Material for the brain

My guest for episode 34 is Rafe Kelly, founder of Evolve Move Play. Rafe is a parkour athlete, movement coach and entrepreneur based on the west coast of the US.

Rafe's approach to training goes much deeper than the physical aspects and through his exploration of the physical, he revolves around existential questions of meaning, connection, wisdom and health.

I was thrilled to dive into this conversation with Rafe and go down the rabbit hole of sense making together. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and encourage you to leave a comment or question and join the conversation!

Connect with Rafe:

https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/

https://www.instagram.com/rafekelley/

Join the Movement Lab open day:

https://movementlab.eu/open-day

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:⁠

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe⁠

MY guest for the 33rd episode is Asia Shcherbakova, a scientist and movement educator. Asia holds a Master of Science in Human Genetics and a PhD in Biotechnology. She has been involved in projects related to the effects of stress on learning and memory and currently she is studying the pro-cognitive effects of medium-chain triglycerides. Beside her scientific research, she is a co-developer of the Baseworks method in which she is focused on understanding the function of brain areas that participate in both movement and cognitive tasks and the crossover between language and movement.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ksenia-shcherbakova

My guests for the 32nd episode are Roser Tutusaus and Tom Weksler who are contemporary dancers, choreographers and teachers.

They are the founders and artistic directors of Wonderground dance company and the founders of Movement Archery - their pedagogical body from which they offer workshops and intensives world wide.

I have known both Tom and Roser for several years in which we have collaborated, exchanged and fed one another on both the physical and intellectual levels. I have invited them to the podcast to explore their different artistic endeavours which includes the opening of the Island - a new cultural centre in the suburbs of Barcelona and their latest dance creation Momentum.

I had many many private conversations with them in the past and I was really happy to have the opportunity to share this one on this public feed.

In our conversation, we talked about the different motivations to engage in art making. We talked about the politics of art making and what are the necessary conditions to create art from our individual perspectives as artists. We talked about strategies to guide attention as performance makers. We talked about the current political discourse that dominates the European dance world and what other perspectives we might want to include and more.

Connect to Roser and Tom:

⁠https://www.wondergroundcompany.com⁠

⁠https://www.movementarchery.com

My guest for 31st episode is Christian Lechner, who is a communication trainer, dance & movement educator, and an entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of the Tau Magazine, and a co-founder of the Auenweide eco village.

I have known Christian for around 7 years. We met through our shared interest in dance and movement.

Christian professional engagements form together a body of work that is tightly correlated with basic human needs - connection to the environment, to a community of people and to one’s own body.

I was delighted to have him on my podcast and to dive into his work and insight from his integrative approach to both life and work.

Connect with Christian:

https://artofcontact.at/

https://wegezurfuelle.net/

https://tau-magazin.net/

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality:

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan

The guest for 30th episode is Gabriella Voss, a religious studies scholar with a personal background in dance and theatre who is currently working on her PHD thesis in the university of Vienna. She is a strong advocate to the notion that there are profound and important insights to learn from contemporary dancers that can be understood as spiritual or even religious in nature.  

Despite the fact that contemporary dance and religions has for long been understood as opposing poles, in her PhD research called "The Concept of Healing in Contemporary Dance”, Gabriella strives to bridge these poles, taking the religious concept way beyond what we usually have in mind, as often we tend to link religion directly to Abrahamitic religions.  

Through her research she wants to share with people who know little or nothing about dance how an embodied way of existence, with the openness, curiosity and risk-taking that contemporary dancers often manifest can indeed be seen as the starting point for a deeper search for meaning, self-responsibility, connection and personal transformation.  

Get in touch with Gabriella: 

[email protected]  

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email: 

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe 

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality: 

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan

For the 29th episode, I have invited Meytal Blanaru - a dancer, choreographer, teacher and a Feldenkreis practitioner.

She is the founder of Fathom High - a Feldenkrais® based dance technique, that uses neuroplasticity to create changes in the way one moves, forms habits and overcome limitations.

I met Meytal many years ago during my dance education and recently we worked closely for several months in which I have assisted her with the creation of her new website.

Her work attracted me as I have seen in it a cross over between what I would called ‘somatic training’ and ‘athletic expression’ and I was interested to dive deeper into it.

In our conversation we talk lengthly on the subject of attention as material, We talked about resiliency and the different between the mental aspects and the image we might have about physical resiliency. We talk about freedom of movement and limitations. How can we locate limitations and over come limitations.

Connect to Meytal:

https://meytal-blanaru.com

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality:

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan

For the 28th episode of the podcast, I had the honour to host Defne Erdur.

Defne (TR/FR/IT) is a mover, researcher and a therapist working in the fields of performing arts, health and education. She is trained in Contemporary Dance , Sociology, Expressive Art Therapy and Trauma Healing.

Connect to Defne:

https://defneerdur.com/

https://www.facebook.com/defne.erdur

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality:

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan

For the 27th episode of the podcast, I had the honour to host Simon Mayer.

Simon is a performer, choreographer, musician, festival curator and workshop facilitator. He was born in Austria and studied at the Vienna State Opera Ballet School and at the Performing Arts and Research Studios in Brussels (P.A.R.T.S.).

I got to know if Simon many years ago when I moved to Vienna. His choreographic work was an inspiration for me and my own artistic practice. Recently we got into a short exchange on Social media and it sparked the wish to dive to a longer conversation with him in the podcast.

In our conversation, we were asking ourselves why do we do what we do, and where is the source of the fire that moves us to act in the world. We talked about trance state in its potential affect on our well being, we talked about education and art making and their roles in the social fabric.

This is our first conversation in this formant but I am pretty sure that it won’t be the last one. So without further a due, here is Simon Mayer.

Connect to Simon:

http://www.simonmayer.at/

https://www.facebook.com/simon.mayer.7106

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality:

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan

In this solo episode, I explore the issues around the topic of consent within the contact improvisation world and beyond.

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe  

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality:

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan

My guest for the 25th episode is Eva-Maria Kraft - a contemporary dancer, dance teacher and choreographer for humans and robots. She is also the founder of the dance studio RAUM für TANZ in Vienna and teaches internationally for beginners up to professional dancers.

Her artistic projects move at the interface of different art fields and sciences, explore (artificial) bodies and are based on the real-time composition of movement. She is also a member the trans-disciplinary research group H.A.U.S. where she deals with Artificial Intelligence and choreographs and performs with humanoid robots.

Connect with Eva:

Subscribe to get the podcast to your email:

https://movementlab.eu/subscribe  

The podcast was recorded using riverside.fm - remote recording in studio quality:

http://www.riverside.fm?via=matan