This Thursday May 7th I will be heading over to the NZ Marine-Science Center in Portobello to give staff and students an introductory movement workshop. One of the ideas behind this collaboration is to give participants an in-body experience of different ways of moving and decision making than they are used to. The work is designed to open our perception to experience a more decentralized embodied presence in space and time. We do not want to assume anything, but through our experience and the following reflections and discussions will be imagining possible links with how animals like octopus or other sea life maneuver and interact with their environments through their multi-local proprioceptive intelligence.

The one hour workshop will introduce fundamental movement principles in a very accessible and simple way. We will playfully explore our movement possibilities using the resistance of the floor and gravity to become aware of how we use the forces of push, pull, and reach with all parts of our bodies.

In the past the experience of this method has sometimes reminded participants of the way an octopus might simultaneously interact with multiple areas of its environment through movement.  Through the physical exercises proposed we will try to decentralize the idea and sensation of where our control center is in order to enable active decision making from all parts of our body equally.

What we do will feel like a ‘moving massage’ of our whole body and will propose playful and surprising ways to interact with our environment through movement.  For all ages and all backgrounds.


We will be able to watch and observe the octopus onsite for a few moments together after the workshop concludes: