Sensing with Trees (2020-23)
Natureculture Pedagogical Interventions
An emergent series of emplaced eco-somatic pedagogical interventions in various national and international natureculture contexts and online.
To know more about other areas of the ‘Sensing with Trees’ project:
Videographic embodied research
Eco-somatic group dance practice
NATURECULTURE PEDAGOGICAL INTERVENTIONS
ECO-SPIRITUALITY THROUGH DANCE
A workshop in Taizé (France), 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. Eco-somatics is a growing field of embodied research and practice that combines the knowledge systems of Somatics and Ecology to expand our felt sense of self to include the wider web of our relations by re-rooting us back into our bodies and awakening sensory perception.
https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecospirituality-through-dance
ECOKINETICS: EMBODYING RECIPROCITY WITH PLANTS
A workshop at Floating University Berlin, (Re)Gaining Ecological Futures, 23-25 June 2022
Photos documentation 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. The participants are encouraged to be moved by the impulses they receive from what they perceive. The embodiment of this expanded and intensified field of perception enables a knowledge of how to cultivate mutually nurturing relationships with the more-than-human that is difficult to attain in any other way. Ecokinetic knowledge feeds ecological awareness and re-activates our response-ability as agents for ethical and sustainable living.
https://www.raffaelerufo.com/ecosomatics/ecokinetics-workshop-berlin-2022
RETURNING HOME: BODY EARTH RECIPROCITY
1-2 May 2021, Hybrid (In-Presence and Online), Intercultural Roots
Project Presentation
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.