Moving with Sun>Air>Wind MASTERCLASS

“The body must be viewed as a porous entity—as flexible as any environment in which it can exist, and pre-supposing intimate, consistent, and inextricable exchanges between human and environment” - Samuel Hertz, 2017

This masterclass proposes a new poetics of movement fuelled by the often invisible and atmospheric forces that stir and animate us. Led by choreographer and dancer Renae Shadler together with Aerocene – an airborne sculpture inflated by air, carried by the wind, and lifted only by the Sun – the workshop asks how we can tap into movement as a tool to dissolve the perceived border between internal and external processes, between bodies and worlds.

Renae will share the principles of her ‘Worlding’ choreographic practice (2015 onwards), which combines somatics, contemporary dance and environmental research to explore the reciprocal process of how we shape and are shaped by our surroundings.

Taking place in the Moos Hall and nearby Treptower Park, the masterclass will include a launch of the 6m x 6m x 8m floating Aerocene sculpture that gives a tangible “body” to unseen forces (sun, air, wind); providing them with with contours and form. Moving and reacting independently from our actions, the Aerocene enables us to relate in a concrete way to nonhuman agencies, partnering them in our dance.

With a playful and pragmatic approach, this masterclass is aimed at performance artists, people working in sustainability and those interested in alternative ways of moving. It explores how to work creatively with elemental forces that are at times brutal and unpredictable; how to follow the movement cues that are already given in the heat and fade of the Sun, in the force and curl of the wind.

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Renae Shadler is a Berlin-based choreographer, performer and researcher who experiences her life and work as a web of interrelations. Renae’s work spans a variety of contexts: from dance on stage and major festivals to museum events and outdoor public engagement projects. Current projects relate to and learn with diverse human and non-human bodies, such as ‘SKIN’ - a duet with Roland Walter, a performer with spastic paralysis, selected for Tanzplattform Deutschland 2022 and Aerowaves 2021, and ‘Under my Gaze’ - a collaboration with the Aerocene solar sculpture. Since 2015 Renae has been refining her Worlding choreographic practice, which has given rise to lectures, the ‘Worlding’ podcast series, and inspired the ongoing experience-based knowledge lab, ‘Moving across Thresholds’ (MaT). MaT hosts biweekly online/live gatherings and bespoke festival events, most recently presented at Radialsystem’s ‘Sense Festival’.