice through the language of the body to be revelatory, liberating and wholly joy-filled.
Website Coming Soon • Email Jenn
Private Coaching
Writers, Actors,
Dancers and Presenters
Private Coaching
Writers, Actors,
Dancers and Presenters
Motion is great for everyone—from therapists to teachers to couples to athletes, and it’s particularly great for creatives who are already practicing a form of self-expression. We offer one-on-one coaching and group workshops for actors, speakers, dancers and authors. Nina has even coached fine artists looking to break through a creative ceiling.
For Writers and Authors
Preparing for a book tour and want to spellbind your audience? Need a creative jumpstart? Whether your write fiction or non-fiction, Motion Theater® can help you uncover a trove of narrative material, more wholly embody your characters, paint more vivid scenes and delve more deeply into the heart of your stories. Motion Theater frees up the creative imagination, inspiring a flow of language unhampered by the censoring mind. Writers often refine material they generate in class into works they go on to publish.
Motion also offers essential skills in vocal warm up, relaxation, projection and articulation, making it easier for you to imbue readings with the kind of authenticity that conveys the emotions inherent in the narrative rather than any unsettled emotions you might feel while performing.
For Actors
Want to embolden your work with a vital physical presence? Want to feel at home on stage? The body of the actor expresses as much as the voice, so the ability to move with ease essential to your craft as a performer. In a Motion Theater workshop, you’ll learn to feel at ease in your body, to respond to physical impulses as they arise, and to develop a strong and relaxed physical presence on stage and off.
You’ll also learn how to warm up your voice, integrate language with movement, and expand your vocal range of expression. Like Jim Carey and Robin Williams, you can free the voice to express in sound what language cannot reveal—and the process is truly pleasurable.
For Dancers
Use your voice as expressively as you use your body. Speak with clarity and authenticity. Develop narrative content that is not only interesting but also moving. Motion Theater teaches skills essential to dancers who utilize spoken word in their performances. You’ll learn how to warm up your voice, expand your range of vocal expression, integrate movement and text, project your voice and, most important, express language in a way that feels fresh, authentic and free of artifice.
In a Motion Theater workshop, you’ll discover new narrative material through your body and learn to craft it in a way that is simple and direct. In a private session with Nina, you can pinpoint specific challenges and receive directorial guidance in the most effective way of integrating narrative and movement.
For Speakers
Speak from your heart as well as your mind. Learn to relax while you’re on stage, so that your best and most authentic self can emerge. Learn to rely on what you know more than on your notes. Get help with crafting a talk that has strong beginning, middle and end and integrates stories that are moving as well as informative. Enhance your trust of spontaneity, your ability to be funny on the spot, and most important, develop a presence that will serve you from the podium to the boardroom, and just walking through life.
“Nina is writer, dancer, storyteller, performer, teacher (I think we call this “multi-hyphenate”?) who creates amazing theatrical work of her own, and has also built a boutique consulting practice where she coaches elite talent toward realizing both written and staged projects. She’s been a huge source of wisdom and guidance for me personally, by far one of the most skilled “creative doulas” I’ve ever encountered.”
Book Nina
Book Nina
Nina Wise is internationally renowned for her spontaneous performances that address the most relevant issues of our time. Described as a blend of Lily Tomlin, the Dalai Lama, and Jules Feiffer she is known for her quirky humor, her wisdom, and her startling physicality.
As a teacher, Nina has helped thousands discover the insights and pleasure that emerge from spontaneous self expression. As a coach, she has helped individuals break through creative barriers, self-limiting habits and facilitated teams to source their greatest creative potential.
Book Nina for a custom-designed performance for your theater or event and a workshop for your staff, your friends and colleagues, your community – or yourself.
"Nina is an empowering, joyful, and celebratory guide to a fuller life. Creativity is enhanced when we learn to play, dare to break the rules. Nina teaches us to expand our senses and to connect body and soul while having fun."
— Isabel Allende
Nina improvising at Anna Halprin's 95th birthday celebration.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED
Nina Wise’s What Just Happened is an improvisational performance based on personal and political events which have transpired over the previous twenty-four hours.
What Just Happened played at The Marsh Theater in San Francisco and Berkeley in 2009 and 2010, and was met with sold-out shows, standing ovations and great reviews. Since then she has performed at venues inNew York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Big Sur, Marin County and more to audiences who are consistently moved by the immediacy, humor and depth of the work.
"Nina Wise joins great talent with spiritual understanding. No one else I know so intimately joins the sublime and the absurd, surface and depth, the high and the low. Her range is enormous."
— Natalie Goldberg, author
Nina Wise performs at the Marin Veterans Auditorium, November 2015.
Relevant Event Entertainment
Need conference and event entertainment that is inspirational, intelligent, and funny? Want uplifting and comic entertainment that also engages meaningfully with the core themes of your event?
Book Nina Wise for custom-crafted entertainment, melding scripted performance with improvised content. Nina creates an elevating show that integrates intellectual information with heartfelt stories providing attendees an unforgettable experience. Performances are customized to fit your time slots, from 15 to 60 minutes.
"Sometimes an artist comes along and you say to yourself, “I am so lucky to be alive to witness this moment."
— Marianne Williamson, author, producer Sister Giant conference
"I can only say one word about Nina Wise’s performance... WOW!!!!!! She came highly recommended so I decided to give her a shot. She blew me and the whole audience away. Such an amazing show— fun, intelligent, beautiful to watch and to listen to. I am now the one highly recommending her to YOU like my friends once did to me."
— Maurizio Benazzo, producer, Science and Non Duality Conference
"I have been producing a series of benefits to bring water to villages in Africa. Nina Wise has concluded the evenings with one of her signature, startling and deeply moving performances. Each time I have seen her perform, I have been convinced that this is the best of her work and yet the next time, she surprises me yet again. It is the brilliant combination of art, spirit, text and movement that makes Nina’s work so unique and so powerful."
— Roger Housden, producer, Poetry for Water, and author
Team Building for Creativity and Productivity
Need your team to work together with more trust and ease, so their self-censoring mechanisms fall away and their creativity thrives? Know that taking the risk to make mistakes and look foolish allows your team members to express their innermost brilliance?
Nina Wise offers team building workshops in improvisation and self-expression that guide participants to relax, engage and play. Creativity explodes. Team bonds solidify. Work becomes more fun. Workshops range from 2 hours to a multi-day series.
Executive Coaching for Authentic Leadership
Want to develop presence, clarity, and the ability to tell stories that move your audience to laughter and tears as you inspire and educate? Need to reduce on- the-job stress so that you feel refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated at work? Want to develop spontaneity and access your deepest intelligence?
Coaching sessions with Nina Wise will help you relax into your natural ease. You will find that you think more clearly, have more fun, attract the trust and respect of others. As you learn to tell moving and funny stories about your own life, you will inspire others as well as teach them about the principles dearest to your heart.
"Nina is a terrific teacher, encouraging, challenging. She helped me work through a lifelong problem."
— Brian, IBM, Menlo Park
Clients
Wells Fargo
Kaiser Permanente
Zen Center of California
Antenna Group
National Natural Foods Association
Hospice of Northern California
Board of Directors, Headlands Center for the Arts
Marianne Williamson Sister Giant Conference
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
UC Berkeley, Extension Center Conferences
California Institute of Integral Studies
Isabel Allende, author, speaker
Steve Ellis, VP Wells Fargo
Mollie Katzen, cookbook author
Science and Non Duality Conference
Shivas Iron Society
International Transpersonal Association
BJ Miller, Executive Director Zen Hospice
Jeff Greenwald, Author
Bio
Wise’s original performance works have been produced in prestigious venues in the US, South America, Europe and Asia and have won awards for playwriting, innovative design, and new theater including three NEA fellowships and seven Bay Area Theater Critics Awards. She is the author of A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life and her stories and articles have been published in numerous anthologies and journals.
Her immersive theater piece The Kepler Story, created for planetarium domes, played to sold out crowds at California Academy of Sciences Morrison Planetarium and is the first theater piece ever created about an astronomer designed for planetariums.
As an artist and teacher who specializes in innovation, she has coached numerous individuals and teams in creativity, stress reduction, communication and leadership.
ARTICLES & REVIEWS
Marin Arts and Culture
Article in Marin IJ
Interview in Contact Quarterly
Review in East Bay Express