Botanics of the body proposes a dialogue between scientific research into plants and the practice of movement.

Plants’ strategies of adaptation, resilience and survival become a starting point to investigate how the moving body can create through a state of deep listening and dialogue with its surroundings. The workshop also engages with the silent conflict that runs through plant life: forces that compete, resist and transform.Drawing inspiration from yoga, the Nikolais Technique, Meyerhold’s biomechanics and the Grotowski method, these practices provide a framework for investigating different states of relationship, listening and action.  A laboratory for imagining the body as a living organism, in constant dialogue with its environment.

Costanza Givone is a performer, choreographer and artistic director based in Portugal. She holds a Master’s degree in Performing Arts and a postgraduate degree in Contemporary Dance from ESMAE, Porto. Since 2012, her work has focused on transdisciplinary creation, combining voice, movement and visual arts. In 2019, she founded Fogo Lento – Associação Cultural, where she is artistic director. Her current artistic research focuses on the relationship between humans and other forms of life, particularly plants, forests and ecosystems.

The workshop is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and free of charge for participants.