Participatory Eco-Somatic Movement Practice

Projects 2026

Eco-Literacy and Deep Time studies

An online EcoLiteracy course with Melbourne RMIT last year inspired me to delve into a specific course on Deep Time offered by Deep Time Walk (www.deeptimewalk.org) originating in Schumacher College, as deep ecology was developed by ecologist Stephan Harding. I'm now a certified Deep Time Walk facilitator. I delivered a public Deep Time Walk on Flaggy Shore, NewQuay, Co. Clare, this Spring. It's a site worth exploring again- am open to sharing this multitemporal inquiry with others.

BEAR TIME – Aillwee Cave Residency Spring 2026

BEAR TIME is a self-initiated eco-somatic residency at Aillwee Cave, exploring the deep-time memory of Ireland’s extinct bears this Spring. Focusing on the cave’s bear pit, the project investigates hibernation and extinction as both biological process and cultural metaphor—opening new ways to reflect on rest, survival, and ecological connection.

Through my choreo-curatorial practice combining somatic movement, dance, drawing, and site-responsive research, the research explores how the body can “remember” the bear. Rooted in personal and ancestral ties to the Burren landscape, it connects ecology, heritage, and imagination, reframing extinction as an invitation to reconnect with the more-than-human world.

The outcome of this research is leading to 3 potential strands, yet to be delivered:

Public Performance presentation "How to be brave in a Cave", in Aillwee Cave meeting space, followed by an eco-somatic workshop on Deep Time and Bear Memory. The research will wrap up with a public Participatory Performance in the Cave on Cave Time Water. More details will be on here and Instagram as dates are confirmed. Am so grateful to Nuala Mulqueeney Director of the Aillwee Caves for hosting me and for the cave staff who gave such insightful tours and calmed my fears.

Bear pits, ancient beds.

Extraordinary to imagine a bear with its heavy sleeping body curved out this mud layer over the limestone into its hibernation bed 4,600 years ago! There are 2 bear pits remaining... has to be experienced, a photo does it a disservice.

Re-Wilding Bodies*

A creative form of participatory World-Making

Re-Wilding Bodies is a facilitation mode I have devised to deliver eco-somatic dance improvisation workshops that can inclusively hold all levels and abilities of movers together. In this slow, mindful movement, creative practice through deep listening, interconnections are reanimated in embodied exploration of the senses and natural elements associated with the seasonal timelines.

We are essentially choreographing belonging- not creating attachment to a specific place or culture but rather cultivating relations among us with more than human and seasonal and multiporal worlds.

A form of participatory World-Making.

Weekly workshops ongoing in North Clare since October 2023 and are available elsewhere on request.

*An experimental mode of movement facilitation that incorporates tools from Antoinette Spillane's Seasonal Scores, Wuxing-Chinese 5 elements, Body Mind Centering, Authentic movement, Alexander Technique, Joan Davies’ .

Origins: Mary Nunan’s Release technique, aromatherapy, biodynamics gardening and knowledge of Irish intangible cultural heritage with the lunar calendar in the alchemy mix.

BOG ENVY

Bog Envy- embodied encounters with the bog is a very exciting opportunity to research with Down to Earth Collective, creatively engaging with the extraordinary habitat of compressed time that is a piece of bog that stretches under a ring fort near Kilfonora, Co. Clare

Through deep time smelling, the notion of olfactory choreography emerges to open portals to memory and instinct, both creative forces for movement composition and for expanding and knowing place relations. Where we meet the bog through the multitemporal body. In a very reciprocal relationship with air, water and this ever dying and transforming unique landscape.

First step was to work with essential oils and bog plants to make a natural midge repellant

Time led movement

Braving the unsteady ground, balance becomes a negotion with deep time

spine realigns with uneven ground

spatial awareness becomes deep listening

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