2nd edition of Women’s Touch: (Not) Taking up Space: Voicing our Movement in a Patriarchal World

Sunday June 9th, 2-5.15pm

2-4pm: Contact Impro jam / 4-4.15pm: break / 4.15- 5.15pm: discussion

@ The Place (Flaxman terrace entrance) Studio 5, London WC1H 9AT

Price: £20 supporter, £16 standard, £12 low income/students

Booking here

Women’s touch is an event curated by Marie Chabert, that offers a space for those who identify as women and non-binary people to explore movement practices that are mainly based on touch (Contact Improvisation, somatic practices, improvisation) in a safe environment. It aims to empower women to claim their space and redefine it within a framework that challenges prevailing patriarchal norms. It offers both a place to embody and share our experiences.

For this 2nd edition Marie will facilitate a warm-up based on ‘challenging roles in CI’, which will lead us into a Contact Impro jam.

She then invites the critical theorist and activist Dr Chrys Papaioannou (they/she) to facilitate a discussion circle on the relationship between Contact Improvisation, feminism and gender. Whether you identify as a woman or as a non-binary/genderqueer person who has been socialised female, we invite you to join us in sharing and learning from one another’s lived experience of dancing, moving, and (not) taking up space in a patriarchal world. Bring curiosity, empathy, and your capacity to listen to others across difference.  

The discussion will either take place in the café or in the park nearby if the weather permits. Please bring nibbles and drinks to share!

Biography:

Dr Chrys Papaioannou (they/she; b. Athens, 1979) is a critical theorist, activist and facilitator living in London. They have been practising Contact Improvisation (CI) since 2017, and are currently collaborating with cultural sociologist Dr Jana Melkumova-Reynolds (LSE) on an autoethnographic study of subjectivity in CI. Their intellectual work explores the role of intimacy and vulnerability in social relations from a queer-feminist perspective, always in dialogue across generational and national borders.