Next in our series of Awareness Talks, Den Anden Side invites you to the talk and practical workshop:

Queering Embodied Consent.

Guided by the choreographer and somatic activist alex blum (she/they) we will explore the problems with consent, the politics of our dance floors, and the work for somatic justice in nightlife and beyond.

During the workshop, alex will propose consent not as a verbal contract but as a process of sharing listening to the body. Consent is not necessarily assumed as sexual but as a practical skill, which we can rehearse and build capacity for.

Embodying consent means raising the awareness of our nervous system responses to touch and overwhelm, which can be useful knowledge on the dance floor and in awareness work. Lastly, queering embodied consent implies critiquing the cultural assumptions present within affirmative consent and speculating beyond.

Through touch-based scores in pairs and small dance practices, we’ll rehearse embodied consent as the listening through our skin to possible pleasure and (dis)comfort. Too often, gendered and racialised systems of power instruct us to disregard our boundaries and exceed our capacities in intimate work. By mapping the queer politics of the dancing body, we’ll raise our awareness of nervous system and stress release on the dance floor.

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Since we’ll rehearse the presence of consent, the absence of consent and structure of sexualised violence are possible content during the evening. Participation is active but it is always possible to sit out on an exercise.

The workshop is in English with possibility for translation to Danish.

It’ll be pragmatic, cute and soft

The workshop and talk is supported by KFP Københavns Frie Promotere and Den Anden Side.
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alex blum (they/she) is a transfemme choreographer and somatic activist based between Copenhagen and Amsterdam, where they graduated from the School for New Dance Development in 2023. Before working with dance, they studied political science at Freie Universität Berlin.

Exploring the body as site for politics and dance as a method to disidentify from power, alex' works involve rewiring muscle tissue and researching pain, pleasure, and pressure. As a student of Trauma Release Exercises and a survivor of sexual assault, they research queer somatic justice through touch, consent rehearsals and bodywork sessions as a way to imagine queer hope.

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