The bodywork I facilitate invites the participants to look and treat the body as material, addressing its organic functions and spiritual potential as well as its cultural implications. The nature of the approach is eclectic and sources from "chi" cultivation techniques such as Qi Gong and Pranayama (breathing techniques), spine and limbs patterns explorations (body connectivity, proprioceptive systems), hands-on work (experimental body-alchemy teaching from Sara Shelton Mann) and elements of improvisation to transmute through different states. I use journeys and extended duration (either literal trance exercises drawn from dynamic meditation practices or shamanic journeys using visualization and movement) to flirt with the notion of ritual and personal/collective transformation, relying on trance and exertion, boredom and contemplation as tactics. The goal is to come to an understanding or to a state of questioning of the body’s borders, acknowledging it as multiple and idiosyncratic: codified, yet desirous of ecstasy and play, and seeking grounding and tenderness.
Maria F. Scaroni
