Anatomy of Touch goes intercontinental

This year I had the very special privilege of teaching my format „Anatomy of Touch“ on Corfu in Greece, in Berkeley, California, USA and in Goa, India. All in one year. On three different continents and surrounded by three different oceans…the Mediterranean Sea, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The size of these three workshops have varied from 6 to 15 to 40 participants and each of these groups have left a mark on me. 

Anatomy of Touch is an Intensive that I created as part of my Advanced Teachers Trainings series, applied to open workshop situations that features in depth explorations and somatic movement journeys around qualities of touch, sensing and being sensed by our environment, Contact Improvisation with touch and no-touch elements, writing and moving from the  4 chambers of the heart, functions of the skin and mechanoreceptors, composing from somatic sensations and more. 

Through these entry ways I attempt to dissect and articulate with the participants the many layers that we touch and that are being touched through this human body. We use different doorways to research perception and their relationship to moving, to process the intersection information intero- and exteroception and the influence on flow while dancing through cranio-sacral structures. Direct physical touch such as „still touch“ (hands on listening to different body parts without any manipulation), „deep tissue touch“ (or „Fake Shiatsu“ see cardset - a way of shifting our weight vertically into the deeper tissues of our partner) or through touch interviews (a phrase that I borrow from co-teaching with Ray Chung - moving inquiry into the partners idiosyncratic way of moving) allow us to experience different qualities in our artistic research and in the sense of our who we are in this world. 

„Touch, more than any other mode of sensation, defines for us our sense of reality.“ Deane Juhan

Right now, I am in India at the InContact residency, an 8 week residency program designed and organized by Guru Suraj, Adriana Michalska and Harmandeep Singh. I am processing the afternoon session at the Indian Ocean. Since each of the Anatomy of Touch intensives included at least one session outdoors, I was able to experience the similarities and differences of doing the work in nature at three different stunning beaches. 

The first outdoor session in Corfu was during a rather chilly and windy morning in April on Corfu, the beach a steep walk down through the cliffs, a stunning landscape of blossoming wisteria, early lavender and Bougainvillea. During the session, the participants were dressed in down jackets and warm hats, but didn’t seem to be bothered by the weather and even more touched by the rough beauty of the ocean and the strong current. Some even took off their clothes and went for a cold dip. 

The session during the Berkeley workshop was held in Marin county on a beach surrounded by eucalyptus forest and with a backdrop of a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Very photogenic scenery for sure. Here we dropped into the practice of Authentic Movement, moving and being over by our environment. Although there were quite many other people on the beach, the participants stayed focused on their process and expression,

hey after all we are in California, so who cares if we are doing weird shit on the beach…

And this afternoon we were on a long stretch of a beach in Goa, at the end of a junction of a river and the Indian Ocean, a wide spread of sand and lukewarm water. Stray dogs running through 40 people moving made me a bit nervous, but the dogs soon relaxed with us into the present moment. Being touched by the environment, by the sand, the water, the air, the trees, eagles flying above us and the serenity of it all. 

As a witness:

„I feel the group spread out quite widely, probably within a radius of 50 meter, I see a thread, an invisible thread between all of the movers. I am reminded of the Native American creation myth „grandmother spider“ and how she brings the world into being, one thread at a time. I have this insight, that if we as a species want to survive on this earth, ensure her health and beauty, we need to (re)member ourselves that we are a part of her. We need to tune in, slow down and become her. Alas, this is not an original thought, but in this moment it feels viscerally real, 40 people sensitizing, listening, listening, listening and in my story earth sighs and recuperates, feels seen and heard and welcomes us back into her big warm womb.“

As I am writing I feel touched by what I witnessed and I am reminded that I am also touching others by holding space for these processes. I am touched by the beauty of these scenic places, by the innate potential for all of us to embody wisdom and the ease and organic-ness at which, when the setting is right, we just slip into wonder as a part of it.