Session 5: Open Session

5th Global Conference

Friday 6th November – Sunday 8th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria

Channeling Erotic Energy
Cara Judea Alhadeff
Visual Artist

Channeling Erotic Energy, my body consciousness workshop, investigates radical citizenship through a conscious integration of the erotic into the everyday. Using the theatre of our bodies as a site for exploring the mutual intricacies of the familiar in relation to the unfamiliar, I lead participants through a series of reaction activities–including “gratitude exercises” as a practice of the erotic. The foundation of this practice is rooted in discovering vulnerability and difference as physical and emotional strength. We will use my photographic work as a lens through which to examine behavioral and perceptual patterns. As we delve into the fertile intersections of ethnicity, aesthetics, and sexuality, the creative potential of the erotic politic emerges. By unraveling binaries, we investigate lived notions of empathy–not a unified merging, but the fluid exchange of autonomy and interconnectedness.

We examine how conscious choice imbues the psycho-anatomical within a framework that can help us thrive on contradictions and ambiguities in our chaotic daily lives. I encourage participants to take risks by examining their taken-for-granted assumptions: to develop an ongoing self-awareness by paying attention to the present moment, and to slow down enough to find connections between themselves and others. Adaptability, rather than attachment, is a central aspect of this practice of perception. This is one definition of “commitment”—a willingness to jump into the unknown.
From Heraclitis, the Greek Taoist, I find a delicious dynamic translation process between erotic politics and philosophical discourses. The notion that all is in flux, every”thing” (not as things in themselves, but the a-substantive) moves in a double orbit, helps us understand the relational tension embedded in each moment, each interaction. This is erotic politics.

Our Bodies, Our Wisdom: Developing Erotic Epistemology
H. Sharif Williams
Black Funk: The Center for Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality,USA

In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the collaborative inquiry, transformative education process Our Bodies, Our Wisdom (OBOW) (Williams, 2006). The creation of OBOW was informed by the definition of collaborative inquiry in Bray, Lee, Smith, & Yorks (2000) as “a process consisting of repeated episodes of reflection and action through which a group of peers strives to answer questions of importance to them” (p.6) and an understanding of transformative learning consistent with the definition in Fisher-Yoshida, Geller, & Schapiro (2009) as “a planned educational program, experience, intervention, or set of pedagogical practices that are designed to enable people to experience transformative learning and as a result become transformed in some particular way” (p.7).

The methods of OBOW are Sensual Yoga, Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 2008), and African ritual. Sensual Yoga is an original form of hatha yoga that involves the practice of asana (physical postures) in partnered and group formats (sometimes in clothing optional environments). Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is a form of popular education originating from the social justice and liberation struggles of Brazil. TO uses theatre games and techniques to facilitate dialogue and critical social reflection among people who live in oppressive systems. In the context of OBOW, African ritual refers to the traditional spiritual practices of people of the African Diaspora.

The tools of OBOW are erotics and embodiment. It is through the application of the tools through the methods that an erotic epistemology is achieved.

In the workshop, I will provide a overview of OBOW and participants will have the opportunity to experience some of the methods and engage in discussion of the application OBOW in their contexts.