Expanded Contemporary Dance and the Academy of Theatre and Dance are pleased to invite you to the second public opening of the research project Critical Somatics. This symposium will take place on April 23 and 24, 2025 at the Dancetheater of the Academy of Theatre and Dance.

In September 2023, ECD launched the Critical Somatics research project, designed and led by Bojana Bauer and Maria Ines Villasmil Prieto. The project aims to critically examine and creatively reshape the teaching of somatic techniques within the ECD program.

This second public symposium marks the conclusion of this phase of the research, providing a final opportunity for public discussion before the process of reflection resumes. The goal is to explore how the insights generated will continue to influence and inform the ongoing development of the Expanded Contemporary Dance program and curriculum.

Over the course of two years, the project has involved a teacher-research group, exchanges with guest researchers, and two public symposia. While this second symposium marks the end of this phase of the research, the discussions and reflections it generates will continue to inform the future trajectory of the programme. Additionally, the dialogue will be carried forward by the teachers and students involved, as they integrate these discussions into their own physical practices.

Guests
Guests joining this year are Isabelle Ginot, Juan Urbina, Amelia Uzátegui, Wesley Rommy and Julien Adjovi. They will share their views and physical practices alongside workshops from ECD teachers: Hildegarde De Baets, Roos van Berkel, Vivianne Rodrigues de Brito, Stephen van Dijk, John Taylor, Ederson Xavier, Sofia Ornelas (Health and Performance ATD) and guest researchers Giselle Rodrigues de Brito and Renee Schneider.

Read more: Why Critical Somatics?

23 April - Morning Session (plenary) from 10.00 to 13.00

Opening Session
Reciprocal Critic: Building Somatics as Emancipatory Practices in Non-Dance Milieu
By Isabelle Ginot

Location: Danstheater of ATD
Find the registration form and the programme at the top of the page

“Critical Somatics” often, and hopefully, consists of bringing political concerns unusual to Somatics into their usual spaces. For instance, investigating our somatic practices, in dance and somatics studios, with gender or decolonial studies. This is eliciting unseen (but often not unfelt) preconceptions of the so-called neutral, or universal, body of somatics.

What I’d like to share is a different but solidary pathway for building critical somatics: bringing them into different social, cultural, and political milieus. Somatics with migration; somatics with differing abilities; somatics with social discriminations and exclusions, and in the places where those discriminations operate: Senior homes, shelters for persons seeking asylum, psychiatric hospitals, prisons, schools for children with different abilities, etc.

Formats may collapse. Unseen prerequisites may appear and deny access to participants, becoming the horizon of the practice rather than its starting ground. “Participants” (patients, welfare recipients, people with differing abilities, refugees and displaced persons, women and femme-identified individuals, older adults…) may not want to participate. Or their assigned position in the institution may be a frontier to transgress for them to become what we call “participants.” Or the carers may be unable, unwilling, or too exhausted to make the practice possible.

Making the practice “accessible” then requires many shifts from orthodox somatic teachings: improvise and compose with the situation. Give up any orthodoxy in our teaching. Develop acute readings of the situation, including larger aspects that seem peripheral to the “workshop.” Make oneself attentive to invisible forces that allow or prevent the possibility of the project. Listen and mobilize knowledge and movements that are not innate to Somatics but make the social norms local to the institution. Understand the many roles, functions, and power issues that intertwine with and complicate the possibility of access to a workshop space and its expected relationships.

Our beliefs may be shaken. The “agency and empowerment” that our beautiful practice delivers naturally may not be as strong as the social violence that is exerted in these institutions. Worse, where we usually feel as the honored teacher who offers emancipatory experiences through movement and perception to the less privileged, we may experience being taken into this social violence. Feeling the victim of it. And, maybe, being touched to feel an instrument of this violence.

This presentation will narrate 20 years of collective fieldwork and research in welfare institutions in France. I will invite ourselves to navigate between listening, moving, fictionalizing, criticizing, and debating.

Bio Isabelle Ginot

24 April - Morning Session (plenary) from 10.00 to 13.00
Round table with guest researchers: Isabelle Ginot, Juan Urbina, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla and Wesley Guido Rommy

Moderator: Bojana Bauer
Location: Danstheater of ATD
Find the registration form and the programme at the top of the page

• Bio Juan Urbina
• Bio Amelia Uzategui Bonilla
• Bio Wesley Guido Rommy

Virtuous Cycles, working on Diversity and Generativity in Alexander Technique and Somatic work
by  Renee Schneider, Hildegarde De Baets and Stephan van Dijk 

Renee will share the work that has been done in the US since 2016 by the Alexander Technique Diversity Coalition, followed by the Alexander Technique Liberation Project and the Judith Leibowitz Scholarship Fund. She will discuss how diversity is an integral part of, or should be incorporated into, somatic work.

Additionally, she will address current events in the US related to the Trump administration. In the second half of the workshop, Renee will introduce practical work based on the concepts presented earlier, focusing on creating virtuous cycles of safety, healing, and relational bonds, in expanding circles.

Renee is present on Zoom, Hildegarde and Stephan assist in the studio.

• Bio Renee Santo Schneider
• Bio Hildegarde De Baets
• Bio Stephan van Dijk

Search Within a Shape 
by Sofia Ornellas Pinto and Ederson Xavier

This session explores the relationality between space, task, timing, and yourself. How do these influence the choices you make as a mover? How do you problem-solve?

You will be guided through a framework of constraints. It’s about the process, not the outcome. What do you learn and achieve when working in relation to it? Expect to move, so come in comfortable, unrestricting clothes. Max 15 participants.

• Bio Sofia Ornellas Pinto
• Bio Ederson Xavier

Bartenieff Fundamentals: Initiation and sequencing 
by Roos van Berkel

‘When we follow a pathway through the body instead of making a shape, we have more choices about how to be in the world’. (Amy Matthews) 

Roos van Berkel teaches Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis in the ECD curriculum. During this workshop, she will lead a few explorations based on the Bartenieff Fundamentals with a specific focus on where the movement starts (initiation) and how it travels through the body (sequencing). During and after these explorations, Roos will attend to the following questions that have been formulated in the context of the Critical Somatics Research Project: How do you relate to the concept of relationality? Looking through the lens of relationality — how is it affecting your practice? What aspects have you rediscovered by considering this perspective? Are you able to formulate a critique of it?

• Bio Roos van Berkel

   

Queering Yoga – Accessibility and Inclusion 
by John Taylor

If yoga is about an open heart, how do we create a space responsible to the roots of yoga and yet open and inclusive to all bodies, ablenesses, genders, colors, and other othered peoples. A short practice, a sharing of the documentary, “Queering Yoga”, and space for discussion and sharing on paper.

• Bio John Taylor

Plenary Workshop - Can Latinx Social Dances Be Somatic?
by Juan Urbina and Amelia Uzategui Bonilla

During the 2020 lockdown, Juan Urbina and Amelia Uzategui Bonilla began offering daily online classes, exploring Salsa as a decolonizing, inclusive dance form—a way to energize, rejuvenate, and find joy during times of isolation. They developed a low-barrier facilitation style, offering multiple entry points for participants to engage with Salsa music through movement. Salsa, meaning “sauce,” reflects diverse Afro-Indigenous cultures and rhythms, blending son cubano, guaracha, mambo, cha-cha-cha, and Afro-U.S. American jazz and swing. By teaching Salsa dance patterns through a deep understanding of anatomy, Juan and Amelia invite participants to respond to Salsa music through embodied polyrhythmic and polycentric movement.

With no ‘one way’ that can be named as the ‘right way,’ their approach moves beyond the expectation of homogeneity. They share tips to recognize traditional steps and rhythms while leading participants to explore individual groove and micro-movements between the steps. Freeform, intuitive improvisation is encouraged, allowing participants to surrender to rhythmic possession. This can result in a sweaty, ecstatic dance experience, full of humor and wit—challenging the controlled seriousness of academic dance. Come as you are and experience how this dance approach makes you feel.

• Bio Juan Urbina
• Bio Amelia Uzategui Bonilla

Krumpfest workshop by Julien Adjovi

Workshop by the French krumper wrestler, Creator of Krumpfest
He will teach you the foundations of the dance and show you how to channel your emotions through physical sensations, exploring the various textures Krump has to offer.

Open to beginners, intermediate, and advanced dancers.

Bio Julien Adjovi 

Amphibious Soul, exploring our ‘watery’ heritage
by Hildegarde De Baets and Stephan van Dijk

The experience of being, moving or swimming in water can remind us to be supported through relationship and connection. It connects us to our ‘watery’ heritage and helps us to figure out where we fit as humans within systems that have taken four and a half billion years to shape. Using the actual experiences we acquired in the pre-workshop in the swimming pool, or using analogies of moving in the water if you have not participated in this pre-workshop, we will explore how we can deepen our experience of and insight into Alexander Technique principles like non-doing, lengthening and widening, head leads etc.

Being in interaction with water, real or imagined, can leave behind knowledge that we can take with us in our way of dealing with ourselves and our environment. In this workshop we will explore different procedures, movements and activities that will connect you to your watery heritage or Amphibiousness, and support your use of self on land, that will transcend your land-bias.

There is place for a maximum of 8 participants that can join a pre-workshop in the therapeutic swimming pool of revalidation hospital Reade at the Overtoom in Amsterdam on Tuesday April 8 19.00 till 21.00. These 8 participants are expected to join in the workshop on the symposium, together with the other participants that have not had the experience in the pool.

• Bio Hildegarde De Baets
• Bio Stephan van Dijk

Search Within a Shape 
by Sofia Ornellas Pinto and Ederson Xavier

This session explores the relationality between space, task, timing, and yourself. How do these influence the choices you make as a mover? How do you problem-solve?

You will be guided through a framework of constraints. It’s about the process, not the outcome. What do you learn and achieve when working in relation to it? Expect to move, so come in comfortable, unrestricting clothes. Max 15 participants.

• Bio Sofia Ornellas Pinto
• Bio Ederson Xavier

Bartenieff Fundamentals: Initiation and sequencing 
by Roos van Berkel

‘When we follow a pathway through the body instead of making a shape, we have more choices about how to be in the world’. (Amy Matthews) 

Roos van Berkel teaches Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis in the ECD curriculum. During this workshop, she will lead a few explorations based on the Bartenieff Fundamentals with a specific focus on where the movement starts (initiation) and how it travels through the body (sequencing). During and after these explorations, Roos will attend to the following questions that have been formulated in the context of the Critical Somatics Research Project: How do you relate to the concept of relationality? Looking through the lens of relationality — how is it affecting your practice? What aspects have you rediscovered by considering this perspective? Are you able to formulate a critique of it?

Bio Roos van Berkel

The World in Us
 by Vivianne Rodrigues de Brito and Giselle Rodrigues de Brito

Our bodies are not separate from the world—they are part of it. Our experiences are shaped by this connection, revealing that we are neither fully in control nor isolated individuals. Instead, we exist in constant exchange with our surroundings, influencing and being influenced by the world. Embracing this perspective invites a deeper sense of collective awareness and shared experience.

While somatic practices often begin with individual perception—how we feel, sense, and express—this workshop expands those insights into a collective space. By blending Somatic Practices with Aisthesis Practice, we will explore how personal awareness evolves in relation to others.

Aisthesis Practice emphasizes sensory awakening and presence, encouraging spontaneous movement without predetermined structure. This improvisational approach reveals the subtle dynamics of connection, prompting reflection on how we relate to others, navigate social influences, and understand ourselves within cultural frameworks. Through this practice, we cultivate awareness of being part of a larger, interconnected whole.

• Bio Vivianne Rodrigues de Brito
• Bio Giselle Rodrigues de Brito

Plenary Workshop - Body Talk: House and Somatics
by Wesley Guido Rommy

Body Talk is an embodied movement workshop that explores the depth of House Dance—rooted in club culture, freedom of expression, and rhythm and how somatics are rooted in the practice already. 

Through the lens of rhythm, we will explore how the music moves us, not just as dancers, but as whole beings. We’ll dive into house dance’s rich rhythmic approach through footwork, flow and groove, and how they can be broken down to simple yet core principles of movement. 

This workshop invites you to explore the connection between rhythm and the nervous system, and how syncopation, pulse, and repetition can support regulation and release but also rejuvenation and empowerment. 

House dance by default is a gateway into embodied presence, joy, and emotional expression. Club culture and communal movement have always served as powerful tools for connection to self and others. 

Through guided improvisation, rhythm-based exercises, and reflective integration we will find where we need to listen and where our attention is needed. 

Let the body speak

• Bio Wesley Guido Rommy

Critical Somatics is designed and coordinated by Bojana Bauer & Maria Ines Villasmil Prieto
General Coordination: Maria Ines Villasmil Prieto
Production Coordinator ECD: Norma Schiphof
Production ATD: Marcel Slagter and Geert Oddens
ECD Education Assistant: Roos Oudt
Communication: Wouter van Loon, Brechje Glass

This project is supported by the Educational Development Funds and Professionalisation Funds of the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts