Local Times:

London: 10am - 12pm
Amsterdam: 11:00 - 13:00
Athens: 12:00 - 14:00
look up your timezone here

Full Description:

What traces does the experience of birthing leave in the woman’s body and mind? How do the liminal moments of delivering a new human into the world affect one’s identity? What kind of words, images, memories and feeling states surround this life-giving and life-changing passage and how do they unfold when they are met by others?
Following a process of rooting and branching to explore orifices, domes and thresholds in the body, these workshops invite participants to unpick narratives on birth as they meet, contradict, and complement each other. We aim to build a safe and inclusive space for attending to our experiences of giving birth and celebrating their poetics, diversity and creative potential.

Through movement improvisation, writing, sound and voice, we will explore themes such as relief/release and parting; compassion and resilience; mechanisms of care; and vulnerability and pain as transformational states.

Through reflection and embodied practice we will unfold and re-edit our stories, looking into what is left behind and what asks to be retold and shared with care and attentive listening. We welcome all women and non-binary people from all backgrounds and diversabilities who have had real, assisted or assisting, imagined or disrupted experiences of birthing: mothers, nurses, midwives, doulas, healthcare professionals and anyone else interested or involved in the perinatal field. No previous experience in moving or writing is needed – just a willingness to have a go.  

The workshops will be co-facilitated by Vanio Papadelli and Natalie Katsou and will take place online on a weekly basis during June. We encourage you to attend all sessions to experience the work as a fuller journey, but you can drop in to one or more individual sessions if this is more appropriate for you.

Take-Away Benefits:

In these workshops participants will:
- integrate movement, listening, witnessing and writing to reimagine embodied narratives.
- co-create a safe space for embodied exploration of intimate and meaningful stories
- explore the creative potential of birthing experience through the route of metaphor, imagination and collaborative creative practice
- engage with interdisciplinary techniques that integrate movement, voice and physicality with writing as creative research
- explore the voice as a three-dimensional extension of corporeality

Type of Format: Workshop

Language: English, There will be opportunities to use any language at various points.

Duration of Each Session: 120 minutes

Technical Platform for the Course: Zoom Pro

Early Bird Ticket - ends 15th May 2023 at 12 noon

Concessionary Ticket - is only for job seekers, students and seniors with a low household income.

Please ensure that you book at least 30 minutes prior to the start of the course, excluding Drop-In tickets where available, to allow time for you to receive confirmation emails and your entry link to Zoom. This is because we rely on third parties for confirmation etc. Please ensure you have read the Legal notices on our website before booking, in particular our notices regarding Privacy (including Privacy Considerations When Using Zoom), Refund & Cancellation, Disclaimers (including Medical) and Terms.‍

Facilitators Image, Event Image and Video Credit: Yiannis Katsaris