Offerings
July 27th- August 1st 2024
A retreat to embrace our light and darkness.
During six days we’ll be offering the space to dance, discover and connect within the framework of the Touch&Play culture.
After starting together in a daily morning ritual, there will be a variety of facilitated intensive workshops and single classes around (the edges of) Contact Improvisation, Movement & Dance, Consent & Communication, Self-Exploration, Sensuality & Sexuality, BDSM, Nature & Wilderness, Community and Spirituality.
We’ll make sure there are also some free slots to breathe, integrate, connect further or to, perhaps, offer something you’re excited about to the community. We also keep a certain flexibility in the schedule to create space for needs that arise through our group process.
Intensives
Grounded Movement
with Shiggi Pakter
Grounded Movement is a fun (all abilities included) natural mixed movement body exploration workshop with lifelong martial artist and movement coach – Shiggi. It blends the fire of upright (Capoeira/Tae Kwon Do) and ground based (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) martial arts with the liquid cool flow of Budokon and MovNat mixed movement practices to create a curious conversation that invites silliness and play.
We will reconnect with how our bodies were born to move with crawling, floor sitting, stretching, movement shadowing, navigating obstacles and embracing “rough housing” (aka play fighting). Throughout you’re invited to consider how you can incorporate this practice at home and in life. Shoes optional, small towel and bottle of water recommended, all curious minds welcomed: Come break free from the mechanical zoo we live in
Contact Impro - Moving through Shadowed Realms with Contact Impro
with Asher Levin
The theme of Shadow Dance will accompany us as we explore, and train in, CI.
The shadows are a fertile, nourishing place for life and creativity.
We’ll enquire into the hidden realms of our internal anatomy. The more we get to know, and wonder at, our own mysteries, the more wholly (holy) we may meet others.
We’ll explore ways of meeting, relating, & moving that may be considered shadowy and thus are unacknowledged or suppressed.
For example, allowing oneself to be ‘manipulated’, surrendering control; or to be the ‘manipulator’: leading, while tuning in to what’s welcome.
We’ll move from the ‘light’ of the lyrical, to include the shadows of feisty, resistant, and holding possibilities.
We’ll work with intimacy in C.I. dance – often residing in shadow-dances with a private aura. We’ll explore intimacy in relation to the ‘light’ of the surrounding environment, the whole group constellations and the universe, which we co-create.
We’ll honour the lightness of space, sparkling with potential and breath; it may be the smallest gap between us, to a wide field through which we may travel whether with an intimate partner, group or alone.
We’ll explore states of being, considering their ‘shadow’ or ‘light’ manifestations, and welcome all into (or born from) the CI dance: innocence; foolishness; embarrassment; avoidance; sexual desire; playfulness, curiosity…
We’ll bring these elements together into whole-hearted dances between shadow and light, in open C.I. practice.
Safety and care will be paramount, recognising edges, and training techniques enabling active ease.
Single Classes
Integrating the Archetypes
with Valerie Kattenfeld
We will explore different Archetypes through dance, movement and touch how they are hardwired in terms of relating. We start with a sharing circle where participants tell about their personal process and dreams they have during the festival – they are important messengers from our subconscious mind which confront us with repressed aspects of ourselves and / or want to empower us in stepping into our light. We invite the images and symbols of our dreams into the dance.
The Biodanza session itself will be a journey through many aspects of ourselves, connecting with our inner beauty and beast. We will dance the seduction of Afrodita, the anger of Zeus, the desperation of Persephone, the feast of Dionysus, the independence of Artemisa. Dive into chaos, mystery, love, joy, confidence. There will be space for individual movement and encounter with others. We will dance through comfort and discomfort, exploring with curiosity the familiar and unfamiliar. The sharing is held in a loving and careful way which encourages the participants to step into their vulnerability and be accompanied by the group in their process of growth.
The Oracle
with Daniel Joseph Hayes
What if you are holding the piece that we are looking for?
The Oracle is a semi-structured ritual space for collective reflection and processing around what is alive in the group. It’s a group process that has many uses and is capable of showing us layers of truth that perhaps we were not aware of previously.
Cuddles and Nap
with Bela (and Chris Hardy support)
Digest, process and integrate.
A nourishing practice of co-regulation and integration. Through this workshop we’ll have space for rest and digest in order to balance our shadow and our light, and keep landing back into our bodies.
You’ll be treated to guided meditation and live acoustic soundscape to help bring you into a deep sense of calm, stability and groundedness. In this place we might invite quiet verbal sharing with those closest to you as a way to process experiences so far. There will be guidance on developing somatic awareness of your edges and boundaries while in a group setting. Through this we learn to resource ourselves in the midst of our busy lives.
In our soft and intimate cuddly space we can lovingly share our sense of safety, belonging, and community. When we feel calm and centered we are far better equipped to nurture our shadow and our light.
From Pee to Alchemy: the transformational power of Golden Shower
Container
We will hold a container of embodied consent and boundaries, inclusivity, support, and non judgment; we hope to cultivate an essential sense of trust for edge-pushing explorations to bravely unfold.
All are warmly welcome, to come as your full, unfiltered, beautiful self.
Here, we can cultivate a space of radical permission – of removing the layers and wounds of shame, stigma, and oppression, and remembering a sense of freedom, choice, authenticity, and deep connection to ourselves, to each other, and to this great earth.
Touch&Play UK organisers reserve the right to change or make adjustments to the teaching team at any given time and at short notice. Thank you for your understanding.
Testimonials
“This year, I attended my first Touch&Play event in Argentina, and I was deeply moved and touched because I felt I had finally arrived at the tribe I always belonged to.”
“This festival unites everything that I love: dance, conscious sexuality, and rituals.”
“I identify with this work; it feels like home.”
“This is where I belong and where I know the people who will benefit from everything I want and need to transmit. It’s my platform, my community, my source of inspiration, and my safe playground. Thank you for doing what you do; it is so needed in the world.”
TOUCH&PLAY UK
Shadow Dance
27th of July to the 1st of August 2024