Dancing Families: Action—Gravity!

workshops for families with children ages 3–6

What enables a person to run, jump, roll around, hug, dance, and rest? What allows them to feel the weight of their own body while dreaming of flying?

“Action—Gravity!” is a movement workshop dedicated to exploring gravity—the force that constantly influences our daily lives. Participants will be invited to discover gravity through movement, play, and shared experiences. The focus is on the body’s relationship with the ground, space, and other people.

Creative movement, improvisation, and dance will help participants discover how gravity affects the way the body moves, stops, and supports itself. This will be achieved through experiments with body weight, balance, changes in direction and levels of movement, as well as partner activities. Participants will explore how to “trick” gravity for a moment and experience a sense of weightlessness.

The workshop is based on methods that support the development of body awareness, a sense of agency, and relationships with others through movement. Children and adults are equal partners here. Instead of learning specific steps, participants will freely experiment with movement. The workshop will create conditions for collaboration, building trust, and safely experiencing closeness and distance. Gravity will serve as a starting point for exploring the limits of one’s own body, as well as for discovering what is one’s own, what belongs to others, and what is shared.

Dancer, choreographer, and dance and movement therapist (DMT). A graduate of Trinity Laban in London and the DMT training program at the Polish Institute of DMT. She designs and conducts workshops for children, adolescents, adults, families, and groups with diverse needs and experiences, including people with disabilities, seniors, and those facing social exclusion. In her practice, she combines artistic and therapeutic approaches, focusing on mindfulness, the relationship with the body, and the communal experience. She creates site-specific workshops and projects, including “Ze sobą” (“With Ourselves”), “Warsztaty z bezczynności” (“Workshops on Idleness”) (CK Zamek in Poznań), and “C(i)ałokształt.” She is the author and co-creator of the performances “Behind the Walls, Beyond the Forests” and “Social Body.”

Dance and Movement Therapist (DMT), art therapist, Master of Arts. She graduated from the Gardzienice Academy of Theater Practices and the A. Zelwerowicz Theater Academy in Warsaw. She is fascinated by physical theater. In India, she practiced and researched local performance forms that integrate body, mind, and spirituality—including the martial art kalarippayattu and the dances chau and gotipua—which encompass body, mind, and spirituality. She has led art classes for children from communities at risk of social exclusion. She led the workshop “Cia(ł)o amore!”

Weronika Cegielska

Krystyna Ułamek