Somatulki | interactive performance for families with children aged 4-7

Everybody’s here, welcome, let’s begin, it’s time.
Let’s start time, hello is everyone.
Everybody’s here, welcome, we’ll stop time here.
Let’s stop time, hello is everyone….

The Somatulki performance is a dance journey through time that allows children to immerse themselves in the animal foundations of human body development. Through object work and an interactive form, it invites children to experience the movement of ancient evolutionary times and their own cellular memory.

Somatulki is a project that was supported by a one-year grant in dance from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage 2023. It consisted of a workshop for pre-school staff, a workshop for pre-school groups, the creation and presentation of an interactive dance performance in pre-schools and the writing of an analytical text summarising the project. The tools for action and reflection in the project are a set of somatic practices. The workshops for children and staff were realised in the second half of the last school year and the premiere show of the performance took place on 24th January 2024.

The main theme of the performance is the basic neurocellular patterns described by the creator of Body-Mind Centering – Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, in her book “Basic Neurocellular Patterns”. They cover the earliest human motor development up to a period of several months of human life, culminating (usually) in standing up and taking the first steps. The work with this method is based on the assumption of the potential of contact with the bodily memory of different qualities from the earliest period of our life. This practice helps to deepen our understanding of our physical being in the world, to develop a subjective motor imagination and to practise listening to subtle but important signals coming from the body.

Creator

Hanna Bylka-Kanecka – initiator and co-founder of the Holobiont collective, which she established with choreographer Aleksandra Bożek-Muszyńska and creative producer Karolina Wycisk, producing interactive dance performances for families. The collective’s works to date include “DOoKOŁA” (2017, produced by Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk, co-produced by Malta Festival Poznań), “Księżycowo” (2018, Ochota Theatre), “_on_line__” (2018, Art Stations Foundation), “Gdzie kształty mają szyję” (2019, Children’s Art Centre in Poznań), “Mój ogon i ja” (2021, Performat Foundation, National Institute of Music and Dance, Polish Theatre in Poznań, Ochota Theatre in Warsaw). The collective’s works have been presented at major festivals and children’s performing arts events in Poland and abroad.

Since 2018, she has been the supervisor of the Roztańczone Rodziny programme (www.roztanczonerodziny.pl) – the first initiative in Poland focused on the development of contemporary dance and experimental choreography for families, which has been running continuously since 2011, with the Performat Foundation as its producer.

In terms of projects, she works closely with the Children’s Art Centre in Poznań, where she co-curated a forum on contemporary dance and choreography for young audiences with Joanna Żygowska. Since 2022 she has been a board member of the Young Dance Network – a global network for exchange, operating under the umbrella of ASSITEJ International, where she volunteers to promote and strengthen dance and choreography for young audiences as a tool for social change (www.youngdancenetwork.com).

She has published in “Kultura Współczesna” and “Didaskalia”. In her creative and research work she is interested in the points of contact between psychoanalysis, somatic practices, posthumanism and childhood studies. Her greatest artistic inspiration comes from the physical observation of the different colours of her own motherhood.