photo: Claude Hofer

Care and Dominance are each other’s evil twins. It is often hard to know where one ends and the other begins. Sometimes, we can even think we are receiving or providing one of them, when in fact it is the other.

We are living and making art within multiple systems of domination that we can choose to resist or support, to a greater or lesser degree, through our life and work. At the same time, the practice of making art together – and dance in particular, with its emergence of community through bodily practice – can provide extraordinary pockets of caring for each other in a world that often seems to regard care work as inferior, or at best, unproductive. As performers, we are often in the position of knowing more about what will happen than the audience does – a position that can play with that intersection, as well as create vulnerability and intimacy on both sides.

In this workshop, we will play with the interwovenness of Dominance and Care. We will begin from a somatic, embodied approach, as well as explore exercises around intimacy and consent, originating in intentional kink practice. We will move very slowly, centering the boundaries and well-being of everyone involved at all times – and care for each other (or is it dominance?).