Being Nature. Movalogue 2021. Sintra, Portugal.

Movalogue Sintra 2021_SPT October Newsletter

Being Nature – A journey with HeArt: 4 days of Social Presencing Theater, Community, Social Arts and Nature in Quinta Ten-Chi, Sintra Portugal – 26-29. August 2021

Facilitator: Rita Venturini, Debora Barrientos, Anna Maggi, Antje Schwarze, Anne-Sophie Dubanton

On August 26th to 29th, 12 people gathered at Quinta Ten Chi, Sintra to explore “Being Earth”, through “a journey with heArt”. The journey started by creating spaces where Art could unfold. We taped paper on the floor and walls of the Big Dojo and started weaving colours throughout our practices. We played with several combinations of movement and painting/drawing, and we are happy to share with you some of the experiences and insights of our explorations as well as a video :

Movement, paint and objects from nature 3D mapping to reveal our intentions, individual and collective

Each participant was invited to take an individual walk in the Land looking for inspiration around their intention in participating in the event. After the group converged back, each person took turns to express something about their intention and showing the object that they had gathered. Meanwhile, Anna Maggi was scribing, capturing the essence of the sharings with paint on paper.

When all people had shared we added our objects to the drawing, creating sculpture 1.

At the end of the event, we went back to this 3D map and collectively answered the questions for each cardinal point/archetype. After this process, we rearranged the objects and had a reflection on the process.

movement and paint duet:

Two people, two roles. A mover and a drawer. Find the pace for a conversation between these two different modes of expression. At times the movement inspires the drawing, other times the drawing seems to move the body of the mover, through its tempo, shape and colour.

The participants reported a deep sense of connection, with many aha moments emerging from the different relationships that each person had with the media (drawing/painting and moving).

Artistic Duet video documentation: https://youtu.be/RHibPeNsuL4

movement and paint 4D mapping

This 4D mapping was created to explore the project, Quinta Ten Chi, that hosted the Movalogue. The space of the 4D mapping was covered by an 8X8 meters piece of paper. We chose 6 roles, and 6 colours. The 4D mapping was double-blinded, neither caregiver/facilitators nor the citizens/roles knew what the roles where and each role responded to the call of a number. Each role taker could choose a colour, a type of paintbrush, or no paintbrush at all, painting with body parts. They could also choose if they wanted to take the paint themselves, go to position and have one of the facilitators take them the paint, or have Anna Maggi paint for them. All but one role taker took their own painting and painted themselves. Once the movement happened and the roles were revealed, many insights about the project emerged. The main question of the 4D mapping was “What does the Land want now?”

The land entered the space first (despite being number 2, as the number 1 role was filled only at the end), followed by the owners and the practices. The owners position themselves near the land, in a position with a white paint dividing white line in between the two roles. The entrance of the 4th role (the marginalized, specifically the people that don’t know Ten Chi yet) covers the dividing line with a powerful ray of yellow paint, confusing the division between owners and land, and engaging all the roles already in the space. In this configuration enter, one after the other, the Beloved Community and the Co-creators, concluding Sculpture 1, a pretty accurate representation of the dynamics that have led to the current reality of the project, including some directions on what wants to emerge. Less than a week after this 4D mapping a group of 10 people that didn’t know about Ten Chi came and spent almost 2 weeks at the property, doing much needed projects and bringing many generative questions on how to move forward. The land wants more people, people that don’t yet know it exists…..

Many more insights are still in the brewing, and will probably continue for a while.

movement and paint field dance

For this practice, we had a 4X3 meters paper hanging from the wall. The invitation was to choose a colour, a brush and to perform an action in the middle of the social field created by the sitter in a semicircle. The presence of the colour added a lot of dynamic to the movement, strong direct movements alternating with light sudden movement to create different patterns on the paper.

After all, have done their Field Dance, the paper keeps track of the traces that our bodies have created collectively, moving and witnessing. The colours on the paper are the same as the ones already in the room, creating a sense of harmony in the picture. On the paper, there are waves, arcs, shapes. A blue animal with one long leg, which happens to feature also in Anna’s visual scribing, on Saturday, on a chaotic day.