Dialogues with the earth

MANIFESTO

Dialogues with the Earth stem from a premise:

support precedes movement. (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen)

Through a deeper study of our support structures and the opposing forces that architect movement, we can perceive that every time we push the ground, the ground pushes us back. Therefore, there is a dialogue, a conversation with the ground in a cyclical relationship that inaugurates rhythms and updates, at every instant, that which supports, nourishes, and sustains life.

Reconnecting with the ground is urgent!

The way the world operates is reflected in the way we structure our bodies, and vice versa. If we build a fragmented world, where we establish a hierarchical relationship between intellect and intuition, we also unbalance the functioning of our bodies, accumulating too much energy in the head, exhausting the upper part, and losing contact with the ground.

When we lose the ground, we disconnect from that which supports and nourishes us: the earth. Without support or nourishment, we continue building a fragmented, sick, and violent world.

This research proposes the recovery of historically silenced bodily intelligences as an act of resistance to narratives that domesticate bodies, regulate their impulses, and weaken their capacity to feel, imagine, and organize collectively.

YES! I'm in!

THE JOURNEY

This is a three-session somatic research journey where we explore the relationships between the ground, pelvis, and movement as intertwined political-eco-somatic gestures, opening space for a rapprochement between thought and instinct.

Through studies of the body, images, ideas, dance, games, and somatic practices, we will investigate how: the body organizes itself based on its supports; the pelvis sustains and mobilizes vital force; and play can be an ethic of relationship and presence.

The journey is organized around the understanding that what supports us can be structured on three interdependent levels: the ground, internal supports, and collective/relational support.

These three levels are articulated from the symbolic image of the tree as a pedagogical axis:

Roots — that which invisibly sustains
Trunk — that which distributes, articulates, and transmits
Treetop — that which expands, communicates, and relates

The structure of the tree helps us remember that

a surface cannot be sustained without depth, that

expression cannot manifest without contour and structure

and there is no individual without a collective, nor a collective without an individual.

Investigating the ecologies of the body is, therefore, a gesture of reconnection — with the earth that sustains and nourishes us, with the rhythms that traverse us, and with more vibrant ways of being in relationship.

SCHEDULE

This edition will be held in Portuguese. The English edition is coming soon...

This first encounter establishes the foundation for the journey. We investigate the ground as the first level of support—that which sustains us, regulates our relationship with gravity, and provides us with momentum. Through grounding practices, sensory listening, and movement, we explore how the body organizes itself through contact with the earth and how the quality of that contact influences our stability, availability, and presence.

With the foundation established, the second meeting delves deeper into the body's internal supports, focusing on the skeletal structure, the muscular diaphragms, and the pelvis.

In this practice, the pelvis forms a central axis of articulation between heaven and earth, above and below, inside and out. A center of gravity, power, and memory, constantly negotiating support and expansion.

In the third meeting, with the foundation and internal structure in place, we investigated "malemolência" (a Brazilian Portuguese word expressing a natural, relaxed, and fluid way of moving body) as a quality of adaptation, listening, and fluidity—an intelligence that emerges when the body feels safe to play, improvise, dance, and be guided by its own desires.

Play appears here as a political and relational force: a practice that creates common ground, expands listening, and sustains the coexistence of differences. We open space for the relationship with the other and with the collective.

Practical Infos

- 3 live online practical-theoretical sessions

- Access to recordings for 6 months

- Private group for sharing and communication related to the course

- The sessions constitute a course, therefore they cannot be taken separately; the proposal is precisely to follow a path.

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This edition will be held in Portuguese. If you are interested in participating in an English edition, please leave your contact below, and I will use it only to inform you when the English edition will happen:

YES! I'm in!

Flora Mariah

I am a Brazilian dance artist, somatic movement educator, student of the pelvis, mother of two, immigrant, and researcher of body ecologies. With a multinational family, I have been in transit between Hungary, Portugal, and Brazil.

Trained at the Angel Vianna School and through the carnivals of life, I work from matter—bones, flesh, fluids, weight, and ground—to open up space for movement in its multiple dimensions: mechanical, emotional, energetic, and symbolic.

Since 2018, I have investigated the pelvis as a territory of crossing between strength and vulnerability, expansion and support, action and listening—which has led me to also deepen the study of the body's relationship with the ground and with gravity as fields of memory, orientation, and support.

I cultivate experiences where the body can reorganize itself based on support, recognizing that it is in the encounter with support that movement emerges with greater presence. My practices aim to open pathways for self-expression and reconnection of the body with joy, availability, and playfulness—as forms of intuitive and relational intelligence.