A conversation with Asaf Bachrach, recorded in Slovenia's flower-filled mountains. We meet at training course hosted by Moave and funded by the European Union, where we work on approaches for bringing somatic practices into the world in different way. In this conversation we are exploring how palliative approaches to care offer alternatives to our curative, fix-it culture — and how this approach can help us navigate the polycrisis.

Asaf Bachrach is a cognitive neuroscientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), a somatic dancer and teacher, and is involved in collective living in rural France. His work bridges scientific with embodied practice. Through movement and community experimentation, he explores the nature of attention, collective responsibility, and how we physically co-create our reality.

Palliative vs. Curative Approaches

The distinction between fixing problems (curative) and improving well-being while living with difficulty (palliative). How this extends beyond healthcare — being with what is rather than rushing toward solutions.

Somatics and Non-Separability

What somatics encompasses beyond specific methods — it's an attitude recognizing our ecological interconnection. "Difference without separability": we're distinct but not separate from each other or our environment.

Somatic practice

Asaf uses exercises with sticks to help people experience the responsibility of their attention. This is especially interesting for scientists, who are  trained to create artificial separations that somatic work can help illuminate.

Matter is Alive

The stick practice reveals agency as distributed in relationships rather than residing in separate beings. Drawing on Steve Paxton's insight: "The dancer always dances with the floor."

Community Living and Responsibility at Scale

Asaf lives in the community "Larret" in rural France. How smaller-scale living provides direct feedback about consequences, enabling more responsible choices. "Being responsible is being able to respond to consequences."

Drawing on Donna Haraway's "Staying with the Trouble," Karen Barad and her insights on the entaglement of matter and meaning, and Martin Buber's I-Thou relationship — the episode covers feminist epistemology, somatic practice, and community living.