Pathways for Returning Home:

Body Earth Reciprocity

Online event

1-2 May 2021

An intensive weekend of eco-somatic workshops to explore the ancient reciprocity between body and earth.

Led by Dr Raffaele Rufo (IT), Tiago Gambogi (BR/UK), Nathalie Mann (FR) and Valentina Vitolo (IT) (click here for the bios of facilitators).

Bookings at: www.interculturalroots.org

WHEN

Starts on: Saturday, May 1, 2021
Ends on: Sunday, May 2, 2021

Starts at: 9:30am (London, BST)
Ends at: 5:00pm (London, BST)

TICKETS

General Admission: GBP£ 45 (Eu€52 US$62)
Concessionary: GBP£ 30 (Eu€35 US$41)

DETAILS

Level: All
Number of places available: 5

Type of format: Intensive weekend
Duration of each day: 7.5 hours

Language: English (with auto Close Captioning available)
Technical Platform: Zoom Pro

VIDEO TRAILER

FULL DESCRIPTION

The earth is our home. The body is our home. But we have lost the capacity to recognise and honour this fundamental bond. How can we engage somatic movement and improvisational dance as perceptual windows into the ancient reciprocity between body and earth? This weekend of live and recorded workshops aims to offer participants a range of pathways for engaging in a direct and intimate sensory connection with the natural environment. The practice will be facilitated by four eco-somatic artists who will guide participants through a process of attending to the basic somatic processes of breath, touch and movement while sensing and responding to the embodied presence of more-than-human living beings and systems like trees, grass, stones, water, soil and air. These pathways will combine and integrate elements of the different disciplines practiced by the facilitators: Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, contemporary dance, dance improvisation, Contact Improvisation, Tango, performance, physical theatre and eco-phenomenology. The weekend is organised with an open and flexible schedule which encourages participants to find ways to practice outdoors. We will begin with a meeting on Zoom in the morning to tune into our bodies and present the recorded materials. Then there will be a long interval of time for accessing the recorded materials, organising and carrying out the outdoor practice independently. We will conclude each day by meeting again on Zoom in the late afternoon to share sensations, emotions, insights, encounters, difficulties and potentialities of this work. 

ECO-SOMATIC WORKSHOPS

Breathing with plants, with Nathalie Mann (FR)

Duets with trees, with Dr Raffaele Rufo (IT)

Awakening the inner animal, with Valentina Vitolo (IT)

Body-earth osmosis, with Tiago Gambogi (BR/UK)

You can find the detailed schedule of the event below. Recorded materials will be made available on this dedicated webpage on Friday 30 April at 12 noon to give participants some time to access them in advance and do some planning ahead of the weekend. If you feel comfortable, you can access the recorded materials at home and then go out without bringing technology with you. We encourage participants to keep a journal of their practice and to consider also other forms of documentation (audio, video, drawings, etc.) when these can be integrated smoothly in the practice. We also encourage participants to compare the experience of engaging the explorations alone with the experience of being witnessed by someone else. How does the presence of other humans influence your sensations and emotions?

TAKE-AWAY BENEFITS

The theme of this year’s “Earth Day” is “Restoring Earth” (https://www.earthday.org). As movers and dancers we believe we can contribute to the ecological cause by restoring our relation with the human body as part of nature. Our intention for this intensive weekend is to provide participants with a range of somatic and improvisational tools and strategies for challenging the default patterns of moving and relating with the natural environment and for deepening the ability to attune and empathise with other forms of life. This is a goal that cuts across health and social change. We will endeavour to create a collaborative learning environment which supports participants in reclaiming the regulatory and transformative power of embodiment in their lives and in embracing their potential role as grassroots agents of ecological consciousness.

local times

London (BST) 9:30-17:00

Berlin (CEST) 10:30-18:00

Paris (CEST) 10:30-18:00

Milan (CEST) 10:30-18:00

São Paulo (BRT) 5:30-13:00

Melbourne (AEST) 18:30-2:00

DAY ONE (Sat 1st May, UK BST time)

09:30-10:15 Tuning-in, live session on Zoom facilitated by Nathalie Mann and Raffaele Rufo

Connecting with the livingness of the body and presenting today’s recorded explorations

10:30-16:00 OPEN ECO-SOMATIC PRACTICE

Breathing with Plants, audio workshops facilitated by Nathalie Mann

This series of three audio recordings (45 min) is an invitation to connect with plants through breath, to connect with a movement that underlies the interdependence between forms of life. Through the circulation of our fluids and the air we breathe we communicate both within ourselves and with the environment around us. Inspired by the practice of Body-Mind Centering, this is a sensing journey through moments of opening to expression, movement and dance. The journey starts with an invitation to release, to let go, to be breathed. Shifting somatic attention from cellular breathing in a fluid environment to pulmonar and external breathing, participants will be guided to explore how every cell of the body calls the oxygene, moving through blood, effortlessly. This is a process of taking part and allowing the ebbs and flows of a cycle that is physically interconnected with the breathing of plants.

Duets with Trees, audio workshops facilitated by Dr Raffaele Rufo

In this series of three audio recordings (45 min) I guide participants through a perceptual journey that displaces the given separation between human and arboreal life to embrace the possibility of relating with trees as calm and generous companions of movement and becoming. An intimate encounter with a tree cannot be constructed. What we can do is work on slow processes of attunement by opening up our senses and our imagination to the livingness of trees and their responsiveness to our embodied presence. In the first exploration (‘lying under the tree’) I invite participants to observe their internal movement impulses through breath and contact with the earth while noticing how they are being witnessed by that tree. The second exploration (‘grounding with the tree’) invites a gradual shift from seeing to touching by focusing on weight and gravity and engaging in a small dance in contact with the trunk. In the third exploration (‘shaping into the branches’) participants are guided to work on/with a comfortable branch where they can yield their weight and center of gravity and their thoughts to engage in a more fleshy duet with the tree. 

16:00-17:00 Sharing today’s pathways, live session on zoom facilitated by Nathalie Mann and Raffaele Rufo

How do we language the felt sense of moving in, with and as the natural environment? 

DAY TWO (Sun 2nd May, UK BST time)

09:30-10:15 Tuning-in, live session on Zoom facilitated by Valentina Vitolo and Tiago Gambogi

Connecting with the livingness of the body and presenting today’s recorded explorations

10:30-16:00 OPEN ECO-SOMATIC PRACTICE

Awakening the Inner Animal, audio and video workshops facilitated by Valentina Vitolo

In these two audio recordings (45 min), inspired by the Feldenkrais method of awareness through movement, you will be guided to discover and bring out your inner animal. I invite you to listen to the audio recording (30 min) in a comfortable place at home where you can lie down and have some space to move. This first exploration will help you discover animal movements by exploring different neurosomatic patterns and will be an opportunity for recognising which animal movements are the most comfortable or fascinating ones for you. The second exploration (15 min) combines video and voice to provide inspiration and guidance for engaging and observing your animal movements in nature. After watching and listening to these recordings, I invite you to take time to relax and then go outside and choose a place in the natural environment where you can immerse yourself to awaken your inner animal. When you have completed your exploration I invite you to compare the movements and feelings experienced indoor and outdoor.

Body Earth Osmosis, video workshops facilitated by Tiago Gambogi

"Osmosis is the movement of any solvent through a selectively permeable membrane into an area of higher solute concentration, the result of which will be an equalizing of solute concentration on either side of the membrane." (John Staughton) In these two video recordings (45 min) I will guide participants to engage in a process of deep physical and affective exchange between the inner and outer environment through a series of somatic explorations towards an "equalized" body-mind. We will explore the curiosity principle of “what is this?” through task-based exercises in the landscape looking at our inner (joints, muscles, cells, sensations, thoughts) and outer focus (the landscape, earth, air, trees, stones, bushes) and at the play between them and our gaze/movement. We will build layers of understanding and create improvisation scores exploring the “hidden/fissures” environmental spaces and allow them to be expressed through us.

16:00-17:00 Sharing today’s pathways, live session on zoom facilitated by Valentina Vitolo and Tiago Gambogi

How do we language the felt sense of moving in, with and as the natural environment?