What I particularly love about SomaHut workshops is that they offer a space where a broader community can come together. Anyone can contribute, and I feel that something special happens to the energy in the room when people gather with genuine interest and openness to explore. There is a sense of curiosity and willingness to share that creates a very particular quality of connection.

Although I have not yet taught within the Study Group myself, I have learned a great deal from my colleagues simply by observing and participating in their teaching. I have been able to experience different approaches from within the role of a participant, which has helped me notice how different methods can open up different ways of experiencing and understanding the body.

The interdisciplinary approach to learning has been especially valuable to me. I have seen firsthand how working with different media and forms of expression can expand our understanding of a particular topic and deepen the reflection that follows a workshop experience. This has shown me that learning does not necessarily happen through one method or in one direction, but can unfold through many different forms of experiencing, observing, sharing, and reflecting.

Zagreb, 2 October 2026

I am also grateful for the opportunities to lead classes and study sessions for both amateur and professional movers, including dancers, somatic practitioners, athletes, physiotherapists, musicians, and Kinesio therapists. These experiences allowed me to apply and practise the knowledge and skills I was acquiring through my BMC® education, while also learning how to adapt my approach to people with different backgrounds and experiences.

Alongside teaching and studying, I participated in other group activities, including being part of the organisation team for the SomaHut Festival. Through this experience, I connected with many international practitioners and developed organisational, production, and communication skills that are essential for creating and supporting smaller events that bring people together.

I also gained a deeper understanding of the idea behind the SomaHut community: connecting, supporting one another, sharing ideas, respecting different approaches, and building and sustaining a wider circle of people who are interested in what “soma” can mean. This includes people who are already practitioners, those who are on a learning path towards becoming practitioners, and those who may intuitively live their lives in a “somatic” way and integrate this awareness into their everyday, artistic, or professional practices.

As someone who is on the path towards becoming a BMC® educator, this experience has been particularly important to me. It has given me the opportunity to explore not only how I develop my own way of sharing knowledge, but also what SomaHut means to me and what “soma” means within my own practice. It has encouraged me to think about how I envision a larger gathering such as the SomaHut Festival, how I can contribute to such a community, and how I can support and help others within it.

Zagreb, 24 September 2026

I was supported in studying somatics more deeply and in gaining experience through working with others. The Study Group offered me a community and a group to belong to in relation to my interests, while also giving me the opportunity to witness and participate in the interests of others. This included my colleagues, who are currently engaged in somatic education, as well as people who came to our workshops from different backgrounds, outside artistic or somatic circles.

It meant sharing and processing somatic knowledge in many different ways and developing an understanding of the wider community context of somatics. It encouraged me to open up my methods, personal experience, and overall practice to others. New people and new perspectives were continually brought into the process through SomaHut, a platform with a mission to invite and include everyone. It was easy to reach people by sharing invitations through the SomaHut network, and one particularly accessible and valuable resource was that SomaHut was already an established platform and community.

Through this experience, I learned specifically how to work with children and their parents who are not dancers or professionals in body- or somatic-based practices. I was a co-leader of a workshop at the SomaHut Festival in May 2026 called “What Are Bones For?”. The workshop was rooted in our research into human anatomy with colleagues through the Study Group, but was then shaped into a format accessible to children under the age of ten and their parents through dance-based methodologies.

In one hour, we explored different approaches to warming up, naming and memorising bones in the body, experiencing our own bodies through movement, exploring different body alignments in relation to music and group dance, creating a bone from paper, and joining the bones together to create a skeleton. These activities offered children and parents a starting point from which to experience their own bodies and gradually develop a deeper somatic awareness.

Together, we also developed a curriculum for a year-long programme that will take place at SomaHut once a week, giving children the opportunity to regularly practise movement and learn about their bodies.

This programme is an important part of my professional development after completing a BA in Contemporary Dance, Teaching strand. Without a place in which to communicate, exchange, and learn from one another, it would not have been possible—or at least not as successful—to develop programmes such as this. The SomaHut Study Group has offered me two years of learning about community on a broader scale.

The LACE conference in July 2025 was another important part of this learning process. It gave me the opportunity to encounter and learn extensively from the artistic practices of others and, through this, to develop my own practice. I was immersed in contemporary dance culture by meeting both professionals and people who simply wanted to come and practise every day. We shared experiences regardless of our different expectations and reflected on them together through conversation. I also had the opportunity to interview people and gain deeper insight into how others learn, experience, and create through dance.

Through my involvement in the organisation of the project, I also learned to take on financial and administrative responsibilities, including ensuring that all the necessary arrangements were in place for participants to attend the LACE conference in Vienna. This experience taught me more about the financial and contractual aspects that are essential to making such a valuable and fulfilling event possible. I also gained insight into how large-scale productions such as ImPulsTanz function, and how communities of different sizes and backgrounds can grow and remain open and accessible to everyone.

Looking back, I see how a group can be one of the most valuable ways to progress: a space in which to test ideas, learn how to organise, understand what it takes to make an event happen, and at the same time remain supported by colleagues. The project also connected people across different countries, and I look forward to continuing to build these connections within dance culture.

Zagreb, 24 September 2026

As a physiotherapist and dance scientist, the experiences and knowledge I gained through the Study Group have shaped the way I understand therapy and the direction in which I want my practice to develop. I have drawn on many of the insights gained through our workshops and meetings in my work with musicians and older adults, finding ways to incorporate a more exploratory and holistic approach into my practice.

Taking on additional responsibilities within the SomaHut association also required a deeper commitment to the work we were doing. I had to find ways to communicate our activities to a wider audience, present them clearly on the SomaHut website, and translate our articles into English. These tasks allowed me to contribute to the association in ways that extended beyond participation in the Study Group itself, while also developing my communication, organisational, and translation skills.

This year, I also had the opportunity to participate in the LACE conference in Vienna as a member of the SomaHut Study Group, alongside my colleagues Zrinka and Ana. The central theme of the conference was interstitial space—the fascia, a subject I had only recently begun exploring in greater depth. Although fascia is an important part of our anatomy, I feel that its role has not always received the attention it deserves. The growing interest in this area was evident among the conference participants, who approached the subject from a variety of perspectives and professional backgrounds.

Each workshop offered a new way of exploring movement, our physical abilities, and the ways in which we experience and use our bodies. What I found particularly valuable was the opportunity to encounter different approaches and perspectives, rather than searching for a single way of understanding interstitial space, fascia, or human movement. Above all, the conference brought together people from diverse backgrounds who shared a curiosity about this fascinating structure and a desire to explore its relationship with the body. Being part of that exchange reminded me of the importance of interdisciplinary learning and of remaining open to different ways of understanding movement, health, and the human experience.

One of the most valuable aspects of the Study Group was learning to approach movement not only through its anatomical and physiological components, but also through individual perception, experience, and exploration. This has encouraged me to pay closer attention to how people experience their bodies during therapy, rather than focusing exclusively on the physical outcome of an exercise.

Zagreb, 24 September 2026