WORKSHOP
Gaëtan Rusquet: The Rivers Chasing Us

Workshop times:

Saturday 12.10. at 10-17
Sunday 13.10. at 10-17
Thursday 17.10. at 17-21
Sunday 27.10. at 10-17
No admission fee.
The language of the workshop is English.

We are asking for commitment for two workshop occasions.

Workshop location:
Vanha Viinatehdas, Manilla
Itäinen Rantakatu 64, 20810 Turku

Applications for the workshop here.
Include a short description of yourself, as well as a motivation to participate in the workshop.

The workshop series is part of Gaëtan’s residency period in Turku in October, preparing their work to be presented at the New Performance Turku Biennale the following year, 2.9.2025-7.9.2025. The workshop is also an opportunity to meet people who would be willing to take part in the performance next year. It is not mandatory to participate in the performance in 2025 to attend the workshop.

The Rivers Chasing Us

sculpture / cold and heat / landscape-bodies / relation to water and pleasure / care of the body / care of the deads, traumas, memories / the touch / the touch that heals / the touch that takes, steal or give / the divine touch / we were never apart / singing for the elements / for the streams of water / the sound of the walk / ritournelle, refrain, ritornello / singing-vibrating to honor the living / singing-vibrating for the water, the plants.

The Workshop

This workshop will be an opportunity to walk together, to connect with the more-than-human, to soften what we think we are through speaking, touching, caring. The desire to be held, the fear of being moved or touched, the possibility of intimacy. From this relationship to the more- than-human, we will learn together what it might be like to connect differently with our bodies and the bodies of others. Through fluids, water, vibration, voice… The body as landscape, the presence of the living that asks nothing in return (the plants, the rivers).

• Outside we will work on silent walks, walking backwards, playing and opening our perception of what we let go of, what we give up and what we offer on the way to something more-than-human. What is it to dance or sing for a plant, a stream of water? With the awareness that everything we offer is somehow a gift to ourselves.
  
• Inside we will work on boundaries, touch, care, gifts, welcoming all the sensations, emotions that arise in the encounter with what we perceive as the other, sometimes a danger, sometimes a salvation, sometimes a silent presence.

I will bring some practices related to ecosexuality, tantra, guided movement improvisations, bioenergy practices, listening to the body, the space, the stories and memories that are present.

We will explore the possibility of intimacy, consent, the vulnerability of our skin, the possibility of nudity (even partial), what we hide, what we offer.

Some others related to performance and what we sublimate through it, and how to be in relation to a medium, connected. How to inscribe it in space & time.

We will also explore some connections with plants that facilitate lucid dreams, pleasure, care (artemisia, hogweed, blue lotus, wormwood) or for their colour properties (blue peas, blue spirulina, red cabbage).

In this workshop I would like to experience the connection with the landscape, with the living, from the river to the bodily fluids, from the fluids of the body to those of the plants. I want to experience what it means to offer the voice from vibration to song as a way of giving, of honouring the living.

I want to continue to work with pleasure and touch and memory, between hands that take, give or simply know what is there. The fear of being touched, the need to be held, the search for a sense of unity in connection. and the connection to the living through water.

What if we could look at our memories, our traumas, the remnants of your past, fixed, untouched, and let them melt? What if we could observe history in bodies as ancient buildings, the remnants of ancient cultures and civilisations, without being able to remember the gestures that created them?

What if the desiccated memories, the traumas, could receive a presence that could soften and heal them?

Who is it for?

This workshop is for anyone who is curious, who wants to experiment with connection, perception, with people or more than people, everyone, genders, ages, who is curious about performance as a gift, the vulnerability of our bodies, the silent presence of plants, the kindness of rivers…

Background

“On a pilgrimage I would sing to streams and rivers whenever I could be alone with them on my path, as a practice of connection, a prayer, honouring the beauty of life along the way. As I sang to the rivers my ears and heart would open, the feeling of connection would put me in touch with something greater than myself, a deep sense of peace and gratitude.

These would evolve, change or stay in my head for hours, following the rhythm of my walk, the mood of the landscapes I was passing through, the weather. They would usually change every time I sang to a river along the way. These encounters would inform the water in my body, my walk, healing me and giving me a sense of connection with the living, life and the divine.

On the way, a phone call with a psychic gave some answers, she said: “As a child, like an infusion, you learn the emotional life of your mother in the same way you learn to hold a glass of water and drink it”. Connecting with water was a way of honouring the memories that my body holds, even if they aren’t mine.”

Gaëtan Rusquet is an artist, working in the fields of performance, set design and dance. For several years he has been developing a choreographic approach that combines movement and energy healing. Meanwhile, he discovered massage/sex work and tantric practices as a way of caring for and honouring the body through pleasure and touch.

He developed a special relationship with plants that accompanies him in his daily life and artistic projects. Intuitively, he sees performance as a way to ritualise and experience a broader sense of relation between consciousness and matter, whether it is human or more than human. He seeks for an experience of interconnectedness, of unity.

In residency collaboration with Regional dance centre of Western Finland.