Daily Silent Contortion

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Daily Silent Contortion
Name Daily Silent Contortion
Location Het Wilde Weg
Date 2023/07/19-2023/07/27
Time 09:00-10:00
PeopleOrganisations Karl Moubarak
Type HDSC2023
Web Yes
Print No
16 Daily silent contortion.jpg

Flexing Futures, Contorting Towards Hopepunk Ligaments

This activity introduces silent physical contortion practice to the busy and brain-heavy day-to-day hacking and designing schedule. It re-visits contortionist methods of body movement to imagine and hope towards more flexible and resilient futures. The activity is exclusively silent and provides an escape from the busy life of the hackers & designers summer camp. The idea is to practice deep body stretches with a traditional contortionist approach: focusing on one or two muscle/ligament groups for 10 minutes at a time. The long duration of these exercises builds up stamina, generates resilient ligaments, creates a state of discomfort and allows space for non-verbal, non-thinking, non-disciplinary, mutual planetary co-existence. With these methods, the activity wishes to explore the maleability of the physical human flesh and it's relationship to the ground in hopepunk futures.

Background: In a recent trip to lebanon, while searching for a community to practice amateur gymnastics in Beirut, I found the free circus. There I met a contortionist who showed me her ways. I share here with you my learnings.

  • Duration: 30-45 minutes per day
  • Participants: as many as fits
  • Language: none! stay quiet!

We will meet daily in the mornings or evenings for 30-45 minutes at a time. For the entire duration of the workshop everyone is silent. We will do several static contortion stretches, timed between 5 and 10 minutes each.

Exercises will include:

  • different variations of splits
  • lower and upper back flexibility stretches
  • shoulder flexibility exercises

We will make use of the heights of our groins from the ground in a middle split position as a progress indicator. We measure on the first day and the last day.

Access

  • No prior experience or knowledge necessary
  • Most of the exercises allow for variations
  • Some of the stretches are physically tough so it is encouraged to follow ones own pace and take regular breaks
  • If someone has access needs that are not addressed here, please feel free to DM me on Zulip : https://chat.hackersanddesigners.nl/#narrow/pm-with/9-Karl-Moubarak