Project Affectionate is a North Clare–based eco-somatic dance group founded in October 2023 by Maria Kerin in collaboration with Sofia Ananda and Herminia Ayala. The collective brings together professional dance artists, amateur movers, and members of diverse cultural communities to explore movement as a form of environmental care and social connection.
At the heart of the group’s work is the merging of professional dance practice with community-led ecological awareness and participatory action.
Project Affectionate began as a small eco-somatic movement group meeting at Teach Ceoil, Ennistymon weekly and has since grown into a vibrant collective of more than thirteen members.
The group explores the relationship between:
body and landscape
spatial awareness and the felt senses
movement and environmental responsibility
Through shared practice, the collective creates spaces for listening, inclusion, and collective expression across cultures and experience levels.
Core Practice: Re-Wilding Bodies
Central to the collective’s work is Re-Wilding Bodies, a weekly eco-somatic movement practice facilitated by Maria Kerin. This practice is:
Mindful and restorative, supporting wellbeing through gentle movement
Accessible to all abilities, with a particular resonance for artists and environmental activists experiencing fatigue or burnout
Rooted in multi-sensory awareness, connecting movement with nature and place and the seasons and through deep time awareness.
Methodological influences include:
Antoinette Spillane’s Seasonal Score
Mary Nunan’s Release Technique
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen 's Body-Mind Centering
Joan Davis’ Origins and Maya Lila
These influences are adapted into a unique collective methodology shaped by ongoing artistic research and lived experience.
A central strand of Project Affectionate’s work is Embodied Activism — responding to ecological concerns through movement, ritual, and collective presence.
Current areas of focus include:
local drinking water quality
declining river health
the impacts of climate change and environmental neglect
The collective was selected to participate in Common Ground, a programme supporting rural communities to develop biodiversity and climate-action meitheals (community work gatherings). Through this work, movement becomes both an artistic practice and a form of environmental engagement.
Project Affectionate actively shares its work through participatory performances and public events, including:
Common Knowledge Community Workshop (April 2026) Selected to participate in workshops on Food Preservation.
Samhain Climate Action Water Meitheal (2024) Embodied Activism for Water Wellbeing, Common Knowledge Centre, Lisdoonvarna — movement workshop and participatory performance. The group was selected to participate in Common Ground, a programme supporting rural communities to develop biodiversity and climate-action meitheals (community work gatherings). Through this work, movement becomes both an artistic practice and a form of environmental engagement.
Culture Night, ( Sept 2024) P(A)rty Here and Now, Peace Park, Ennis.
Here and Now Live Art Festival, Ennistymon (Aug 2024) Group Performance, joining others at the Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon.
These events invite audiences to experience movement as a shared act of embodied reflection, care, and connection to place.
Weekly rehearsals and workshops take place at Mrua Studio (Luisne) in Monreal North, Ennistymon. The studio provides a welcoming space for ongoing practice, research, and community gathering.
In October 2025 Maria co-established North Clare Dance Creamery as a legal community collective, supporting eco-somatic practitioners across creative disciplines, rooted in North Clare. This stems directly out of the needs of Project Affectionate members and we are seeking contact with like-minded creatives. Please contact Maria.
Dec 2025: Awarded social funding from a green enterprise to continue our embodied activism for environmental wellbeing.
February 2026: Imbolc Festival, Ennistymon- participation in the Creative Conversations and danced in the procession.
April 2026: Selected to partake in Common Knowledge Community Workshop on Food Preservation.
April 2026: Partnering with Down to Earth Collective for BOG ENVY, a long term outdoor eco-somatic project collaboration with the local food growers on a bog in Kilfenora.
May 2026: North Clare Dance Creamery MEITHEALS - monthly networking and practitioners sharings & eco-somatic workshops at Common Knowledge, DM Maria for details.
November 1st-2nd 2026: Eco-somatic Festival Ennistymon in memory of Antoinette Spillane.