"An earthy, dense, and archaic feminine space" – some thoughts on THE HOUSE OF NEUROTIC WOMXN…
…by one of the participants, captured on audio.
Winter has traditionally always been the time to contemplate the shadows. A time for demons, ghosts, and the living dead. Winter within. It’s a good time for retreats and rituals. We wanted to create a ritualistic space for transitioning between the years, too. To end it with something profound. A space to encounter the impact of that which is yet unthought but also always known.
And we did.
But we had to address the layers of frustration that lie beneath our pedagogical approach to facilitating workshops. Frustration with superficial talk about feminine and masculine energies in workshops—when femininity is defined by maternal, sensual, and goddess-like qualities, and masculinity by archaic warrior imagery.
We wanted to explore the more interesting and unusual variations of those characteristics:
The fact that being a woman in our society means having to lose your mind—so we created the HOUSE OF NEUROTIC WOMXN, where we celebrated just how much subversion lies in that as well.
And being a man comes with a fear: the fear of being the CREEPY OLD GUY. So we created a space to explore the complexities of those unsettling feelings of creepiness.
Small steps toward a fuller understanding of what it means to be female and male in this cruel world.
The workshops are not gender-specific. There is a creep and a hysteric in each and every one of us. They are something like archetypes (ooh, 'dark-etypes!' 😈 )
It can all sound scary, but when approached with tenderness, friendliness, and love—using slow, body-based practices from dance and performance art, along with creativity and plenty of playful fun—the fear becomes bearable. Even if only for a few moments. And to give you a sense of what this might look like in practice, here are some reflections from one of our participants:
