Embodied Views
Embodiment in Nature
The project Embodied Views (German:Verkörperte Sichtweisen), which explored our embodied connection to nature, took place in 2021 in two Biosphere Reserves in Brandenburg, Germany. The project centered around a series of extended residencies in the reserves, resulting in a series of site-specific dance & movement pieces developed together with local dance practitioners.
The site-specific dance performance with integrated audio tour Verkörperte Sichtweisen Grumsin was created for the 10th anniversary celebration of Grumsin Beech Forest UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the course of the project. The experiential tour was guided by a mobile-accessible soundtrack that lead participants to explore the tactile and sensory qualities of the beech forest, its life cycle and unique characteristics. The soundtrack included performers’ reflections of their experience in the forest.
Points for exploration included: The experience of forest solitude and the embodied connection to nature; Life cycle of a living forest; Forests as environmental regulators and lungs, as regulating water flow and the water cycle, and purifying water; The unique aspects of the beech forest ecosystem; Dance / movement as a means of connecting and communicating with nature; Sensitivity and awareness in nature; Embodiment in a digital world; Boundaries between local/foreign, self/other, human/nature; Bringing arts & culture to place & residents, in a way & manner that is integrated into the landscape & can be experienced on site & in nature; Reflecting local concerns within a broader global perspective.
The dance film ODER/ODRA my love… was created in the course of the project. The piece was created in response to the Oderausbau plan for major works to facilitate shipping along the river, that have the potential to irrevocably damage one of Europe’s last pristine waterways.
The site-specific dance performance Zwischen Körpern accompanied sculptural installation ARCHA, by artists Dan Farberoff & David Behar Perahia, at the Aquamediale festival in Spreewald, addressing climate-change-induced displacement.
