Making Connections – Somatic Learning in the Field of Care With Carla Bottiglieri and Thomas Greil / minima somatica
Zagreb, October 7-10, 2022
October 7 – LECTURE
October 8/9 – EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP
October 10 – MEETINGS WITH FAMILIES
How can we make ourselves sensitive to the multiplicity of modes of existence and expression with which we relate, if not by starting with ourselves? This question, actually a very simple one, is the one that runs through the study of somatic learning, understood as the exploration of the perceptual dynamics by which we relentlessly construct our relationship and participation in the world.
To weave together the singularity of experiences and interrogate their connections is to create a common foundation on which to graft new capacities for attention, looking, reading and relating through movement. The somatic approach, because of its accessibility, proves to be a valuable tool for translation and mediation between experiential and formal knowledge, and points to a methodology of dialogue and contact in the midst of differences.
Program:
LECTURE
October 7, 17-19 h
Academy of Dramatic Arts Zagreb
Frankopanska 22 (Leks, D1)
The lecture aims to introduce somatic education as a tool for questioning and inquiring into our capacity to learn from within and from each other by exploring the variety of possibilities of existence and expression. We understand somatic learning as a continuous construction of our relationship and participation in the world. In this perspective it is possible to address the issues of diversity and justice, to guide the learning of new cognitive and motor skills, using the sensitivity and intelligence of the body as a ground of mediation.
EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP
October 8/9, 10-16 h
MO Voćarska, Voćarska cesta 71
The workshop proposes an experiential journey in the perception of movement and touch through the fundamental tools of somatic pedagogy. We will explore connective tissue and fascia as concrete physical substrates of “making connections”, providing a transitional and transindividual space for moving bodies. We are moved by the other, as our cells and tissues move, to the extent that the other is moved by me.
Connective tissue is a dynamic system, comprising different tissues like bones, ligaments, tendons, and fascia. It connects and at the same time separates the different parts of our bodies, as well as cells, tissues, organs and systems. It allows to change between form and flow according to the need for more stability or more mobility. The cells in the connective tissue are spread out and not touching each other. They are connected by fibers embedded in the semi-fluid ground substance. Connective tissue plays an important role in the regulation of cellular and immune function (inflammation and tumor development), as well as metabolism, and fluid balance.
The workshop is aimed at those who are implicated in the sphere of care and education: parents and caregivers, therapists, educators, social-health assistants, teachers, movement artists and somatic practitioners. The workshop is open to everybody. There is no previous experience with movement, therapy or Somatics required.
Reservations are required, places are limited.
You can sign up by sending an email to: somahut.mmk@gmail.com
Contribution: 120 EUR-80 EUR (according to possibilities).
Early bird registration (until Oct 1): 70 EUR
MEETING WITH FAMILIES
October 10
Buconjićeva 39, Zagreb
Monday morning and afternoon is to create spaces for sharing and meeting with families, collectives (associations, cooperatives, educational institutions, etc.) that experience the disability of one of their members, to turn a systemic gaze to the resources and skills already present in the living context, as well as to the ways of interacting with the broader social environment, and what is perceived in terms of needs and mediations.
There will be one session with a family and their child in the morning and one in the afternoon. The emphasis is on the sensorial and perceptual configuration of each person, not on his or her pathological categorization. This allows for the refinement of other subtle reading and listening skills of what is expressed in the language of affects and movement.
To observe the sessions, we especially invite people who are involved in the care of the child and the family, as other family members, educators, therapists and caregivers, as well as anybody interested.
Registration: Reservations are required, places are limited. You can sign up by sending an email to: somahut.mmk@gmail.com
Dancer and scholar of somatic practices and philosophies, CARLA BOTTIGLIERI is a teacher and practitioner of Body-Mind Centering® and a practitioner of Rolfing®/Structural Integration. She has been a guest teacher in licensure and master’s programs in dance at the University of Paris 8, Nice/Sophia Antipolis, Stockholm/DOCH, Santiago del Cile/Universidad Mayor, and lectured at centers of choreographic training and research, such as PACAP/Forum Dança in Lisbon, the Contredanse Association in Brussels, and the Manufacture/Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale, in Lausanne.
THOMAS GREIL, Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) practitioner and Infant Development Movement Educator (IDME). He has been teaching in BMC certification programs (IDME, SME and Practitioner) since 2003, and the co-founder of SOMA, the French licensed organization. He is a practitioner/therapist of the Jeremy Krauss Approach® (JKA). His passion for research of movement, touch and body expression has led him to become interested in neuromotor development in infancy, in the ways in which gesture and perception are built in emotional, social, cultural environments of life. He is currently involved in the Making Connections project, which brings together families with children with disabilities and people involved in caregiving.
The workshop is based on the principles of BODY-MIND CENTERING® and other somatic approaches and is characterized by a gentle, nonintrusive approach aimed at embracing the wholeness of the person and the collective process.
SOMATIC EDUCATION is an approach to body awareness and sensorimotor experience that engages the whole person. The invitation to “start from within” to refine listening to self and others urges a mode of attention, observation and learning that stimulates and enhances the body’s sensitive intelligence. The different practices developed for accompanying such processes of psychophysical awareness have in common the call for effortlessness, accessibility and simplicity of the proposed movement experiences, so that each person can build a learning path according to his or her interests and needs.
MAKING CONNECTIONS is an international project born in 2019 which aimes at children, parents, educators and therapists with the belief that real change to take place must occur in the entire constellation of relationships around the person.The project is therefore addressed not only to children and adults with special needs and psycho-physical fragility, but to all those who are involved in this experience, both as family members and as professionals, offering a space for mutual recognition of skills and the possibility of exchange and encounter between them. Making Connections is based on the principles of Body-Mind Centering® and other somatic approaches and is characterized by a gentle, non-intrusive approach to embrace the wholeness of the person and the process involving parents, family members and caregivers.
MINIMA SOMATICA is a core of practical and theoretical research in pedagogies of body experience and somatic movement analysis. Based in Faenza (RA), minimal somatic work intersects the arts of gesture and care. He lives in Faenza, Italy, where she founded together with Carla Bottiglieri minima somatica, a nucleus of practical and theoretical research in pedagogies of bodily experience, movement analysis and the dynamics of synergistic interaction between mind, organism and environment – everything that pertains to the field of somatic education.
This project is part of SomaHut2022 program organized by Multimedia Hut and supported by the City if Zagreb and Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.