Stories from the Bodies

breathe, listen to, embody… everything we dream to live & express fully…

collective performances x creative workshops x moving encounters

Stories from the Bodies is an interdisciplinary initiative by the musician-performer-poet-educator Dorota Matejová & the b.o.m.b. collective*, embodying performing, teaching, creating, celebrating and dancing as an interconnected creative practice. Stories from the Bodies include music x poetry gatherings & encounters, experimental club nights and body-conscious collective workshops bringing together stories explored and expressed through our bodies in their raw, unfiltered, authentic and vulnerable ways, shared using the means of writings/poems, music performance, improvisation, sound-body-voice theatre & being together through dancing and moving.

Our bodies are always a political space; a landscape where social constructs & influences, economic and class backgrounds, personal experiences and histories, intergenerational knowledge and individual vs collective expression are reflecting, conflicting, embodying or dissociating in the most intimate, personal and direct way. At the same time our body is the most human thing we have: because we are made of flesh and bones, and whether we want it or not, we are confronted with all of this on a daily basis – through our body. Being acutely conscious about it – embodied, or acutely unaware – dissociated.*

Bodies that can move in our societies more freely or less freely, bodies that must constantly adjust in order to survive or bodies that can simply walk… Disabled bodies, female bodies, queer bodies, black bodies, migrant bodies, white bodies, nourished bodies, malnourished bodies, oppressed bodies, privileged bodies …. Considering all the injustices many bodies experience while other bodies live safe or even privileged lives, all of us, all bodies in our societies, in this world, in everyday life, are interconnected no matter how much we are aware of it or not… through being part of the humanity as such, through sharing daily, occasional or random spaces and… our earth.

(*By “embodied” we mean here what the body knows before we can put it into words: a connection to our body´s wisdom (embodied knowledge) & intuition – these can be, for example, accessed and explored through working with our breath and movement vs breath, developing body awareness through specific exercises. By dissociated we mean hear the opposite of embodied, so not attuned into our breath, our body awareness, being “out of our body”.)

Through movement/music/poetry performances, encounters, workshops and experimental club/dancing events Stories from the Bodies aim to explore how the society & the systems we live in directly influence our bodies, our minds, our behaviour, our being with each other. Through the Stories from the Bodies – creative workshops we explore how our bodies exist in the society & “move” in everyday life, while focusing on our authentic experiences, lived emotions and embodiment of who we are, ultimately wishing to find connections throughout our diversities. Through Stories from the Bodies – collective performances we listen, discover and connect through music & poetry by various performers, artists, activists and enthusiasts sharing their stories and voices. And through Stories from the Bodies – dancing encounters we celebrate our very own stories, connections and existence in all our diversity.

Stories from the Bodies draws from the belief that developing deeper awareness of our body, its emotions, its “embodied knowledge”, the story, the pain, the experience, the wisdom it carries & the way it exists in this world while becoming deeper aware how other bodies exist in this world is a powerful tool for building a more resistant, nurturing, sensitive, connected society.

Healing the little ecosystemsc – the body & the body in relation to another body, expands into healing the bigger ecosystems – a community of bodies, a group, a society… Healing as becoming whole again. From the perspective of this initiative the healing starts in the body, since our body holds memories far beyond what the mind remembers, therefore healing of the body intertwines with healing of the mind, the soul, the spirit… and healing as bringing the body´s embodied knowledge back into awareness & in relation to what the mind knows. And this can perhaps spark further healing… from one body to another, from a group of bodies further into society… like a spiral effect… step by step.

All activities of Stories from the Bodies embody approaches that are strictly anti-fascist, anti-ableist and anti-racist, striving to create situations, encounters and spaces of mutual awareness, mutual care, shared joy and real love.

*b.o.m.b. collective is a multidisciplinary fluid & breathing independent teaching and performing collective of like-minded body-practicioners, performers, poets, musicians, visual artists & theatre makers from diverse backgrounds united in working through body-conscious, anti-ableist and anti-fascist approaches whose practices are rooted in own experimenting with education and performance, and self-explored, self-taught and self-experienced embodied knowledge.

Stories from the Bodies events, encounters, workshops: