'conversing with masculinity'
for questions & more information, please contact Kevin
To examine languages dealing with gender identity and expression and acknowledge heterocolonial, Europatriarchal filters operating within words, this performative reading circle proposes an open sharing of techniques and strategies that look at how language feels in and on bodies.
To start, we’ll listen. We'll connect with pranayama practices that I guide, but we'll intersperse the time for personal, internal reflection with active listening to excerpts of texts from a variety of 'expert' voices. As we listen in and out, we’ll frame our experience by writing down words that come. Like this, we’ll create language lexicons based on what we hear. Then, we’ll leave linear forms of writing behind, and we’ll focus our attention on how individual, intuitive notions of language can be (dis)organized and (re)connected by way of individual and collective haiku or drawings.
When we finish with this, we’ll move towards movement improvisation in pairs. In pairs, we’ll make and maintain contact to really hold space for each other as we explore seeing, listening to, and reading haiku, maps, and improvised movement patterns. As we move, weight sharing, counterbalance, practices of seeing and being seen, 'watery' verbs (linking to Astrida Neimanis’ work in hydrofeminism), and body language and postures based on intimate points of contact color movement research. What’s more, when we take time away from our partners, and we move on our own, Authentic Movement, 'empathetic witnessing', 'active remembering', 'ruthless co-habiting', and 'repeating to reimagine' will be used as tools to examine both intimacy and vulnerability. We’ll then add to our experience by exploring Eleanor Bauer's "Questions Dance", Manon Santkin & Cecilia Lisa Eliceche's "Nonmassage Dance", and we'll look at specific breath coordinations or qualities (e.g. 'persistent pressing', 'precarious pushing', 'softly sinking', 'staying power') from my practice of improvisation.
To finish, we’ll come together to discuss and integrate our experience.
To start, we’ll listen. We'll connect with pranayama practices that I guide, but we'll intersperse the time for personal, internal reflection with active listening to excerpts of texts from a variety of 'expert' voices. As we listen in and out, we’ll frame our experience by writing down words that come. Like this, we’ll create language lexicons based on what we hear. Then, we’ll leave linear forms of writing behind, and we’ll focus our attention on how individual, intuitive notions of language can be (dis)organized and (re)connected by way of individual and collective haiku or drawings.
When we finish with this, we’ll move towards movement improvisation in pairs. In pairs, we’ll make and maintain contact to really hold space for each other as we explore seeing, listening to, and reading haiku, maps, and improvised movement patterns. As we move, weight sharing, counterbalance, practices of seeing and being seen, 'watery' verbs (linking to Astrida Neimanis’ work in hydrofeminism), and body language and postures based on intimate points of contact color movement research. What’s more, when we take time away from our partners, and we move on our own, Authentic Movement, 'empathetic witnessing', 'active remembering', 'ruthless co-habiting', and 'repeating to reimagine' will be used as tools to examine both intimacy and vulnerability. We’ll then add to our experience by exploring Eleanor Bauer's "Questions Dance", Manon Santkin & Cecilia Lisa Eliceche's "Nonmassage Dance", and we'll look at specific breath coordinations or qualities (e.g. 'persistent pressing', 'precarious pushing', 'softly sinking', 'staying power') from my practice of improvisation.
To finish, we’ll come together to discuss and integrate our experience.