‚Meeting an Other‘ – Exploring Encounter and Communication
by the means of Contact Improvisation, Tango and Natural Horsemanship
This was a one time workshop happening in 2015 in Bern, Switzerland.
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Presence, tone, engaged listening, sensory awareness, qualities of touch, understanding weight/gravity and anatomical structures, musicality and rhythm, leading and following…
What is communication besides the use of words and concepts?
What is needed for an ever subtler communication to take place?
When and how does it take place?
And what happens if we focus on the process of encounter and communication itself and leave the concept of ‘human’ and ‘other than human’ behind?
Horses live in a herd with a social structure in which we can identify a defined hierarchy and division of tasks.
In the same way as among each other, horses constantly communicate with the person approaching, to position themselves and to find out whether they could accept their counterpart as „herd leader“ and thus trust him.
In this workshop we will learn the basics of this body language.
This demands a clear understanding of respect and responsibility, and it demands great clarity and inner readiness to inquire and listen to ourselves and to another, extremely sensitive nature.
Experience with horses is no requirement to participate in this workshop: This is primarily about learning a completely present and watchful way of communication through the body.
This process begins with the first encounter with the horse and may lead to a high degree of harmonious exchange between man and animal.
Expanding the understanding of dance and transcending a human-centered perspective of being and dealing with the world, we will discover how core concepts of Tango and Contact Improvisation relate to, and may enrichen being and working with horses (and in fact, being with the animal world per se).
And how being with horses relates to, and may enrichen the encounter and communication in communicating, if not dancing with one or several partners.
You, the horse, the environment, where does one begin and the other end?