Becoming Creaturely
Artivist tools for collective care in uncertain times
A Creative Movement Workshop hosted by Chisenhale Dance Space
Sunday 2nd February 2025
10:00 - 13:00
A collaborative workshop co-facilitated by Fabienne Formosa and Irene Fiordilino. The event invites anyone with a shared interest in movement, the felt-sense, ecologies, health and social justice. In light of current global events and shifting political landscapes, Fabienne and Irene seek to host a space where we can come together as both a form of collective care and an act of resistance, exploring artivist and creative tools to navigate troubling times, and the various states of embodiment and disembodiment they may come with. The workshop blends principles from eco-somatics, movement and clowning, invoking various creatures through imaginative play to explore shapeshifting, malleability and growth as playful processes of metamorphosis forging intimacies with self, others and more-than-human environments.
All are welcome, no prior experience in somatic movement is required to participate in this workshop.
Click on the pointing finger below to find out more about the event. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing hosting this workshop at your event.
In partnership with Woodland Retreat London and Queens Wood Cafe you are warmly invited to an eco-somatic movement workshop on Saturday, October 12th, from 1 pm to 3 pm, at Woodland Retreat London, 42 Muswell Hill Road, N10 3JP
I will facilitate an embodied experience exploring being in relationship with the ancient woodland and becoming creaturely through slow-somatic movement and performative play. I will offer prompts, invitations and provocations developed from my practice encountering companion species as movement teachers, which you can use as entry points to play with, mould, resist or reject to follow your sensations, impulses and desires as they unfold. All are welcome; no prior experience in somatic movement is required to participate. Kindly note that this event will partly take place outdoors in a public space, and we will likely also encounter human and non-human others as part of the experience.
This movement philosophy emerged from my doctoral practice research on becoming and cultivating relationality with the more-than-human in response to the question: Can embodied research practices perform entangled storytelling to resist or undermine hierarchies of being? Companion species, a term I adopt from Donna Haraway’s text ‘The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness’, played a key role in the collective and entangled storytelling practice research on living in uncertain times.
“From the snake that taught us how to honour life transitions through shedding its skin, to the bear that encouraged us to reflect on hibernation and the importance of rest, and the koala bear that gracefully stumbles as it loses its balance. This embodied movement practice offers entry points into thinking with the body, as Haraway proposes, as a fierce response to the violence of Capitalist ideologies and Anthropocentric thinking so we can consider possibilities of recuperation both on a personal bodymind level and multispecies environmental justice.”
We look forward to moving with you!
Click on the pointing below to reserve your spot for this event. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing hosting this workshop as part of an event or collaboration. We are always interested in running this event again at Queens Wood or at other sites.
Notes.
The concept for this practice was developed from Donna Haraway’s texts ‘The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness’ and ‘Staying with the Trouble’, Joanna Macy’s article ‘Greening of the Self: The Most Important Development of Modern Times’, and movement praxis research on becoming more-than-human.
Sunday 25th August, 2024
Queens Wood, Queens Wood Cafe, 42 Muswell Hill Road, N10 3JP
10 am - 11.30 am
In partnership with Woodland Retreat London and Queens Wood Cafe you are warmly invited to an eco-somatic movement practice sharing where I will facilitate an embodied experience exploring the body as a decolonial tool, a concept I developed from Ben Spatz’s text ‘Blue Sky Body’, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s text ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’, and movement praxis research on ‘becoming indigenous to a land’.
We will meet outside of Queens Wood Cafe, 42 Muswell Hill Road, N10 3JP, at 10 am before wandering into the wood together. I will offer prompts, invitations and provocations I developed from my own practice of encountering the wood as a movement partner, which you can use as entry points to play with, mould, resist or reject to follow your own sensations, impulses and desires as they unfold. All are welcome; no prior experience in somatic movement is required to participate. Kindly note that this event will take place outdoors, in a public space, and we will likely, therefore, also encounter human and non-human others as part of the experience. Following the movement exploration, we will then make our way back to Queen’s Wood Cafe to share brunch together, for those who wish to stay.
This movement philosophy emerged from my doctoral practice research on the body as a decolonial tool focusing on 'becoming' and 'fostering relationality with the more-than-human' as a way of cultivating indigeneity. The movement experience offers embodied practice that seeks to undermine dominant discourses in global mental health, an understanding of indigeneity that focuses on nomadic theory, and the ‘here and now’. Through this movement philosophy, I seek to centre the experience of survivors, refugees and migrants who fled violence in their migration journeys, advocating for the right to forget and starting anew, as well as honouring lineage in decolonial discourses on embodiment.The event is by donation only but please book a ticket via link in bio so we know to expect you. Kindly send an e-mail to fabienne.formosa@gmail.com if you have any questions or if there is anything you would like to discuss about the event before Sunday.
We look forward to moving with you.
Click on the pointing below to reserve your spot for this event. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing hosting this workshop as part of an event or collaboration. We are always interested in running this event again at Queens Wood or at other sites.
An Embodied Movement Workshop at South Mill Arts, Bishop's Stratford.
Saturday 10th August 2024
12:15 - 13:00
In this workshop you are invited to turn to your moving body to explore gentle and playful ways of tracing sensations as a way of listening to your body. Using guided imagery and slow-somatic movements developed from the moving bodies of non-human animals, the elements and other objects, we will explore how moving from desire and impulse can be a practice of allowing the body to speak. In a world where most of us are constantly pushed to our limits, how can we cultivate practices of self-care that centre embodied knowledge?
All are welcome, no prior experience in somatic movement is required to participate in this workshop.
Click on the pointing finger below to find out more about the event. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing hosting this workshop at your event.
A Somatic Movement Workshop at The Studio, Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire.
Friday / Saturday 5th-6th August 2023
13:45 - 14:45
In this somatic movement workshop you are invited to turn to your moving body to explore gentle and playful ways of tracing sensations on the skin. Using guided imagery and slow-somatic movements developed from the moving bodies of non-human animals, the elements and other objects, we will explore how the felt-sense and arising impulses may guide improvised movement as a practice of allowing the body to speak.
Embodied storytelling offers simple guiding principles to practice listening to your body in your everyday life. Everyone is welcome, no previous experience in somatic movement is needed to participate in this class.
Click on the pointing finger below to book your spot. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing a hosting this workshop at your festival.
P.O.R.C.H. - Ponderosa Ongoing Research and Collaborative Happenings. The unknown and all the creatures and plants.
Video credit: Carolina Novella @ Ponderosa
7.7.2023 - 14.7.2023 at Ponderosa Lunow-Stolzenhagen
Germany
Thanks to funding from the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths College, I participated in the first week of P.O.R.C.H/ Veranda focusing on Practice with Abby Crain (USA), Layton Lachman (DE), and Ivanka Tramp (DE).
"the unknown and all the creatures and the plants, invites expansive collective dancing, individual practice, deep rest, and serious play. Morning class will be based in Open Source Forms, an improvisational and experientially focused dance based movement practice which is fluidly expanded from Skinner Releasing Technique. Through the use of non-anatomical images, gentle hands-on work, and play between energetic states, the class leads participants toward unruly, vibrating, multidirectional and multidimensional dances."
I also shared my practice as a performance as part of the weekly practice sharings.
You can read more about the annual programme and all the wonderful things Ponderosa has to offer via the link below:
Moving Bodies of Water
A Collaboration with Intercultural Roots - An Arts Collective for Health and Social Change.
Saturday 30th of July, 2022 from 4pm - 6pm
Open House Hackney, 5 Prince Edward Rd, London, E9 5LX
An expanded exploration of the water element through somatic movement, storytelling and puppeteering.
I will be co-teaching this workshop with Helen Ainsworth where we will be exploring somatic movement and storytelling followed by a unique form of a puppeteering approach that considers a "water like" manipulation. Both classes will explore movement qualities of fluidity through felt sense and invite new insights to expressive artistic languages cutting across the visual arts and somatic dance fields.
The first part of the workshop invites participants to explore the possibilities of becoming liquid through the felt-sense of the moving body while inviting these qualities to the devising of storytelling. The latter part of the workshop then explores water-like puppeteering to traverse and investigate water and how it moves, 'with us and across us, how it moves into and through objects and how it inspires us to move.'
Click on the pointing finger below for more information and to book your spot. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing a collaboration with your collective.
The Dance into Darkness
This six part themed workshop series offers playful ways to explore the moving body as an art-making and storytelling medium.
As we move through Autumn into the depths of the Winter season, like the trees shedding their leaves, you may find yourself letting go of what no longer serves and turning your attention inward. These workshops draw inspiration from the Japanese Butoh dance form founded by Hijikata Tatsumi, and invite you to turn to your moving body, to embrace the dance into darkness of the coming months. For it is in darkness that we dream and birth the new. Each workshop offers guided slow somatic movement working with different themes, non-human animals and the elements, gentle ways of tracing sensations on the skin as a way of listening to the inner self and witnessing, as well as expressing emotions, through gesture. Each session closes with mark-making or creative writing and storytelling.
Register via eventbrite by clicking on the pointing finger below for the current in-person sessions at Queens Wood Cabin in Muswell Hill, London and Academy Mews Dance Studios in Camden, London. Do get in touch if you are interested in hosting these workshops at your organisation.
Rewilding the body
These workshops offer playful ways to explore the moving body as a regenerative practice of self-care.
How do we rewild our bodies? In a world where most of us are constantly pushed to our limits, how can we cultivate practices of self-care that will give us space to listen to our bodies? How can we make regeneration a daily practice, as we move through this time of collective recuperation? In these workshops, you will be invited to turn to your moving body to explore gentle and playful ways of tracing sensations as a way to listen to your bodymind, in relationship with your environment. Using guided imagery and slow-somatic movements developed from the moving bodies of non-human animals, the elements and other objects, we will explore how moving from desire and impulse can be a practice of rewilding our bodyminds to foster regeneration and sustainable ways of living. Elements of solo moving and dreaming are woven with mark-making, creative writing and storytelling.
Register via eventbrite by clicking on the pointing finger below for the current in-person sessions at Queens Wood Cabin in Muswell Hill, London and Academy Mews Dance Studios in Camden, London. Do get in touch if you are interested in hosting these workshops at your organisation.
A Collaboration with Counterfield - a Visual Cultures doctoral researchers collective
May 13th - June 24th, 2021 from 3pm - 4.30pm
Online due to Covid-19 social retrictions.
How do we forge intimacies as we are pushed further apart? These workshops convene a peering collective in search of playful practices for disruption. Cutting through individual isolation and auto-affection, cultivating co-affecting networked relations, the ruptive effects of play are staged throughout this series. Partial affects are looped, sharing in considerations around care, becoming cacaphonous. Dwelling in loopholes, otherwise exploited and evacuated, frames and facilitates communual spaces for fragile convalescence, resting and in and from this, resisting. The network is embodied across earth surfaces; bodies, minds and screens sharing-in-difference. In total, this workshop series tests and transforms the notion of generatively intimate dirsuptions, and in this the limits and thresholds of our collective capacities for communing (with) care.
I facilitate an Embodied Storytelling workshop on the 13th of May which you can read more about here and you can read a review for the workshop from my peers Georgia and Callum here.
Click on the pointing finger below for more information about the different hosts and weekly workshop themes. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing a collaboration with your collective.
Online Sessions, Home Visits, Workshops, Events.
All offerings are fluid and mobile.
They can be reconfigured upon request and are available online, as home visits, onsite at workshops and events, following an initial video consultation.
Kindly use the contact form or get in touch by sending an e-mail to fabienne.formosa@protonmail.com to discuss these possibilities further.