Unplugged Dance 2026: Residential Eco-Somatic Dance Program

Landing week

Fieldwork scores

Rewilding Play

The Loss Lab: Embodied Research in a Damaged World

The body as roots for poetry

Space Weavers

Embodied Voice Flow

Ecosomatic practices for living and dying

‘Embodying’ week

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Unplugged Dance is a 7-week immersive residential program that offers time, space, and continuity for personal and collective exploration in dance and somatic practices.

Our approach derives from a desire to experience dance in concepts and ways that don’t restrict themselves in movement aesthetics or technics, but neither condemns them. Instead further explores dance as a powerful mechanism for reaching the world within and the world around us.

Unplugged Dance cultivates a shared environment rooted in attentiveness, agency, and mutual respect. Through a rhythm of individual practice and collective inquiry, the program supports the deepening of personal processes and the articulation of questions in relation to movement and the art of dance.

Listening to a Permanent Culture of Dance

This year, Unplugged Dance is oriented toward exploring movement as a regenerative, living practice that nourishes our bodies, our artistic work, and the ecosystems we inhabit.

The program invites an approach to dance that understands movement as a means of ecological awareness and approaches the dancing body as a living, multidimensional organism, inherently interconnected with its environment. Practices are held as ways of cultivating relational sensitivity, an embodied attentiveness to the living networks that connect us with one another and with the world around us.

This year’s workshops are shaped around:

– eco-somatic perspectives that engage with the intersections of dance, ecology, and community, drawing inspiration from principles of permaculture and deep ecology.

– site-specific practices in natural environments that invite direct engagement with the textures, rhythms, and dynamics of the landscapes we inhabit. Space is approached not merely as a backdrop, but as a companion in the creative process, where movement can arise in response to land, weather, soundscape, and living ecosystems.

– process-oriented, participatory, and reflective formats. Unplugged Dance prioritizes experience over external validation, treating movement as a learning field in which every gesture is understood as part of an evolving dialogue between body, environment, and artistic practice.

– approaches that expand our understanding of dance as a political, cultural, and ecological practice, capable of cultivating awareness, resilience, and transformation through deeper connection with ourselves, with others, and with the more-than-human world.

Listening to a Permanent Culture of Dance offers a common ground for diverse practices and ways of engaging over the course of the program.

Facilitators – Workshops

Mariela Nestora ◘ Fieldwork scores

Kate Sagovsky ◘ Rewilding Play

Vasiliki Tsagkari ◘ The body as roots for poetry

Reversed Dances [Franziska Gerth and Lily Pasquali] ◘ The Loss Lab: Embodied Research in a Damaged World

Alessio Castellacci ◘ Embodied Voice Flow

André Uerba ◘ Space Weavers

Bodycartography [Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad] ◘ Ecosomatic practices for living and dying

Kyveli Kouvatsi & Yorgos Sioras Deligiannis – facilitating landing during the introductory week

Program Structure

The program unfolds though seven weeks, including an introductory one, and an integrating one in the end. In between, there are five weeks of workshops and collective activities.

Two workshops of 3hours each are offered Monday – Friday. There is also time in between for warm up, personal time/integration/echoing, heart circles, meals, collective care of the space and rest. Each week has two new workshops.

Thursdays are offered for personal practice/integration and critical circles/open discussions in the evening.

Weekends are free days for personal or communal time to integrate and recharge for next week. Only breakfast is included.

Arrival is on Sunday, April 26, at a specific time that will be announced later. The arrival day includes a welcoming circle and dinner. Departure is on Saturday, June 13, and includes breakfast and collective cleaning. We cannot accept later arrivals or earlier departures, as both the arrival and departure days are integral parts of the program.

What to expect

Unplugged Dance 2026 offers a blend of structured and organic learning through:

⫸ Experiential Workshops: Led by international facilitators, these sessions explore the relationship between body awareness and creative expression through dance improvisation, experiential anatomy, artistic expression and critical thinking. Their orientation is dance experience as a field of observation, experimentation and creativity.

⫸ Open discussions / Critical circles: Open questions on the philosophical, political and socio-cultural relevance, such as;

⋗How do site, land, and more-than-human relations reshape our understanding of dance, movement, and the body?

⋗What does it mean to relate to dance as a “permanent culture” rather than a product for short-term consumption?

⋗Why choose this approach to dance?

⋗How can a dance method encourage agency, empowerment, and creative expression?

⋗How can practices of embodiment influence the socio political aspect of dance?

⋗How agency and collective care work together to create a space that is not only about personal growth but also about building stronger, more connected communities through dance? … and more

⫸ Personal and Collective Integration Time: Opportunities to reflect, connect, and grow through heart circles, feedback sessions and group sharings. Scheduled time for self-practice and research alone-together on the platform.

⫸ Shared living space: One of the aspects that makes this program so unique is the way we share time and space. The location and geography of Paleohori that hosts the program, encourages communal exchange and collaboration.

⫸ Collective activities on the land, with hands-on practices of eco building and gardening.

⫸ Daily excursions

Who is it for?

Unplugged Dance is made for those who are ready to commit to a deeper learning and research process. It is open to both professionals and non-professionals with an interest in dance, movement, and somatic practices. Specifically, it is an ideal opportunity for:

⫸ Professionals in Performance, Dance, or Visual Arts: Individuals with years of experience who are interested in informing their personal practices with experiential anatomy, body awareness, and self-regulation tools and exploring their work through the lens of embodiment, with a focus on qualities such as self-reflection, observation, non-goal orientation, and care.

⫸ Recent Graduates: Artists who have recently completed a formal education and are seeking a nourishing, empowering community to reveal their inner core and systematize their own personal practices into educational or creative methods, while meeting, connecting, exploring and sharing into a vibrant, non-institutional community.

⫸ Dance Therapists & Somatics Practitioners: Individuals who wish to expand their practices into a creative process informed by contemporary artistic methods and creative tools.

⫸ Critical Thinkers: Those looking to engage in meaningful discussions on methodology, pedagogy, dance dramaturgy through the prism of embodiment and the socio-political dimensions of dance.

Participation Fee

We invite you to choose the fee option that best reflects your current financial situation. Paleohori Eco-Art Space is an independent, self-funded, non-profit project sustained entirely through participation fees. Any contribution above the regular price helps make supported places possible for others – because we may all be in the same sea, but not in the same boat.

The sliding-scale participation fee is available until February 28, 2026:

“Supporting” range

€3451 – €4000

Regular

€3450

“Supported” range

€3449 – €2900

From March 1, 2026, a standard participation fee of €3600 will apply.

A payment plan in three installments is available.

If none of the listed fee options feels accessible to you, please contact us at unpluggeddance@gmail.com.

Registration

Fill out the registration form.

Within 5 working days, you will receive an email to schedule a video call so we can meet, connect, and answer any questions you may have.

Following the meeting you will have 6 days to complete the first installment and secure your spot.

Due to the limited number of places, participation is confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you face any problem with registration through our website, as well as for any questions, please contact us at unpluggeddance@gmail.com

We are looking forward to dancing and connecting with you.

Kate Sagovsky

Kate Sagovsky is an international artist specialising in movement, somatics, dance, & live performance. Her work facilitates embodied experiences to help people connect better to themselves, others, & the world. She works across dance, theatre, & live art as a choreographer, movement director, & director; as well as doing extensive work as a researcher, writer, teacher, & workshop facilitator. Her first book 'Laban’s Efforts in Action: An Actor Movement Handbook' was co-written with Vanessa Ewan & published by Bloomsbury (2019). Her current research focus is on: 'Rewilding Play: Somatic Improvisation, Performance, & Eco-consciousness'. She has been awarded funding from Culture Moves Europe/Goethe Institut to develop 'Sensory Rewilding Encounters' as a form of immersive outdoors installation; from Create Berwick for a cross art-form exhibition & participatory workshop on the theme 'Wild Hope'; & from Arts Council England for development of the Eco-somatic practice ‘Rewilding Play’. As Artistic Director of MOVING DUST, Sagovsky creates artworks that are hybrid in form, blurring the boundaries between dance, theatre, installation, & live art. Past work has been performed to critical acclaim across the UK, & been described as: “raw, uncompromising & very beautiful… leaving vapour trails of brilliance in its wake” (The List); “deeply moving…provocative & stimulating” (Scotsman). Sagovsky has also worked as a movement specialist in many contexts, including at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, & the National Theatre. She has taught Actor Movement at conservatoires both nationally & internationally, including LAMDA, RCSSD, RCS, Oxford School of Drama, Rose Bruford, UniArts (Finland), AFDA Film School (South Africa).   As Director & Co-Founder of STUDIO SOMA, Sagovsky regularly teaches Feldenkrais classes, Somatic Performer trainings, & specialist workshops for the studio, as well as developing their ongoing programme. Having completed a four-year professional training, she is a qualified practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, & a member of the Feldenkrais Guild UK. Full bio

Mariela Nestora

Mariela Nestora works within the field of dance and performance as choreographer, researcher, co-curator and mentor and is based in Athens, Greece. She, graduated from the Master's program on artistic research at ArtEZ University of the Arts, Holland (Master Theatre Practices) in 2019 and has also studied the Feldenkrais method (Greece 1 Training with director Ruty Bar, IFF International Feldenkrais Federation), Contemporary dance and Choreography (London Contemporary Dance School, UK), Biology (B.Sc., Queen Mary and Westfield, U.K.) and Human Molecular Genetics (M.Sc. St.Mary’s Medical School, Imperial College, U.K.). She creates performances for the stage, as well as site specific and public space projects, both as a choreographer for YELP danceco. and independent dance maker. Mariela's work has been supported by organisations and institutions such as the Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Onassis Cultural Center, Kalamata International Festival a.o. Her artistic research is mobilized by the urgent review of the relationship between humans and the environment. Situated within Post Humanism she investigates choreography as a gathering speculating on different modes of coexistence. Since 2020 she is developing a methodology for what she coined as "molecular choreography". Her interest in gatherings and collaborations since 2011 led her to instigate the Collective Choreography Project CCP, the artist led initiative for the Greek dance scene from stage to page (an artist led platform including publications for the Greek dance scene) as well as becoming a member of several collectives (Green Park, Kolektiva Omonoia, Embros Theatre, Syndesmos Chorou) and other collective projects and publications. Full bio

Vasiliki Tsagkari

Vasiliki Tsagkari studied education at the Early childhood Education Department of University of Athens and Dance in City of Bristol College in the U.K. She has studied improvisation techniques, release and releasing techniques (Skinner releasing technique, Mary Fulkerson's Imagery Release), Alexander technique, Body Mind Centering, martial arts (Aikido and Tai-Chi) and physical theatre (Odin Theatre). Since 2004 she has been creating performance work and collaborating with dancers, choreographers, musicians and visual artists, creating performances and performing in Greece, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. From 2008 to 2010 she was an artist in residence and a member of the artists' collective ARM based in artspace Rondeel in Maastricht (NL). Vasiliki has taught improvisation and contemporary dance workshops and classes for children and adults in U.K., The Netherlands and Greece. She is a mother of a twelve year old boy and the last eight years she has been looking after an olive farm in Messinia, Greece. Physical work close to the earth as well as the observation of nature's elements through the process of cultivating, opened up a wide research field and has informed a lot her approach to dance. In 2022 she created the solo ritualistic performance “The passage”. It was a project related to climate change and environmental crisis and later on, in 2023, it became a performance pilgrimage, along the line of the Hellenic Trench, a sea biome that is currently under threat of drilling for oil in the sea. For “The Passage” pilgrimage she collaborated with several local activist organisations as well as photographers and videographers. Since 2022 she has been working on her own dance pedagogy, MELT, giving workshops about dance with nature, combining several different influences, approaches on somatics and physical experiences like physically working with the earth and allowing for more than human life to have agency in the process of embodied learning. Her main interests are sensitivity and sensuality in movement, the kinaesthetics of language, as well as the transformation of elements of everyday living into physical poetry. The experience of the body moving that asks to be shared, to be articulated as a public statement. She is a certified teacher of SkinnerReleasing Technique (introductory) since 2017. Full bio

Franziska Gerth & Lily Pasquali

Lily Pasquali Born in 1993 in Genoa, Italy, Lily is a queer, non-binary artist moving between dance, anthropology, cooking and ecological practice. Their background in environmental studies led to a deep dive into the politics of waste, capitalistic logic in supply chains and systems of care. Dance emerged in their life as a practice of healing and poetic resistance. They have trained in Butoh, contact improvisation, and somatic work across Europe since 2016. Lily also co-founded in 2020 an experimental community farm Larret en Mouvements dedicated to improvisation practices, food sovereignty, and radical pedagogy and promoting cultural events in deep rural region. In 2022, they co-founded Reversed Dances with Franziska to explore eco-political and intimate questions through movement. ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ Franziska Gerth Born in 1991 in Altenburg in the former GDR, Franziska’s practice is rooted in the social transitions of post-reunification Germany. Her studies in Latin American political theory and embodied research shaped her decolonial, body-centered approach. Her artistic journey with Butoh and somatic movement began in Colombia in 2014. She has since performed, taught, and collaborated across Europe and Latin America, including long-standing work with Minako Seki and performances with Tadashi Endo and others. Franziska co-founded maizbrasil and works with treemedia e.V. at the intersection of art and political education. Her focus lies in the body as a site of resistance, relationality, and transformation. In 2022, they co-founded Reversed Dances with Lily. Full bio

Alessio Castellacci

Alessio Castellacci is a voice embodiment teacher, contemporary dancer, and sound artist based between Berlin and Rome. Since 2007 he has worked internationally across performance, pedagogy, and sound design, developing an interdisciplinary approach to voice and movement. His teaching focuses on the relationship between voice, body, and perception — exploring how sound emerges from the living, sensing body. Through his method Embodied Voice Flow, Alessio invites participants into a deep listening practice, where vocal expression becomes a form of movement, relational awareness, and self-regulation. He has taught workshops and seminars for over 15 years at art universities, festivals, and independent venues throughout Europe. His practice integrates elements from somatic disciplines (Body-Mind Centering, Release Technique, Experiential Anatomy), voice research (Estill Voice Training), and systemic psychotherapeutic approaches such as Internal Family Systems. Together with Slovenian artist Irena Z. Tomažin, he co-runs The World is Sound, a Berlin-based platform dedicated to experimental and embodied voice practices. Full bio

André Uerba

Choreographer, sexological bodyworker, facilitator and researcher - working at the intersection of dance, somatics, intimacy, pleasure and social healing. Develops body-based practices that center consent, vulnerability, erotic and emotional expression as both choreographic tools and social healing strategies to unlearn conditionings. Across all formats, they cultivate and advocates for environments grounded in care, slowness, support systems and sustainable and safer working conditions within the dance landscape. His projects “Burn Time” (2018), “Fire Starter” (2019), “A hole the size of your touch” (2021), and “Æffective Choreography” (2022) have been presented internationally in theatres, festivals, museums, and galleries across Germany, Taiwan, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Indonesia, Slovenia, Belgium and Cyprus. In 2023 he was a recipient of the Pina Bausch Fellowship. Full bio

Olive Bieringa

Olive Bieringa works at the intersection of creative practice and pedagogy in dance, performance, somatics and media. Born in Aotearoa, she is a first generation New Zealander of European Jewish descent based in Oslo. She holds a BA in Dance from European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands and an MFA in Performance and New Media at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY. She is a doctoral candidate at Uniarts, Helsinki. She is Certified Movement Therapist (ISMETA), Infant Developmental Movement Educator® and Body-Mind Centering® Teacher and Program Director of Somatic Education Australasia. She is also a Certified Shiatsu practitioner and DanceAbility® teacher, working with performers of all abilities. She has extensive experience working with groups with/without disabilities, youth, and scientists. Her work has been profoundly influenced by teachers and collaborators including Otto Ramstad, Lisa Nelson, Margit Galanter, Steve Paxton, Eva Karczag, and founder of Body-Mind Centering® Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Olive teaches in dance programs and festivals such as Cullberg Ballet, Stockholm, Carte Blanche, Bergen, TanzFabrik, Berlin, Norwegian Theater Academy, Fredrikstad, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Impulstanz, Vienna, Movement Research, NYC, Independent Dance, London and for Body-Mind Centering® certification trainings internationally. Since 2018 she on the board of PRAXIS Oslo where she curates and produces local dance programming. Past curatorial projects include art, and science collaborations such as St Paul’s City Art Collaboratory and SEEDS Festival, improvisational performance events and festivals, and dance film festivals. Her writings appear in numerous publications including the first two books about site dance internationally: Site Dance, the Lure of Alternative Spaces and Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance published by Routledge. Full bio

Otto Ramstad

Otto Ramstad (USA), is a dance artist who makes performances, video works and installations for theaters, galleries, museums and different site and context specific encounters. He has an MA in Choreography from KHiO, Oslo, a BA in Dance, Improvisation, and the Moving Image, from Goddard College, Vermont and is a Certified Teacher of Body-Mind Centering®. He has worked intensively for over twenty years with three primary dance/somatic artists: He assistant teaches for Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, founder of Body-Mind Centering®. Researching and teaching Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Scores. With Steve Paxton’s contact improvisation and Material for the Spine, which he taught in the exhibitions Steve Paxton: Swimming in Gravity, Brussels and Steve Paxton / Drafting Interior Techniques, Lisbon. He also has taught, amongst many other places, at organizations: Praxis Oslo, Independent Dance, TanzFabrik and ImPulsTanz, companies: Cullberg Ballet and Carte Blanche, universities: KHiO, Oslo; SKH, Stockholm and Yokohama University. His commissions include Lyon Opera Ballet, Walker Art Center and Performance Space New York. He has been featured as a dancer in the work of DD Dorvillier, Miguel Gutierrez, Shelton Mann, Karen Nelson, Lisa Schmitt, Scott Wells, Kitt Johnson and Mia Habib. Full bio

Yorgos Sioras Deligiannis

Graduate of National School of Dance (2014), dancer, choreographer and curator in the field of dance research and education. He curated Platform for the performing arts Meta (2015-2019), meetings for artistic research and creation (2018-2019) and co-curated festival Lycabettus (2020-2021). For the past seven years collective initiatives have been a main source of interest, reflection and a place to be. His personal artistic research raises questions regarding identity and creates practices that provoke the relation between the public and the private space. Since 2018 he has showcased two series of works, The Selfy Series and Regulatory Bodies, both partly founded by the Greek Ministry of Arts. Since 2009 he has been a yoga instructor and currently he has been giving classes mainly outdoors throughout the year. Full bio

Kyveli Kouvatsi

Kyveli Kouvatsi is facilitating, researching and curating in the field of dance, based in Lefkada. She has graduated from National School of Dance (2021), and she is finishing her studies in School of Drama – Faculty of Fine Arts – Auth. Her main interest revolves around educational processes and ways of holding the space for people to explore & flourish through the dance experience. Since 2017 she has been teaching dance classes for children in dance schools and summer camps. Her lessons focus on the experience of dance, the development of children's creativity within non-judgmental contexts, the cultivation of body awareness and the relationship with rhythm and the environment. Since 2020 she has been developing with Yorgos Sioras Deligiannis a practice in couples with the basic working condition of the closed eyes of one body and the feeling of touch as a moving stimulus, under the name of Losing Ground. Together they share workshops and continue their common research and practice. Since 2020 she has been researching, developing and sharing a series of workshops and classes under the title Bloom Inside | sensorial explorations | reflective dances | creative practices -a practice of mindful movement and dance improvisation, which suggests ways around how we can move and dance with awareness of the environment while maintaining a honest and lucid connection with our inner core. Since 2021 she is the co-founder and co-curator of the international dance educational program Unplugged Dance, which focuses on highlighting practices and methods that approach dance as a practice of embodiment, and of Paleohori, an art-space focusing body & mind practices. In November 2022, she presented the film “About Dance Education and Other Mysteries | Interviews of graduates and seniors in 2021”, a documentary about professional dance education in Greece. For the last few years, she has been working as an organization and communication manager in dance schools, artistic educational programs and productions in the field of dance. Full bio

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Listening to a Permanent Culture of Dance

Program Structure

Please feel free to send us your questions!