Ecosomatics - Videos

Responding to the ecosocial crises of our time, the workshop aims to co-create a new model of ecosomatic ritual that interprets the need for roots and collective participation in the experience of grieving.

We are searching for “gateways” to perceive the reciprocity with the non-human and the material, and to arrive at performance as an act of healing, repair and cultural regeneration.

Check webpage for more info on workshop: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/rituali-di-passaggio/workshops

Video documentary of La Selva Ecosomatic Residency 2023. Between 5th and 8th October 2023 a group of 40 eco-oriented artists, scholars and educators from all over the world gathered in the Natural Reserve of the Roman Coast (Rome, Central Italy) to participate in the ‘La Selva’ residency. We were immersed in the re-discovering of our ecological connection as a playful process of care, response-ability and cultural resistance. The residency offered 4 days of guided somatic movement, sensory and perception practice, immersive and collaborative arts exchanges, reflection and discussion, as well as visits to archeological sites and excursions with specialist nature-conservation guides. 'La Selva’ was created and coordinated by Dr Raffaele Rufo (IT) and Dr Thomas Kampe (UK) in partnership with local arts, culture and education organisations and was funded through the ‘Human-Nature Connect’ Programme of Intercultural Roots (UK).

Video by: Stefania Milazzo

More info:

raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/2023-la-selva-human-nature-connect-residency-rome

https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/la-selva-2024-rome

Video teaser of La Selva Ecosomatic Residency 2023. Between 5th and 8th October 2023 a group of 40 eco-oriented artists, scholars and educators from all over the world gathered in the Natural Reserve of the Roman Coast (Rome, Central Italy) to participate in the ‘La Selva’ residency. We were immersed in the re-discovering of our ecological connection as a playful process of care, response-ability and cultural resistance. The residency offered 4 days of guided somatic movement, sensory and perception practice, immersive and collaborative arts exchanges, reflection and discussion, as well as visits to archeological sites and excursions with specialist nature-conservation guides. 'La Selva’ was created and coordinated by Dr Raffaele Rufo (IT) and Dr Thomas Kampe (UK) in partnership with local arts, culture and education organisations and was funded through the ‘Human-Nature Connect’ Programme of Intercultural Roots (UK).

An ecosomatic dance workshop for embodying reciprocity with earth created and conducted by Dr Raffaele Rufo in the Taizé Community (France).

Organised by EUROPEAN LAUDATO SI’ ALLIANCE / SPIRITUALITY AND ECOLOGY as part of “The Ecological Conversion” (10-13 November 2022).

Ecological conversion is not only a mental conversion, it is also a bodily conversion. To restore our relationship with the earthly ground within which we are radically embedded we need to restore our relationship with our bodies in their living wholeness - our bodies experienced through direct sensory perception as a source of joy, connection and knowledge. This eco-somatic workshop offers participants a gentle pathway into simple processes, tools and perspectives for embodying reciprocity with earth.

Check webpage for more infos on workshop:

https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecospirituality-through-dance

A workshop on (re-)embodying reciprocity with plants conducted by Dr Raffaele Rufo at Floating University Berlin. Part of the Programme “(Re)Gaining Ecological Futures” curated by Berit Fischer (23-25 June 2022)

Photos by Lorène Blanche Goesele

How can a movement-based somatic engagement with plants help us restore our relationship with bodily movement as radically embedded in the larger body of the earth? In this 3-hour outdoor workshop, we will explore a series of improvisational ways to engage with somatic sensations, listen, and empathetically witness the sensory presence of trees, shrubs, reeds, and other plant creatures that inhabit the rainwater pool. Ways that challenge the comfort zone of our urban bodies—as clean, safe, and detached bodies—and humbly acknowledge that we are here because other life forms are here too.

Check webpage for more infos on the workshop: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecokinetics-workshop-berlin-2022

Ecosomatic and contact improv workshop conducted by Raffaele Rufo in the pine trees forest of Castel Fusano, within Rome’s coastal nature reserve.

An imaginal-tensional work in which we become an pluri-somatic-organism. To find the center that we share, to move from that center between resisting pressure and releasing movement.

Check webpage for more infos on workshops: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecosomatic-dance-rome

Ecosomatic and contact improv workshop conducted by Raffaele Rufo in the pine trees forest of Castel Fusano, within Rome’s coastal nature reserve.

An experiment with breath, touch and the imagination to meet trees halfway. Ho do we learn to breath with trees? How do we expand temporal patterns and deepen tactile perception to engage with them sensorially?

Check webpage for more infos on workshops: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecosomatic-dance-rome

Ecosomatic and contact improv workshop conducted by Raffaele Rufo in the pine trees forest of Castel Fusano, within Rome’s coastal nature reserve.

A small dance with trees. Dance emerges from sensing the presence of trees through touch and weight and becoming aware of the reciprocity of human-arboreal listening.

Check webpage for more infos on workshops: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecosomatic-dance-rome

Ecosomatic and contact improv workshop conducted by Raffaele Rufo in the pine trees forest of Castel Fusano, within Rome’s coastal nature reserve.

Broken branches are engaged as an extended boundary of the human body to meet the other in a space in-between: between humans and between the human and the nonhuman.

Ecosomatic and contact improv workshop conducted by Raffaele Rufo in the pine trees forest of Castel Fusano, within Rome’s coastal nature reserve.

A slow morphic dance with the trunk of a dead tree based on conscious touch and shared improvisational attention.

Check webpage for more infos on workshops: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecosomatic-dance-rome

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

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)

Check webpage for more infos on workshops: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/returning-home

Short video essay of the ecosomatic exploration conducted by Raffaele Rufo in Autumn 2021 in an urban park in the periphery of Milan.

When you sit, lie, or stand on a branch, your movement depends on the presence of the tree. You can feel how the tree is demanding something of you. The tree demands your sensitivity to its structure and to its shapes. It demands your responsiveness to its breath and to its touch. It demands that you listen to its height and width, to its softness and firmness, to its individuality and its participation in the larger ecosystem. The more you accept these demands, the more you can have an intimate sense of your body and of your movement as part of something larger than your individual self.

Check webpage for more infos on this ecosomatic research project: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/danced-by-the-tree

Short video essay of the ecosomatic exploration conducted by Raffaele Rufo in Autumn 2021 in an urban forest in the periphery of Milan.

Like trees, human bodies are the meeting point between earth and sky. As the trunk pulls upward, the roots are pulling downward. As the roots pull downward, the trunk is pulling upward. This constant tension between different forces defines the movement of becoming. Grounding is growing creatively out of the constraints that define our sensibility and our sentience. Trees are masters of grounding. To learn this art, we need to awaken our senses and our imagination to the possibility of a more-than-human perceptual interchange.

Check webpage for more infos on this ecosomatic research project: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/danced-by-the-tree

Short video essay of the ecosomatic exploration conducted by Raffaele Rufo in Autumn 2021 in an urban park in the periphery of Milan.

Lying under the tree is a mode of embodiment where human perception is met by a radically different way of sensing and responding. To stay here is to become a witness: of my heart, of my breath, of this earth, of this tree. To stay here is to be witnessed: by layers of broken branches, pieces of bark, bits of leaves of different kinds and colors, pebbles, worms and insects, moisture, and dried matter.

Check webpage for more infos on this ecosomatic research project: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/danced-by-the-tree

This video documents and reflects on the ecosomatic experiment conducted on a rock in the beautiful and powerful maritime environment of the Salento region in Southern Italy. What was found in this encounter with the rock and the sea? A feeling of deep contemplation and bonding with myself, the rock and the natural environment. A sense of gratitude. An expanded perception of my body and its boundaries and of the qualities of the natural element I have worked with. A feeling of ecstasy, of being moved by the experience of touching the rock and being touched by it.

This short video-essay offers some practice-based reflections on how somatic-improvisational movement can be engaged to rediscover the potential of the parent’s body. Why don’t we, as adults and as parents, engage the possibilities for moving, expressing, playing, developing new skills, and feeling pleasure when we are out in nature with our kids? 

This is a video with a spoken word performance about the experience of engaging a contact dance with the living elements encountered in the natural environment.

This is a video with a spoken word performance about the experience of climbing a tree as a somatic-performative act that confronts our sense of disconnection and compliance and can help us recalibrate the brain by providing direct perceptual access to somatic experience as integral to living.