Devotional Artsexperience

Biophany is a ritualized theatrical practice exploring expanded states of consciousness. Biophany simply means manifestation (phania) of life (bios).

The core of the practice is as simple as it is powerful. We first let the body take over the mind,sensing rather than speaking and receiving rather than reacting. We then let ourselves become empty vessels moved by the subtle energies, impulses, and forces that flow through us. We begin alone in stillness and silence before turning to movement, sound, and interaction. We come together to bear witness and takepart in the play of creation as both actors and spectators of life.

This resembles forms of non-action found in Daoist Wu Wei or in Zazen Shikantaza, or Qigong. We thus cultivate an attitude ofcreative surrender, finding effortlessness and spontaneity and perhaps freedom and serendipity. We begin from the mundane, the banal, and the ordinary to findout what lies beneath the surface of normalcy, habit, and custom.

"The theatre is a vehicle, a means for self-study, self-exploration, a possibility of salvation. [It] is not about religion, but rather an experience. It is hereone ‘sees’ the invisible, such as human consciousness and states of being –things that normally escape our senses." — Peter Brook, the Ritual of Holy Theatre, The Empty Space (1981)

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The laboratory of the subtle offers a series of interdisciplinary exercises that aim to open our gaze to our relationship with the invisible. We seek to understand that our materiality (i.e. physical body) is not the only thing that intervenes in our reality. We believe and trust in the body as a receptive channel and transmitter of subtle frequencies. It is through the body that we can connect with the subtle dimensions of existence in order to better relate to the natural world and the species that inhabit it. This laboratory open a space for somatic-sensory-mental exploration that allow us to approach the body holitically as a means of communication between species and dimensions. Ultimately, observing or validating that the human experience is not only physical, it also allows us to expand our ways of relating, healing, and being in the world.

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In this creative workshop I invite you into explorations of the imaginal realm through the medium of paratheatre, or theatre without an external audience. Paratheatre, as conceived by Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski, consists only of actors, or doers, who seek to liberate their psychophysical impulses through a range of physical and vocal practices. The practices can engender attenuation of the ego, taking actors into expanded states of consciousness and enabling the expression and enactment of deeper dreaming processes, as well as attuning an ensemble, fostering mutuality and embodied listening. Together we will first explore these practices and then reflect upon them and consider what may happen when such embodied dreaming practices are directed towards visions of social change and activism. May we, through embodied play, be able to create greater coherence in groups and strengthen our collective agency and will to nurture a greater sense of interbeing, harmony and peace?

We are singing presence, allowing the pulse of life available to our tone, in tune with our hearts, ears, skin, feet, and lips. We are bigger than we think. The deeper we trust the more we are already tuned in. Hearing every sound in the world, we root into the vibrant reality. Every song is an invitation.

Authentic Voice is for those who want to connect through voice and traditional songs. It is the space to discover your unique vocal identity by mirroring your presence through your voice. We go there by grounding in the body through breath and movement, playing with rhythms and melodies. Beauty is not the goal, but the natural fruit of authenticity.

Polyphonic harmonies and disharmonies are an invitation for us to meet through deep listening. Traditional songs are vehicles of emotions and universal stories. We will connect to these stories through our bodies and our environment.

Awakening as Art is awakening to our true nature in creative bloom. Through somatic bodywork and energetics we reach a space of surrender. As our creation powers get activated through kundalini energy in the hara connecting with universal consciousness in the crown chakra, our body enters a state of trance, where somatic releasing and expanded states of consciousness can be reached. As we rise from this awakened dream, we embody the inner journey experienced through the expression of ourselves as art.

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Your hands breathing” focuses on the relationship between breathing and doing something with your hands through sculptural practice. Breathing is the essence of life. Being aware of it reveals our being in the world. The first step to perceiving the body is to pay attention to the breath, from this awareness each action is a possibility to understand what it means to be present. Transferring this sensation to making something with our hands allows us to experience a moment of communion where intuition, inspiration, imagination, and intention converge. Doing something activates the soul of things. Being aware of the power that this implies allows us to understand the impact of our actions on those around us and on the ecosystem of which we are part.

We investigate the connections between body, mind, and spirit. We are interested in opening our gaze to our relationship with the invisible; in the sense of understanding that our materiality (physical body) is not the only thing that intervenes in our reality.

We are intrigued by the subtle capacity of the body and mind; the way in which, for example, the energetic, manifests itself in codes through art, dreams, interpersonal relationships, becoming aware of the coherence between nature and other living beings.

Observing or validating that life experience is not only physical, it also allows us to expand our ways of relating. The interspecies approach brings us to recognize these forms of relationship beyond matter yet alongside other beings/companion species.

We propose a laboratory space to explore the subtle relationships between the human world and the plant world. We want to be inspired and observe the movements and energies that the plant world offers us to feel and understand our interspecies relationship through the sensory, the sensitive, the energetic, and the invisible.

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Feeling and Form is a Performer Training Workshop based on the training at Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre as transmitted by Rena Mirecka and elaborated by Marco Balbi Dipalma. The study focuses on finding the most functional form to express the internal movement of feeling in relation to the movement of one's own body, of the partner/group within the space/frame. The investigation of movement focuses on the transition from the formal beat of the rhythm to the discovery of the organic pulsation, towards the voluntary impulse in its spatial processing. The external search for rhythmic movement in space is connoted as a search for an inner space and rhythm of feeling. The work is characterized by discipline and precision in the execution of technique, improvisation, and structured performative action. One of the most important goals is to open up a meaningful relationship between inner movement and outer movement, between outer technique and inner technique in the search for a corporeal form (corporeity) of feeling. Links with other arts are addressed, in particular with video art: body-video-art-performance, photo-performance, and video installation.

Dreams are a creative force, full of colors and unknown possibilities. Let's come together and connect with this infinite imagination, the vibration of our unique voices, the resonances of our bodies and the rhythms of our breath. We are music. We are infinite creative power.