Sensing and singaling – Vitoria Kotsalou

Workshop on the perception of movement: listening to difference

What if the skin were not a container, what if it was not a boundary where the self exists or ends? What if the skin were a porous topological surface of myriad possible layers that shape the relationship between environments, each of which is a multiplicity of interior and exterior?
Erin Manning

The workshop explores how we influence and are influenced through the perception of movement, touch, and our relationship with the body and the body of the other.
When we meet someone, the information we receive through our bodies is far more immediate than rational or “social” information. It is simultaneously multisensory, kinesthetic, and more complex. Our relationship with our own body shapes how we relate to the bodies of others and vice versa. By exploring the concept of the body as an interface, we will work on how we receive information, how we process it, how we respond, and how we can invent ways of observing and communicating between different bodies. This is a theoretical and practical study of the functioning of interoception and proprioception and how physical communication can work as a means of exploration, acquaintance, communication, and exchange. The workshop invites educators, dancers, nurses, parents, social workers, and anyone interested in activating perceptual awareness through the body and movement in daily life, practice, or work. No prior experience in dance or movement is required.

Ages: 18+
Level: All

Photo credit:

Vitoria Kotsalou

Vitoria Kotsalou is a psychologist, and a self-trained dancer, performer and choreographer based in Athens. Her eclectic training, not bound by one tradition, and constant research on many different disciplines carve out new fields of engagement for dance mediation. As a choreographer and artist, she perceives dance as a way of being, a means of thinking and interacting with the world, and as a tool of connection to the intelligence that governs nature. Vitoria is one of the founding members of the non-profit organization R.I.C.E. and the RSOD Dance School on the island of Hydra. She is a close collaborator of choreographer Michael Klien and a member of En Dynamei Ensemble since 2014. As a choreographer she has composed the works Day out of Time (2017), Mount (2019), Rite of Spring – A Map (2021), Solar (with the En Dynamei Ensemble – 2023), and Bare (2023). As a dancer she has made important collaborations with Androniki Marathaki, Mariella Nestora and Agni Papadeli Rossetou. She teaches dance to children, adults and mixed ability groups, and also choreographs theatre performances. Vitoria approaches dance as a phenomenon that is directly connected to every aspect of society. Her devotion to the possibility of dance as a force for change extends to thinking through movement and coming into contact with an intelligence that exists in (and connects) all living organisms. Drawing inspiration from the study of different artistic practices, philosophical approaches and collaborations, her thinking extends to social choreography through which she simultaneously observes the world and designs works that convey the possibility of changing or expanding our perception.