In Fall 2015 we held the first generative somatics training in Europe at a beautiful space in the countryside of Northern Poland. We are inspired by everyone who participated and are looking forward to more. Stay tuned via the mailing list you’ll find under contact.
Here the call out for the 2015 course:
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in our bodies – on the streets
personal and social transformation
– a 5-day generative somatics training
for grassroots activists in Central Eastern Europe
Mon, 19.10. – Sat, 24.10. 2015
North of Warsaw, Poland
Application and full-time attendance required.
(Application deadline: July 15 – please apply early.)
In October 2015 we are offering a 5-day generative somatics training near Warsaw, Poland.
The training will be held in Poland, October 19-24, 2015, at the Burdąg Studio for Performing Arts, 120 km north of Warsaw.
This course is geared towards grassroots activists mainly from Central Eastern Europe. The group size is limited to around 25 people, accepted through application.
The course will be held in accessible International English. Sadly, we are unable to provide simultaneous translation. Space will be made for comprehension questions and people’s native languages.
In order to facilitate ongoing practice we aim to create pairs or clusters based on language and geographical proximity.
Who is this course for?
Everybody involved with grassroots struggles within Central Eastern Europe is welcome to apply. Applications from underrepresented groups within activist communities are especially invited. While we know that systems of privilege and oppression are always at work we will do our best to create a liberatory space and appreciate everyone’s help in doing so. We are aiming for a room with shifted majorities, where usually underrepresented groups form the bigger part of the group while people from majority backgrounds within activism feel equally welcome. We give priority according to the following factors:
- Actively involved in social and environmental struggles
- Part of underrepresented groups in activist communities / facing systemic oppression in society
- Work / interest in the intersection of healing work and activism and interested to pursuing work in this area in the future
Trainers:
The course is led by Gesine Wenzel, Nathaniel Shara and Morgan Bassichis. All three have a long history of involvement in grassroots struggles and are part of the generative somatics teaching team in the US. Bios here.
Finances:
We hold a strong commitment to making this training accessible to partipants regardless of their ability to pay. At the same time we need to cover the costs of the course. We are currently applying for additional funding, but will still need contributions from participants.
We are offering a sliding scale of 20-200 € in order to be as inclusive as as possible. Please pay as much as you honestly can. Do not hesitate to contact us if you need support for travel costs or if money stops you from coming.
Logistics:
Accommodation: Shared bedrooms.
Food: Vegan. Request for participants’ help with kitchen tasks.
If you have any special needs let us know.
This training is alcohol and drug free.
Unfortunately, the space is not wheelchair accessible.
What else you need to know:
This course is geared towards participant’s personal transformation and our collective capacity for healing and power. We request that people use the practice only for personal use and do not teach it unless they have been trained to pass it on.
Participants will not walk away with a tool box of new methods but with a set of practices and somatic experiences that transform and heal life over time. Participation in the course will impact people’s political activism by who they become and what they are able to bring to their work.
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Trainers Poland Course 2015:
Gesine Wenzel moved from Germany to the US in 2007 and began training in Somatics. She is now part of the generative somatics teaching team in Oakland, California, USA. Deeply embedded in European social and environmental justice movements, she is guided by her broad experience in the struggle, in-depth training in the martial art of Danzan Ryu Jujitsu and a Master’s degree in Somatic Psychotherapy along with a deep commitment to ending oppression and exploitation and a lived longing for interdependence and liberation. She currently works as a somatic psychotherapist and coach in Oakland, supporting queer and trans folks and activists, and enjoys teaching self defense. Gesine co-founded Activist Trauma Support in the UK in 2004 and has since been lead by a vision of an inspiring paradigm shift to embodied activism, creating resilient powerful movements towards a world where all can live.
„This work changed my life, and the impact of this approach on our political movements as well as our communities and our very selves is what I see as being a path that enables us to create the transformation we want to see.“ – Gesine Wenzel –
Nathanial Shara is is a social justice therapist and community educator who focuses on healing and transforming the impacts of trauma and oppression. Politicized through queer, feminist, anti-racist activism in queer and trans communities of color, Nathan has spent the last ten years working to end gender-based violence in a variety of roles and contexts. Since 2010, he has worked with the Northwest Network of Bi, Trans, Lesbian and Gay Survivors of Abuse, providing counseling to adult LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. He also co-founded The Capacity Project, an organization working to develop effective and sustainable community-based responses to intimate violence through transformative justice organizing and grassroots political education. Nathan has trained with generative somatics since 2008 and has been a lead teacher of the year-long Somatics & Trauma program since 2012. He believes that personal healing and social transformation are mutually dependent, and is passionate about building loving and accountable power for revolutionary social change.
Morgan Bassichis is a writer, performer, and somatic practitioner living in New York. Morgan has been training with generative somatics since 2009, and is a former staff member of Community United Against Violence in San Francisco, a queer and trans anti-violence organization rooted in racial and economic justice. Morgan‘s essays have appeared in the Radical History Review, The Revolution Starts at Home, and Captive Genders.
