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.
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 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.
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 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?