Piny Orchidaceae & Leo Soulflow – From the body to the cosmos: touch, skin, space

From the body to the cosmos – the vibration of dance culture 

Moving makes energy flow throughout and between bodies, whether human or celestial. It is on this rhythm that life itself originated, cultures developed, things are born and pass away. We live in endless cycles or nonlinear time … 

In this workshop we move from the physical body – from fascia, skin and bones – to get in touch with both the dense and subtle. We explore how inner energy is connected to the strength of the universe, and how we can draw connections between the micro and the macro, between past and future. We also explore how the somatics intersect with street and clubbing dance cultures. How history, politics and tradition influence contemporary and future dance and social movements, and how we can embody dance with a deep sense of context, pleasure and with respect for its ancestry and cultural connections.

A DJ will accompany the session, we will invoke ancestors and future beings. Together we explore dance as resistance, expression and future; connect personal movement with social and cultural roots, taking time and space as small and as wide as we can.

Piny – with roots in Portugal and Angola – is a performer, choreographer, researcher, teacher, intersectional feminist and activist. With deep respect she has been researching North African dances since 2000 and street and clubbing dance culture since 2006 with a focus on hip-hop, breaking, house, waacking and vogue. In recent years, her attention also integrates the study of Hatha yoga, Advaita Vedanta, astrology, and Tarot. Since 2011, Piny works with different choreographers. Highlights from her work include the pieces .G RITO, ONYX and HIP. a pussy point of view. She co-founded the collectives Orchidaceae and Vogue PT.Chapter. In 2023, she started OU.kupa, a festival dedicated to street and club dancing, based in Lisbon.

Since 2003, Leo has been dancing and teaching hip-hop, house dance, popping, waving and tap dance. In recent years, she has been dancing and touring with Piny and Marco da Silva Ferreira. She also works as a therapist – integrating principles of movement, physiology and biomechanics of the human body – and as an osteopath and health coach. She founded the female crew Butterfliesoulflow in 2006 and has been a member of Orchidaceae since 2014. She started DJing with vinyl in the Soulflow DJ duo, and now continues solo under the name Leo Soulflow, being resident in several clubs in Lisbon. She is also one of the DJ’s of the Portuguese Ballroom scene (Vogue). She’s a music producer and has been creating soundscapes for dance pieces. 

Fascia, somatics, clubbing

This workshop is open level. Do you have questions about the accessibility of a workshop? Contact us at outofthetoolbox@danspunt.be.