fourth cycle

The Body The Player The Journey invites participants to embody their authenticity—offering a pathway to modulate the dancing through mechanisms of perception, connecting each individual to their own personal and collective landscapes.

The exploration of movement begins by unfolding the web of connections within our living body and its interrelational systems (at this moment, expect lots of images!). From our dynamic sensorimotor network, we orchestrate the body by scanning information from both inner and outer connections.

This process involves accessing and expanding a repertoire of adaptive responses that connect with cognitive, sensorial, subjective, and imagetic layers—drawing on available resources that emerge from personal bodily experiences.

The work focuses on the mobility of the body through an integrative lens—investigating how its parts intrinsically interact, respond, and resonate, creating a dynamic structure of interplay.

Through frameworks such as improvisation, scores, games, and procedures rooted in the fields of perception, people will be exposed to and experience the following principles.

(1) sensitive & systemic mapping of the body, (2) multidimensionality, (3) gravity & body axis, (4) distribution of tension & modulations of tone, (5) the folds of the body, (6) the fabulous universe of spirals, (7) asymmetry, and (8) body pulsations & impact absorption.

Perceiving and listening to the rhythmic landscape of the body—hacking habitual patterns to access information from the present, the individuals, and the contextual space around us—we witness, hold space, and charge a large spectrum of shape-shifting sensations within the ever-evolving decision-making instances.

The Body The Player The Journey sets the ground for the interplay of people—moving what pulses within and between each other—an invitation to co-create with every participant a vibrant space for potential, inspiration, exchange, and support.

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The Listening Skin with Maria Papadopoulou 

The skin as a place of encounter and as a boundary – a surface of exchange between our body and the environment. In this workshop, we explore how our movement responds and shifts based on sensory stimuli and how we come into contact with the boundaries that separate or connect us with other bodies.
Combining hands-on practices with movement, improvisation, and small choreographic scores, the seminar focuses on creating safe conditions of trust and consent for the recognition and acceptance of touch. Concepts of tactility, contact, and dialogue are explored through the connection of dance, pedagogy, and embodiment. In an environment of trust and care, and through co-contact and co-creation, we seek ways to share, coexist, re-member and re-move, creating even if temporarily, a space of interdependence.

Tools and practices: Movement instructions with or without contact, storytelling to guide the imagination, kinesthetic instructions, choreographic scores, experiential anatomy influenced by Body-Mind Centering®, proprioceptive exercises, observation, small instant composition works, sensory artistic impressions, writing/recording, creation of small collective archives.

 

 

Bios 

Maria Papadopoulou engages in various fields related to the body, teaching, and therapy. She is a graduate of the Greek State School of Dance, the Department of Education and Preschool Education of the University of Athens, and holds a master’s degree in “Education and Human Rights” from the same university. As a dancer, she has collaborated with contemporary choreographers and teaches contemporary dance and improvisation to both children and adults. At the same time, she focuses on analyzing pedagogical practices and teaches pedagogy at a professional dance school, presenting her work at conferences and educational forums. Maria has trained in Thailand and Europe in Thai massage, Chi Nei Tsang, and craniosacral therapy, while she is currently training in the SME (Somatic Movement Education) program of Body-Mind Centering® in Athens. Since 2021, she has been directing the organization “InDancEdu,” which implements movement and dance educational programs in both formal and non-formal education, with an emphasis on inclusion within a differentiated pedagogical approach. Her work combines theory and practice, art and therapy, with the goal of empowerment and social inclusion through movement and creative expression. 

 

Rafaela Sahyoun is a Latin American artist from São Paulo, working as a dancer, choreographer, and educator.

She spirals through these roles within the relational landscapes of performative practices in context-driven co-elaborations. In Brazil and abroad, she is strongly inclined toward hybrid art practices within the multicultural social fabric.

As an educator, she has developed an in-depth pedagogical framework of dance-oriented practices that continuously unfold through research and extensive facilitation. Her work spans dance undergraduate and postgraduate education, professional dance and theater companies, cultural centers, and other artistic platforms. In addition to teaching, she was invited to curate the pedagogical program for the 2025 Out of the Toolbox – Dance Workshops Summer Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

As a choreographer, she is creating a new work for the renowned Balé da Cidade de São Paulo, set to premiere in May 2025, following Fôlego—now part of the company’s touring repertory. Her active repertory includes CRUSH (2024), which premiered at ARGE Kultur (AT) and Cine Teatro Alba (PT), and NINGUÉMMESOLTA (Don’t Lose Me), last staged in Romania at Unfinished Festival. For the past five years, she has annually created choreographic works for PERA School of Performing Arts in Cyprus, with her latest work being The Trouble is Wildly Wet (2024).

She graduated from SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, AT) and has been working as a performer since 2012.