Buddhafield

Celidh with Mouse’s Nest Ceilidh band who will play a mixture of English, Irish, Scottish and French tunes, carefully chosen for listening and dancing. More

Ceilidh dancing is easy, sociable and fun and can be done by everyone. The caller will walk each dance through before trying it with the music, and will keep calling throughout to make sure everyone knows what to do! Our dances are mainly English (barn dancing), but an evening can also include Scottish, American and even French or Breton dancing.

Ecstatic Dance. Ever popular workshops led by Jewels Wingfield which always stretches the Dance Space to its capacity! More

Jewels is an educator, a catalyst and a healer. She has a rare gift for creating transformational fields or containers within which people wake up. She brings to her work a rich alchemy of deep embodied wisdom, creativity, playfulness, warm earthy sensuality, maverick humour, fierce love and inspiring passion. Her integrity and generosity of heart creates a safe and healing space in which people from all walks of life transform through working with her. She is a natural group leader and has a wide following here in the UK. Jewels is 46 and is a mother to her 20 year old beautiful daughter who she says is one of her greatest teachers. She runs her program of workshops at the EarthHeart centre in the forest of Dean.

5 Rhythms workshops, lead by the much loved Jo Hardy invites you to move, groove, clean-out, funk-down, sweat and connect to your soul through the ecstatic dance meditation of the 5 Rhythms. More

Jo holds 5 Rhythms dance spaces in Totnes and uses a wide range of yummy music. With deep acceptance, connection and pure dance magic, all are welcome as you are.

Touch&Play: Daniel Hayes. When life itself is movement, why attempt to sit still in search of freedom? If connecting to those around us if fulfilling, why limit ourselves to words to create these bonds? More

We invite you to join us in this first of a series of workshops with material from the Touch&Play project. Together we will explore some of the basics of Contact Improvisation to create an authentic connection to ourself and others through somatic interactions of touch, play and improvisation. All you need is a beginners mind, some lose fitting clothes and energy to explore. Dr. D.J. Hayes (M.D., Ph.D.) Founder of the Touch&Play project. Inspiration for my work (and life) is varied and though the value of listing my interests here provides doubt I will do so in hope that these words provide a brief insight into my personae: red thread Zen, Non-Violent Communication, Contact Improvisation, BDSM, community (living), polyamory, eco-agriculture, sustainability, social justice, (auto)hypnosis, scientific theory, epidemiology, anarchy, somatic, Touch and Play. Together, all the teachers from our little Touch&Play team will host an open, multi-disciplinary playground to come and dance your heart and mind out. We hope to collaborate with musicians at the event to create an inclusive space to improvise, explore and connect. Costumes, props, and body paint are welcome.

Touch&Play: Sonja Brühlmann: From Memories into Contact: In this workshop we will play with the combination of theatrical exercises to access emotions, authentic movement and touch. More

All of these three techniques can be doorways to the inner landscape. Drama exercises, such as working with the breath can help us access different sides of ourselves and evoke memories that can be used to play a character. We’ll work with eyes closed in authentic movement, having a non-judgemental witness facilitating diving into the present state. We’ll use touch and the senses to build a bridge to the outside world. Through guided exercises we will go onto a journey into one’s own life story and exploring ways to convey and share the experience with a partner through touch and movement. Sonja is a physical actress, community dance practitioner and contact improviser. She started exploring CI ten years ago and has passionately practiced it every since. She loves the fact that CI is an endless movement research and an ever evolving and expanding practice. Sonja facilitates dance and drama workshops in a wide range of community and social contexts, with children, young people and adults and she likes to use CI as one of the tools to bring people together and connect them in new ways with themselves and their surrounding. As a facilitator and performer she’s interested in exploring how movement, improvisation and touch transport the dancer and the spectator into an altered state of presence, openness and playfulness, out of which new possibilities for insight, connection and expression emerge.

Touch&Play: Daniel Mang: The Twelfth Doorway. In this practical and experiential workshop we will use contact improvisation to address connections between spirituality, politics and sensuality. More

It will begin with a sensory warm up, moving into contact improvisation, followed by a discussion of specific questions in small groups, then a mix of moving and talking, followed by a final round for exchanging impressions. Daniel has been doing bodywork professionally for the last 25 years and teaching Contact Improvisation since 1990. His movement background includes Aikido, Feldenkrais and BMC, and currently lives in London.

Touch&Play: Free: ‘Opening the Doors’. Using a fusion of Butoh (a Japanese dance form), and Contact Improvisation, we will explore ways of opening ourselves to becoming channels for Life's dance, and enjoy the intimacies and pleasures that come from this. More

These dances both encourage loosening the grip on the separate sense of self and fostering our potential to resonate with each other and all of Life. Over the last decade my life has been increasingly focused on various forms of dance. Dance has become a joyful meditation and self development tool which I love to share, through dancing with others, performing, and teaching. I will come to the festival fresh from studying and performing Butoh with a Japanese master. This dance has opened up a capacity to explore some of the more hidden aspects of reality, and find presence in life's challenges.

Touch&Play: Jocasta Crofts: Intuitive Playful Animal. I have been watching, following and learning from my small son and his play. More

He is a small animal in the way he moves through his world. Through play children learn. They don't lie and neither does our body, when we allow it to express its needs, wants and impulses. What happens when we trust our instincts and reflexes, listening, to move as our body guides us to? We will dance following our belly centre and allowing our head to remain as an alert sensory centre which communicates with our moving, fun loving body. To me life is a 3 (or 4) dimensional experience and this is how I work, dance and play. I am a mama, a dancer and healer giving bodywork sessions to babies and people of all sizes and ages. I like to relax through singing, conscious breathing, walking in nature, quiet music, relaxing touch or dance. I love exploring life through Meditation in movement or stillness, on the ground and in the water.

The Art of Living Presence. Two Meditative Movement workshops ‘Intimate with Yourself’ and ‘Sacred Embodiment’ with Agata Krajewska and David Oxley. More

A practice of living intimately with yourself and each other as embodied presence. Working with focused, meditative attention, movement, touch and witnessed embodied expression allowing ourselves to return to natural self-love and the flow of being, meeting the world and each other from that place.

Goddess Dance with Gabriella Oakley and Sheila Charih is based on the origins of Belly dance and other circle dances. More

Celebratory and uplifting, it leads participants through movements that enable them to connect with their bodies and emotions, and to deepen their connection to the earth and to the creative power of womanhood. Focusing on different themes in each session we will explore sensuality, power, and connection to the earth. Gabriella and Sheila have been running Goddess Dance, belly dance, theatre and personal creativity workshops in the UK, Europe, the USA and India for many years.

Tribal Bellydancing with Barbara Gonzalez and musician Tom Veck. Tribal Bellydance is all about gathering with your sisters (men very welcome) and creating a vibrant, fun and improvised piece of dance - together! More

With live percussion from Tom on Doumbek and percussion, join Barbara as she takes you through Tribal Bellydance basics, from strong posture through to elegant arms and lots of hip shaking in between. Absolutely no experience needed, just come and have fun. Barbara's love affair with Tribal Bellydance began in 2003 when she attended a workshop with Devi Mamak. She has since studied with Hilary Cinis, Paulette Rees-Denis, Rachel Brice and Carolena Nerriccio and many more Tribal Bellydance greats. She has performed with Australian troupes, Urban Turban, Urban Qabila and Ghaziya and also performs as a solo artist. Barbara is a certified teacher with Fat Chance Bellydance and has taught in Sydney and the UK. She currently resides in Bath and performs and teaches in the West.

Embodied Presence with Jamus Wood and Lee Bolton will lead 3 workshops: ‘The Hunter and The Hunted’. More

When I dance, I find moments when my instincts take over. In these moments I discover a vibrancy and a sheer physicality that can be absent at other times. By waking up to my instincts I find new movement potential and an enlivening interest in the dance. Movement, I would never thought of making come through as does a committed quality. In this workshop we will play with the qualities of the hunter and the hunted. Both are powerful characteristics of our instinctual nature. When given the space how do these aspects of ourselves actually take shape. Initially we will rest back into the support of meditation to find a stillness within. From here we awaken a sense of our animal body through activating muscle, bone and the beating heart. As a human animal at the base level of our instinctual nature what moves and motivates us. When this stirs what are we capable of? What is the dance that comes from this? Come ready to move and explore together. ‘The Heart Full Animal’. This workshop is an invitation to move from our animal body including our passionate heart. It is an opportunity to dance close to ourselves and close to each other. It includes: Instinctual Body (Evolutionary Developmental Movement Patterns); physical movement exploration of our heart; Heart Inquiries that include movement and clear spoken communication; developing both compassionate awareness and heart full connection for ourselves and each other; developing a very real understanding of our needs and limits and how to meet them; and the possibility of living simply and clearly, with truth and integrity.

‘Film Jam’: Inspired by Barbara Dilley’s contemplative dance practice devised at the Naropa University Bolder Colorado. More

We work with music and video to create a visual and audio scape for dances to interact with. Every one is welcome, able bodied and non-able bodied. The invitation is intailly meet our own needs and desires, warming up the body into movement, expressing ourselves, coming close to ourselves. From here we will begin to connect to other and the wider ‘village’ of our fellow dancers co creating, this event into a movement ‘gift’. We will complete with sitting meditation and names and words into the circle. You can participate in this event in many ways; you may want to dance the whole event, you may wish to experience from the place of a witness seeing the film and the movement of the dancers. Or you could find a totally different way to participate in this event. Contact dance, meditation, dancing for the love of it are all welcome here. This offering will be DJ’ed and we will be projecting images from the natural world.

Salsa with Carlo and Tonia bringing much joy and sparkle. More

Carlo is passionate about dancing and brings lots of energy and fun to his classes, making it an enjoyable experience for everybody. He has been involved with dancing and taught many styles of dance including African, Contemporary, Capoeira and Cuban Salsa. So come and enjoy Latin Salsa Rhythms and test your coordination skills — 8 beats, one love.

Brazilian Forro with Julia and Andy Samel. Julia discovered and fell in love with Forro for its simplicity, intimacy and ease to bring people together. More

She has been running Forro nights and teaching in the Uk for over 5 years, encouraging as many people as she can, to come and have fun, meet others, keep fit and feel good! Brazilian Forro is a fun, simple, wild and intimate partner dance, to fantastic music! Come and learn, everyone welcome!

Biodanza: Heart in Motion “Doorways to Freedom” led by De’an Matuka and Aum Bubu Matuka. More

Through movement, dance and close intimate connection with others we will seek and attempt to pass through the doorways into unified consciousness. These workshops are designed to take you by the hand and safely carry you into bliss and harmony. No need for previous experience. You’ll love it within first few minutes. De’an has spent the best part of 25 years studying and working in fields of communication such as healing, coaching, human dynamics and energy work. He runs The Dragon Butterfly School of Biodanza Heart in Motion where he trains future teachers of the system.

Kundalini Yoga and Nia Dance led by Siri Sadhana Kaur (Debora Collister). Kundalini Yoga involves meditation and mantra and will include live music. More

Nia is a soulful dance practised barefoot to funky & diverse music, drawing on ancient wisdom traditions of yoga and Tai-Chi Chuan, integrating the power and punch of Tae Kwon do. Fusing healing arts, dance arts and martial arts, Nia gives a workout whilst creating a sequence that opens the heart and frees the spirit. Siri Sadhana Kaur is an experienced performer and workshop leader, facilitating in education and community. Her background is in acting and singing led her to perform internationally, where she studied with the innovative Jacques Lecoq in Paris, developing her interests in movement and rhythym. Later she studied counselling, Life coaching and NLP and focussed on interpersonal and communication skills creatively incorporating her artistic background for personal growth and development. She is a qualified teacher (PGCE/Cert Ed Institute of Education) a T’ai-chi chuan, Kundalini yoga and Nia Blue belt instructor. Currently she is in training to teach yoga teachers with the Karam Kriya school with Shiv Charan Singh and Satya Kaur in London and Portugal.
Siri Sadhana Kaur will also lead an Aquarian Sadhana as taught by Yogi Bhajan.

Dance of the Dakini with Laura Shewan. More

To the entrancing and hypnotic rhythms of live African drumming, Dance of the Dakini takes you on a journey through form and formlessness with meditation and free-form dance! Attune to the breath and body and awaken the heart of the Dakini to the sounds of the soul..embrace and embody your capacity to live, to love and to liberate! A passionate creator of Dharmic spaces Laura has a background in African and Arabic dance and a talent for working with the body. She believes that all of life is a dance, we just need to open up and find our own personal rhythms.

Danceitation with Jayagita. Where Buddhist Wisdom meets Intelligent Clubbing! More

Most people think of meditation as sitting cross-legged in silence. Not so with Danceitation. It’s a revolution in thinking and grooving, fusing meditation and free-form dance. With music from Faithless to Philip Glass, dance your socks off and master your mind! No previous dance or meditation experience necessary.

Earth Dances workshops with Denise Rowe and live music from Omar Makessa. More

Earth Dances is an invitation to embrace our fullness in movement, stillness, celebration and rest. Grounded in traditional and contemporary African dance, non-stylised movement and Ki Aikido, the workshops explore rhythm, embodiment and connection with a sense of playful exploration, finding our common ground in fluidity around the rhythm and in gratitude for the gift of being alive! Denise has been working for over ten years and teaching regular classes, day workshops and my own dance camp, Foot to Earth, as well at teaching at Tribe Of Doris, African Drum Village, Sunrise Off-grid and other festivals internationally.

Abstract Disco and the Prisms of Isis: Whirling, Ecstatic Dance & Sacred Dance with Hannah Chalut, Matt Kirk plus other dancers and performers. More

This event combines performance and audience participation to create a danceable, watchable, fulfilling exchange for all involved. Mixing sacred movement forms of the whirling dervish, belly dance, and ecstatic dance the performers move through and in the space alongside the (dancing) audience. Musicians Matt Kirk (Abstract Disco) and James Carey fuse traditional sacred music with techno beats to create a soundscape which evolves through the set, takings us on a journey of love and ecstasy.
• Hannah Chalut is a professional dancer and performance artist. She was a founding member of the notable Shen Wei Dance Arts and has managed her company, Open Air Dance, for the last 10 years. Her work has been shown at Dancespace and The Bridge for Dance NY, The American Dance Festival, Stratford Circus Theatre, and many university and festival locations. She holds a BFA in Dance and Performance, an MA in Dance Anthropology and is working on her PhD in ritual practice at The University of East London.
•Matt Kirk is a composer and producer, graduating in music with a 1st from University Arts London in 2011. Writing dance music, film scores and contemporary ballet, he has performed and played at Glade, Cannes Film Festival and Nevada Film Festival. Matt is co founder of Abstract Productions Studio and a promoter/DJ putting on events in London.
• James Carey is a sound engineer and producer. Based in London, he is co founder of Abstract Productions studio. James is currently engineering live gigs around the UK including venues at the 02 arena, Battersea power station and major London clubs, as well as producing remixes for clients including Snoop Dog.