It’s time to play
TOUCH&PLAY BARCELONA // 13-16 JUNE 2024
An intimate space to Dance & Play for the new and old alike
DANCE & EMBODIMENT
We delve into the depths of our being, connecting with our physical, emotional, and energetic bodies. Tapping into the rich reservoirs of energy that reside within we find integration, empowerment, and a deeper sense of wholeness.
CREATIVITY & PLAY
In our journey, we view creativity as a never-ending playground to engage with life, and Eros as a powerful creative force that fuels our exploration and expression.
KINK & SELF-EXPRESSION
We embrace the diversity of desires and identities, fostering an environment where individuals can authentically explore their unique emotional and erotic landscapes.
RELATIONSHIPS & COMMUNITY
We recognize the importance of building supportive, nurturing connections with others, cultivating spaces where vulnerability is celebrated and relational growth is encouraged.
YOU BELONG HERE
Touch&Play embodies an international movement, a spirited and adventurous family rooted in various local communities across the globe.
With a blend of sensuality, embodiment, playful, and heartfelt connection, Touch&Play invites individuals to explore their authenticity and relational dynamics in safer and supportive spaces. It acknowledges that embracing life is not just about celebrating strengths and virtues, but also about acknowledging one’s limits, and shadows, fostering a holistic journey of self-discovery and growth.
Our desires are connected to our biggest shames.
Take a minute to connect with one of your vibrant desires.
And now tell me, what feelings surround it? How much do you believe you deserve it?
Our desires or cravings often stem from or are intertwined with aspects of ourselves that we feel ashamed of or uncomfortable about. This could mean that our desires may be influenced by our attempts to address or compensate for feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, or societal judgment related to these shameful aspects of ourselves.
Embrace it all and take responsibility.
Moreover, power dynamics significantly shape our desires.
Desire often involves a longing or craving for something, whether it be physical, emotional, or psychological. Power, on the other hand, refers to the ability to influence or control outcomes, individuals, or situations.
In relationships, power imbalances can influence our desires, as individuals may seek power to fulfill them.
It’s time to expand yourself and continue trusting that you belong.
By shedding light on these buried issues, we enter into a vulnerable space to ask for what we want, and embrace our desires openly rather than acting on them covertly, while also gaining clarity on the power we hold.
Our responsibility lies in cultivating awareness of our blind spots, those areas of our lives and perspectives where we may lack insight or understanding.
This is a gathering about play, vulnerability and building community rich in emotional, sensorial and erotic intelligence.
We are both excited and nervous to return to Touch&Play Barcelona. This is a call to reconnect or join us for the first time and make your mark as this community continues to evolve.
During these four days, we’ll create a space to dance, play, and discover the Touch&Play work and community in an intimate gathering of up to 35 people.
Our Discovery Weekends are filled with inspiring offers that form the bedrock of the Touch&Play work and community. In these smaller gatherings programming is focused on a single track creating a strong group field and a deep shared journey. Our schedule while structured has flexibility to shift to the needs and wishes alive.
We’ll start by exploring the Touch&Play’s de-CIDE Consent Framework, empowering everyone to communicate our boundaries and desires in an effective and authentic way.
We’ll delve into Contact Improvisation, inviting sensuality and sexuality into our dances when it feels right.
For the adventurous, there’s a safer space to explore Rope, Role, Power, and Sensation Play.
Participants can step into leadership with an afternoon dedicated to community offers.
Evenings will be open for self-guided exploration, with a special celebration on Saturday to cap off the weekend.
With immense love for this project and the spirit of co-creation, we extend this invitation to newcomers and those approaching with a beginner’s mind. Welcome home to our diverse community of dancers, somatic explorers, and embodied humans.
Team
Our discovery weekends are created and held by a small team of core facilitators. The facilitators are normally elders from our community with a intimate knowledge of the culture and praxis that form the roots our the Touch&Play work.
The participants – a group of dancers, movers, somatic learners, spiritual magic makers, embodied humans, vulnerable deep-divers, and relational explorers – are also invited to propose an offering during the gathering
We call in this community, expanding within and expanding throughout, to gather in a new creation.
you are warmly welcome, to come as your full, unfiltered, beautiful self.
DANIEL J. HAYES
Daniel Hayes is a Medical Doctor, public health scientist, eco-anarchist and practical idealist.
He’s been playing, dancing, meditating and conversing CI for over 15 years and actively sharing his curiosity and knowledge and doubts for the past decade.
He is the founder of the Touch&Play Project, which explores the edges of Contact Improvisation by inviting our (al)chemical bodies into the dance.
Through artistic and academic research he hopes to highlight the potential of CI as a tool to create authentic connections with oneself and the other by bringing it into play, communication, BDSM, therapy, education, sexuality, somatic mindfulness and more.
TRINIDAD GARCÍA ESPINOSA
Performer /activist/ creator
Equally interested in the somatic field, the performance and improvisation, postfeminism and gender politics, identities, practices unconventional sex and relationships.
“I come from the field of culture, the performative feminist field of discourse analysis, dedicated to the training and prevention of sexist violence, through the movement for the promotion and coeducation in schools and institutes in sexual education. I’m as well interested with performance improvisation, post-feminism and gender politics, identities and sexual practices and unconventional relationships”.
Trinidad has been working regularly as a contact improvisation teacher since 2001 in Barcelona and at festivals such as the New year festival of Barcelona, dances Summer festival, Freiburg Contact festival, Madrid contact festival, in touch festival, Dance Here project, Xplore among others.
RIKI PARENTI
Riki Parenti is a music therapist and transpersonal therapist with a long background in the realm of sound, voice and movement.
Apart from working in the field of clinical music therapy, the last 4 years he is directing a weekly voice and movement laboratory in Barcelona where he mixes voice work as a self-growth and empowerment tool and playfulness through music games, body percussions and traditional folk songs singing.
He is also a CI dancer and musician in a lots of jams and CI festivals since 2010: his style is minimalist and meditative playing with voice, loops, acoustic guitar and organic sounds effects.
www.rikiparenti.net
OBI
Obi is part of the Touch&Play community in Barcelona and has been dancing Contact Improv for decades.
He has been a mathematics teacher at a high school, explorer of Buddhist meditation and Tibetan reiki, and passionate about dance and tantra.
He has experienced a significant change in his life thanks to Ancestral Tantra Kriya Yoga (ATKY). The arrival of ATKY has revolutionized his personal and spiritual evolution, leading him to complete training as an ATKY instructor and facilitator. With passion and humility, he has begun to conduct regular sessions in Barcelona, and this year he has been invited to collaborate in training programs for Tantric Therapists in Mexico.
T&P global: Mara. Zinnda. Nick. Queralt Jorba.
“Leave the relationships more beautiful than you found them.”
Embarking on a Journey
With curiosity, playfulness, and vulnerability, we seek to deepen our connections with ourselves, each other, and the natural world, cultivating emotional, somatic, and erotic intelligence along the way.
Offerings
- de-CIDE Consent Workshop
- Morning classes
- Contact Improv Class & Jam
- Performance & intro to kink
- Eros and playspaces
- Eco-sensuality & Land dance
- Voice journeys and singing cercles
- Semi-guided evening events, dances & rituals
- Group spaces to process
- Blank canvas of free time for rest, connect and/or emergent revelry!!!
Ancestral Tantra Kriya Yoga
The sessions of ATKY involve the activation and mobilization of universal energy and the internal energy of the body through different kriyas and asanas. These exercises allow for awareness of energetic blockages in the body, facilitating growth, healing, and transformation of unsatisfactory patterns and negative beliefs. The practice leads to meditative states, elevates consciousness, improves emotional well-being and intuitive connection, and promotes enhanced interpersonal communication. Sessions are conducted in groups, in circles, and in pairs, alternating between kriyas and asanas.
The Oracle
The Oracle is a semi-structured ritual space for collective reflection and processing around what is alive in the group. It’s a group process that has many uses and is capable of showing us layers of truth that perhaps we were not aware of previously.
Venue
Our home
We will be in a tipical catalan house. Montserrat are the mountains that will accompany us.
COMMUN SPACES
Indoor dance space
Communal dinning room
Kiwa and other sacred spaces
SORROUNDINGS
Forest and nature
Village 10 minuts by car
ACCOMMODATIONS
Shared Bedrooms
Camping with tent or van
Nourishment
Cooked with love
Local and organic products. Delicious vegetarian meals.
Our kitchen team will do their best to accommodate special dietary needs related to intolerances. However, we regret that we cannot cater to individual taste preferences. Additionally, we cannot guarantee a completely allergy-free kitchen, as all dishes may contain traces of ingredients used in our cooking.
Nourishment involves not only the intake of nutrients but also the quality of the food, the environment in which it is consumed, the emotional and social aspects of eating, and its impact on overall well-being. It considers how food affects our physical health, mental and emotional states, energy levels, and even our connection to ourselves and others.
Practicalities
Feet in the ground. Head in the clouds.
GUIDELINES
GETTING THERE
Once your register you will receive a document to self organize share rides.
ARRIVING & DEPARTURES
Arriving Thursday from 16h to 17h
Departure Sunday at 15h
Economic contribution
We offer sliding scale to adapt to different economic realities. The non-refundable reservation will be reduced from the total.
How do I place myself on the sliding scale if there are different ticket price options?
We aim to both keep our prices accessible, while holding financial sustainability.
Please help us meet this balance by paying, with intuition and integrity, the highest price point you are able to afford.
We offer supported tickets by previous application because there are participants that are contributing a bit extra with their economic contribution.
Consider paying more on the scale if you:
-own the home you live in
-have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money
-travel recreationally
-have access to family money and resources in times of need
-work part time by choice
-have a relatively high degree of earning power due to level of education (or gender and racial privilege, class background, etc.) Even if you are not currently exercising your earning power, I ask you to recognize this as a choice.
Consider paying less on the scale if you:
-are supporting children or have other dependents
-have significant debt
-have medical expenses not covered by insurance
-receive public assistance
-have immigration-related expenses
-are an elder with limited financial support
-are an unpaid community organizer
-are a returning citizen who has been denied work due to incarceration history
This sliding scale description was written by Hadassah Damien, founder of Ride Free Fearless Money
Questions
What language will the retreat be facilitated in?
We would love to facilitated the event in Catalan, and likely will be in Spanish or English, depending on the needs.
What’s the easiest way to get to the venue?
Once you complete your payment you receive a message with a link to an spreadsheet to self organize share rides with other participants.
Privat transportation. Dust road.
What to bring?
Thinks you might consider to bring: sun protection, mosquito repellent, earplugs and long sleeves cloth (is useful for mosquitos, sun, dance and roll, chilly…)
Shoes to be in the forest. Shoes to take them off and on 20 times a day.
Towel (no need to bring linen)
Comfy cloth to move and roll around
Water bottle
Headlamp (highly recommended)
Cash (ATM in the village)
A book, a note book, contact cards, nice handcraft objects that you make, your favourite costumes, toys…
What are the sleeping arrangements like?
We will all be in beds and bunk beds in shared rooms from 4 to 8 people. There are some spots for vans or free camping.
More questions
Sure! Visit our FAQ
Contact
registrations@touchandplay.org
Testimonials
★★★★★
The movement
STEP IN YOUR LEADERSHIP. BE PART OF THE MOVEMENT
TOUCH&PLAY GLOBAL
Founded in 2010, the first Touch&Play event happened in Germany from an exploration of the chemistry and edges of Contact Improv. At its core is exploring the “relational body” with values centering on authenticity, inclusion, play, embodied consent and tribe. The first Touch&Play in Barcelona happened in 2011. We seek with curiosity, play and vulnerability how to individually and collectively dismantle the systems of oppression that live in our bodies, minds and spirits… weaving us into deeper connection with ourselves, each other and nature. Dance, kink, BDSM, somatics, BMC, authentic relating, NVC are some of our influences as we awaken more vibrantly our emotional, somatic and erotic intelligence.
