The Ritual Of Embrace

It is a participatory performance engaging people in movement play, voicing, and interactions through soft sculptures. It doesn’t come from any particular culture, yet it connects to many and enacts human values. The culmination of the ritual is a collective physical and energetic massage of one participant by the rest of the group through soft sculptures. Anyone is welcome to experience it. This individual and collective process, allows to foster trust, care, awareness and feel a part of a greater whole.

The Ritual of Embrace was supported by Amsterdam Fonds Voor Kunst 2024.

full video

We use the term ‘ritual’ because of its’ repetitive, sometimes symbolic actions that make ordinary things become unordinary. Here the sensory and emotional perception, individually and as a collective, allow us to foster trust, care and awareness and feel a part of a greater whole.

**Performance at Pleinkamer, 2024, photo by** **Marina Kai**

The performance starts with a play on Tibetan bowls by one of us and a drop of lavender water on the crown of the participants. This invitation to the ritual transforms into a dance with soft sculptures supported by electronic ancestral music, composed by Nag Champa.PL. Both music, as well as soft sculptures, work as activators of the movement and play.

Marina: "The first word that comes to mind is freedom. Freedom from fears and doubts, freedom from anxiety. Plus, the creators of this ritual possess that rare magical energy, in which those around them, even the most constrained and shy, enter into a silent dialogue, throw off everything earthly and seem to break away from the earth."

Performance during 4-5 May, at DAY Studio, supported by 4-5 Mei

**The session with Ukraninan ladies in our studio 2023**

The weight of the sculptures creates an effect of safety and groundness to the one who is covered. At the same time, it invites one’s imagination to intricate associations. This act of rebirth repeats with anyone who wants to experience it. This is an experience of embracing trust and surrendering to the process. Here individual and collective aspects are being equally reinforced.

Peter: "The performance really gave me a feeling of connection and happiness."

**Performance during On The Way To Wonder Opening, Photo by Bookstore Foundation**

The soft sculptures are made in duo during ritualistic sessions in our studio, involving movement, voicing and meditation in stillness. Here we tune into a full embodied presence together and allow the creative stream to move through us in a wordless dialogue. This silent dialogue includes aspects of deep listening and letting go of control. In this creative ritual, one of us initiates the cut on fabric and the other responds. Responding to each other’s cut line continues till the shape is complete.

The sculptures are made from organic cotton and hemp and natural filling: buckwheat, millet and cherry pits.