Event: This talk and movement-based workshop explore queer ecological perspectives and experiences of embodiment that disrupt normative constructions of the body as bounded, separate, and impermeable. We will discuss and practice strategies for developing a greater felt sense of our own bodies as well as how our felt sense of self expands or transforms through moving in and out of intentional relationships with other bodies—both human and more-than-human. Who and how else might we become as we traverse promiscuous embodied relations through our movement? What more becomes possible when we invite human and more-than-human others into our bodies through moving together? How might these experiences shape not only how we approach ourselves and one another, but also our collective movements and our relationship with a planet in crisis?
No previous movement experience needed.
Biography: Michael J. Morris is a dance artist, astrologer, tarot reader, writer, and educator. They hold a PhD in Dance Studies from The Ohio State University, and they were a Visiting Assistant Professor at Denison University from 2015-2021 where they taught in Dance, Women’s and Gender Studies, Queer Studies, and Environmental Studies. They were also visiting faculty at SNDO—the School for New Dance Development—at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam from 2020-2023. Michael’s choreographic and performance work draws influences from Japanese Butoh, ritual practices, and early formalist postmodern dance and has been presented at universities, galleries, community spaces, theaters, bars and nightclubs, films, and domestic spaces. In 2019, Michael founded Co Witchcraft Offerings through which they offer astrology and tarot consultations, movement-based rituals, and workshops to support people in cultivating more meaningful living while pursuing personal and collective healing and liberation.