Life is made possible “through the long-lasting intimacy of strangers,” and our many “multi-species entanglements”, biologist Lynn Margulis.
This workshop is an opportunity to center yourself and reawaken your innate capacity for connection with what is going on inside and around you.
We will engage with ecosomatic practices for living and dying together on a damaged earth. Ecosomatics is a dynamic approach to living and learning which engages us through embodied practice into deeper relations with the world in which we live.
Together we will practice breathing, moving, sensing, perceiving, digesting, dying, and decomposing to help us perceive more of our living and the whole scale of the sensitivities and intelligences within us, the human and non-human, the transforming spaces, the before and after. Together, we will deepen our skills to listen, improvise, play, experiment, grieve, dwell in the unknown, and trust the deep resources of our bodies to navigate challenge, sustain ourselves, and thrive.
Ecosomatics helps us understand that we are not only organisms hosted by a planet but that we are also a planet hosting many other organisms. The biodiversity of these planets ecosystems is what makes life possible and extraordinary.
Through somatic practice we can engage with scientific concepts building bridges between ideas and lived experience. This allows us to generate different kinds of being, feeling, understanding, and thinking which can generate new ways of relating, behaving, and giving value to the more than human world.
This workshop is for anyone and everybody interested in movement, our ecological bodies and consciousness regardless of experience or ability.
“I am deeply grateful for the ecosomatics intensive this July. Olive and Otto held the space with such sensitivity to what was unfolding in the group moment by moment, relationally, somatically. It was one of the most attuned facilitated spaces I’ve been in. Their approach to facilitation was rooted in radical tenderness, marked by curiosity, openness, and deep care. The wealth of knowledge they carry is immense, and they share it with such generosity in ways that feel accessible, inspiring, and grounded in practice.
We were playing with how performance lives in the body, how we constantly renegotiate presence and attention. Being in the dance rather than watching it. I noticed how different ways of moving and sensing invited different kinds of agreements between us. Sometimes it felt like we were crafting new social contracts based on reciprocity, co-sensing, care, and uncertainty.
I moved between states of condensation and expansion. There were moments of drawing in, becoming dense. Other times I spilled out, reached beyond myself, merged. These shifts felt like language, but I didn’t have so many words, like ways of being together without needing to name everything. Throughout the workshop I was intentional about deprioritizing the sense of vision. Instead I was tuning into texture, pressure, vibration, the space between bodies. I felt things through my skin, my fluids, my organs.
This workshop has been beyond generative for my work, it has sharpened my sensitivity and attunement to my own body and in relation to other organisms and ecologies. I am left with a sense of being softened in boundaries, in perception, in sensing. A new intimacy with myself and what is possible. THANK YOU!!” – Alena Grahn
“
“Besides that I can treat this whole experience as a holiday or a retreat – something to recharge my batteries – doing somatic work (especially my beloved Body-Mind Centering®) in nature was both a deep pleasure and a mind-blowing experience, all within a profoundly relaxing state. I feel as if it truly planted seeds within me – seeds that will, I hope, gradually grow and eventually bloom. This is definitely not an experience that ended when those few days were over; I carry its essence within me.
I’m deeply grateful for the beautiful landscape – the forest, the soil, the water, the moss – that surrounded us throughout this exploration. I’m equally grateful to the group, and to Olive and Otto for guiding us through this journey. It was also a joy to catch a glimpse of the ways of thinking and working of other artists and somatic practitioners. Therefore, for me, it was valuable not only for the eco-somatic work and the bodily practice, but also as an artist and performer – it was both inspiring and liberating.” – Bernadett Jobbágy
I came into the course knowing very little about the BMC approach, so if you’re new to this, I can assure you it’s not a problem at all. Throughout the course, through lived experience, we delved into topics such as embryology, organs and systems, biodiversity, and the flora and fauna of the places we visited; overall, I’d say we explored life and death by living through them.
Since the course, I feel that my perception has shifted and I’ve become more attentive to nature and to the living and non-living things around me; I feel that I’m much more fully in touch with my body – now, where my organs are, there is no longer a void or just abstract knowledge about them, but an embodied understanding and fullness.
I am grateful to Olive and Otto for this wonderful gift, which I now wish to nurture and develop, getting to know our Planet and its inhabitants even better. They are not only professional, sensitive facilitators but also warm, caring people who live as they teach – thank you for this honesty. I highly recommend having this (or rather, your own) experience with them!” – Olga
The week was just brilliant and I’m so very glad I made it! I’m also super grateful for the care and sensitivity with which you both held the space, so thank you.
Right now one obvious resonance for me is the ways the work expanded my perception of how body relates to earth and what those connections might mean. Spending five days thinking about our internal lung space and inter-breathing, the deep co-evolution of body and environment, decomposing bodies and the vast mycelia under our feet, left me with a truly integrated understanding of body-earth, and a deep knowing of that in the body. It also gave me so many specific images, words, and experiences that continue to help me feel those connections on a day-to-day basis. That specificity has been missing in some other eco-somatic spaces I’ve been in, and for me it’s been important not only for creating a profound experience at the time but also for creating tangible touchstones and pathways that guide further exploration.
The sheer diversity and depth of connection I felt with place during the week has also stayed with me. My encounters gradually sensitised my touch, expanded my experimentation, challenged my inhibitions, and deeply intensified my curiosity. All this allowed me to experience new modes of listening and relating that have widened the possibilities (of support, surprise, play, transformation) that can emerge when moving or being with place. I feel I barely scratched the surface, so it’s also inspired an energetic need for more eco-somatic exploration!
The experiences and conversations I had have only convinced me even more of the crucial place of embodied knowledge and experience in confronting the current climate crisis. Everyone should do this work! I’m left wanting to think more about what these experiences and practices can do politically/socially, and also, in relation to my own work in geography, what they might do pedagogically as part of embodied approaches to geographical issues. –Sophie
2021
Independent online 6 class series
The Operating System online 6 class series
Klimahuset and Bygdøy, Oslo fjord weekend workshop
2022
Independent online 6 class series
Independent online 4 class intensive
TantsuRUUM, Tallinn, Estonia weekend workshop
2023
Beaches and Central park, Wellington, Aotearoa, 3 days
(Re-)Gaining Ecological Futures, Floating University, Berlin, afternoon workshop
Studio Los Almendros, Cabuya, Costa Rica, 5 day workshop
2024
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, Movement Research, NYC, 5 class online series
Leaning, Sensing, Feeling: Action in Ecological Literacy, 4 class online series, organised Natalie Joelle and funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council’s CHASE Climate Justice Network
Østmarka Ecosomatic Intensive, Østmarka, Oslo, 6 days
Italy Contact Festival, Gaia Terra, Italy 3 days
2025
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, Movement Research, NYC, 5 class online series
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, advanced series, 5 class online series
Østmarka Ecosomatic Intensive, Østmarka, Oslo, 5 day intensive
2026
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, Movement Research, NYC, 5 class online series
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, Potsdam Fabrik, 4 hour workshop
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, Unplugged Dance, Lefkada, Greece, 5 days
Østmarka Ecosomatic Intensive, Østmarka, Oslo, 5 day intensive
Ecosomatic Intensive, Jotunheimen & Finndalen, Norway, 3 days
Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying, 4 hour workshop, Darebin Parkland, Melbourne, Australia
