DISCOVERY WEEKEND
Earthdance (MA)
4th – 7th MAY 2023
An intimate space to Dance & Play for the new and old alike!
DISCOVERY WEEKEND
Earthdance (MA)
4th – 7th MAY 2023
Touch&Play is an international movement – a sexy, adventurous, embodied and deeply heart-centered family – that has rooted in western Mass.
Dear Dancers, Explorers, Sensualists and Adventurers
We invite you to co-create this mini Touch&Play with us as a juicy mix of a community gathering and a great opportunity to join in as a newcomer to the tribe!
During these four days we’ll be setting the space and frame to dance, play and discover the Touch&Play work and community in an intimate gathering of up to 45 people.
We will begin by diving into the Touch&Play’s de-CIDE Consent Framework so that we all have a chance to learn how to explore and communicate our boundaries and desires in an effective and authentic way.
We’ll play with Contact Improvisation and its edges allowing sensuality and sexuality to enter our dances when that feels aligned.
For the curious at heart, we’ll also be offering a safer space to engage in Rope, Role, Power and Sensation Play.
Our evenings will be reserved for more self-guided spaces to jam and explore with a little celebration on Saturday evening to round-off the weekend.
The whole journey will center community building processes such as morning check-ins, sharing groups, shared meals and singing circles.
WORK EXCHANGE APPLICATION IS NOW CLOSED
Work-Exchange positions are not only a way to attended the gathering; they are truly essential to our event running smoothly….and so gratefully appreciated.
OFFERINGS
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 of the group. Our facilitators will adapt the order and content of certain offerings to enhance the communities experience. We start with a deep dive into Touch&Play’s Embodied Consent work practice expressing our desires and boundaries in an effective way. During the days a the core facilitators will offer a number of shorter workshops to familiarize folks with the different T&P flavors and the evenings are dedicated to jams and more open and improvisational activities. To enhance the co-creational aspect of the gathering T&P community members are welcomed to share their own offerings during one of the days of the retreat.
Topics and offerings at Touch&Play events Focus on the exploration of the Relational Body and are drawn from practices that include: Contact Improvisation, conscious sexuality, Kink, Gender exploration and queerness, Ritual arts, Tantra, Grief work, Primal play, Ecosexuality, Rope play, Polyamory, Authentic movement, Play Fighting and Expressive arts.
JAMS
Dance and listen. Listen and express. Express and discover.
SHARING GROUPS
Personal process in small groups
THE ORACLE
The voice of the group
LIQUID LOVE
Dance in coconut oil
GRIEF RITUAL
Space to morn
Container
We hold containers focussed on embodied consent and boundaries, inclusivity, support, and radical nonjudgment; we hope to cultivate an essential sense of trust for edge-pushing explorations to bravely unfold.
All are warmly welcome, to come as your full, unfiltered, beautiful self.
Here, we can cultivate a space of radical celebration – of removing the layers and wounds of shame, stigma, and oppression, and remembering a sense of freedom, choice, authenticity, and deep connection to ourselves, to each other, and to this great earth.
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.
VENUE & PRACTICALITIES
The gathering will take place at Earthdance Creative Living retreat center in Plainfield in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
We are grateful to continue hosting this event at Earthdance – an arts organization, rental and retreat center that hosts workshops, artist retreats, and community programming. It is situated on unceded Nipmuc territory in the hills of Western Massachusetts. At its foundation are dance, somatics, movement research and interdisciplinary arts training with an awareness towards social justice and community building.
Facilities
Earthdance is embraced by acres of private woods.
A wood-fired sauna sits just feet from a cold plunge into the quarry.
Two large beautiful dance studios, communal dining area and lots of open, outdoor space await.
The venue provides 2 lodging options: Campsites and shared dorm rooms.
The Apple Orchard and 125 acres of forest provide ample space for personal tent camping. Campers have access to the shared bathrooms in the main Farmhouse which include indoor and outdoor showers.
The Gratitude Lodge (a.k.a. the Earthdance dorm) is connected to the Farmhouse by a short wooded trail. The Gratitude Lodge offers an assortment of large and small rooms featuring dormitory-style bunks and beds (twin & queen size). The dorm also has shared common area and bathrooms.
COMMUN SPACES
Indoor dance spaces
Communal dinning room
Cozy living room
Sauna
SORROUNDINGS
125 acres of woods
Spacious grassy area in amongst apple orchard
Swimming quarry
Vegetable and herb garden
Shop 10 minuts by car
ACCOMODATIONS
Dorm-style bunks and beds and campsites are available.
Earthdance assumes no responsibilities for the activities of the Touch&Play Event as a renter of its facilities.
Nourishment
Delicious Food. Local organic products. Mainly vegetarian meals.
Three fresh, organic vegetarian and vegan meals will be provided each day.
A snack and tea station is available at any time.
We will gather information around food sensitivities and allergies prior to the event and incorporate that into our meal planning.
There is a guest fridge available to store any personal supplemental foods you may need or wish to bring.
Practicalities
GUIDELINES
Covid GUIDELINES
Please limit your exposure for the week leading up to the event. Once you arrive onsite we require that you COVID test. Please bring your own test, or purchase one from Earthdance for $10.
GETTING THERE
Earthdance is located at 252 Prospect Street, Plainfield, MA 01070
Once your register you will receive a document to self organise share rides.
ARRIVING & DEPARTURES
Arriving time May 4th between 4-6pm
Departure time May 7th 3pm
PRICING
Different options
STANDARD
ABUNDANT
COMMUNITY MEMBERS: Limited discounted tickets available for people who have already attended 2 past Touch&Plays. Join us to help seed the T&P culture to new folx! To receive the discount code, send an email to: ma@touchandplay.org
SUPPORTED: We have a handful of lower-cost Equity and Access tickets available. We prioritize participants who hold marginalized identities (e.g. BIPOC, dis-abled, queer) for these tickets. Please email us at ma@touchandplay.org motivating your request for such a ticket.
COMMUTE at NINE MOUNTAIN: Commuter Tickets are for those staying at Nine Mountain. If you would like to stay at Nine Mountain, there is an additional fee paid direct to them. Please a a part of buy your T&P ticket, contact robyn@ninemountain.com directly to reserve a bed.
These limited discounts will be offered to the first requests.
More info on the registration page.
What to bring
Thinks you might consider to bring:
* slippers for indoors
*water bottle with a lid (please no glass bottles in studios)
* insect repellent (there are deer ticks!)
* rain gear
* warm layers
* earplugs
* bedsheets or sleeping bag if staying in dorm (you can rent bedsheets)
* camping gear if camping
* flashlight or headlamp
* towels (some available for rent)
* toiletries
* closed-toed shoes for kitchen shifts
* business cards, handmade products or other beuatiful things you sell
* instruments
* personal journal
* dancing clothes
* costumes!
* toys!
* any personal items to feel more comfortable
Contact
More questions? Sure! contact@touchandplay.org
DISCOVERY WEEKEND
MASSACHUSETTS
TOUCH&PLAY GLOBAL
While Classical Contact Improvisation asks what happens when two physical bodies meet in space, Touch&Play asks what happens when two alchemical human beings meet in space. We will research, experimentially (both experimental and experiential), these questions around the nuances of our relational bodies.
The first Touch&Play gathering took place in 2010 in Berlin focussing on an exploration of The chemistry of Contact Improvisation. The current frame is a wider one and is described as an exploration of “The relational body”. Contact Improvisation is one of the many tools we use for this exploration along side dance, kink,, somatics, tantra, authentic relating, NVC. our values center on play, authenticity, inclusion, embodied consent and community. The first Touch&Play in the US happened in 2016 and has since been an annual retreat held at Earthdance. 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 to seed peace in our world. We awaken more vibrantly our emotional, somatic and erotic intelligence.
“Leave the relationships more beautiful than you found them.”
JOIN THE DISCOVERY WEEKEND
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