Full Moon Ritual: Rooting to Raving

@xan_dye will share offerings from their movement practice as a queering and gender-queering of spring fertility rituals. 

Xan’s practice explores the space between stimming and dancing: attuning to sensation, how we process emotions and self-regulate through connecting to rhythm and repetition.

The ritual will begin by offering space for earthing, finding stability and equilibrium in relation to the ground. Exploring fertility as the foundation from which new things grow, here we will center ourselves, listening to what’s felt, being held and rocked by the earth, seeking the spaciousness to release and recalibrate. 

As the full moon emerges in Scorpio, it invites us to follow momentum, expand, take space and give expression and permission to feelings and desires. Guided by pleasure, we will move into a moment of ceremonial raving as a space for collective release, expression and pleasure for pleasure’s sake.

Attuning to spring as a time for the emergence of new life in all its fragility and fervence, we will then consider what new growth and desires we hold, and how we might tend to and nourish what is emergent and tender in ourselves and in the human and non-human communities we are supported by.  

Lunarrr Playgroundz is a container of queer magic for the queer community and its allies.

All workshops will play with movement, breathwork, voice and writing in different measures, depending on the theme and facilitator- but you will always be in charge of how you wish to interact with our suggestions and guidance, as well as the intensity and rhythm which feels pleasureful and needed to you on the day.

There are no prerequisites for the rituals. Any levels of movement or magical practice are welcomed: from curious creatures to baby witches & to geeky magicians who speak crow language! (if you do, please message for a skill swap :)

Access: The ritual is open to all abilities, and people with mobility issues are very welcomed- you can choose during the journey to sit on a chair, lay down or move as and when you are comfortable.

There will be muted lighting and electronic music. There will be a break.

Unfortunately we do not know until the day of the event for certain which space we will be in, and one of the studios is on the first floor. If you need any access support please let us know in advance- we are here to help!

For any questions feel free to email: @[email protected]

T ickets are on a tier system in order to ensure financial accessibility to the community. No one turned around for lack of funds, so please email us if the tiers are too much for you at this point in time.

T hat being said- if you do have the capacity - please be aware that the facilitators are also part of marginalized communities, and they do work days on end, if not weeks - to prepare, research, experiment and formalize a 2 to 3 hours long ritual to be shared collectively.

Ugly Duck is offering us an incredible support with the free space, but otherwise we do not have any other funding.

Xan Dye is an independent artist whose practice emerged from a time in their life when they were learning about their neurodivergence, and beginning to explore what a movement practice could offer them in relation to this. Their ongoing research project STIMMING explores what we can learn from the rhythmic, repetitive, sensory seeking movements that we do, consciously or unconsciously, to self regulate and seek sensation. This creates space for play between the binaries of dance and not dance, rest and physical release, embodied awareness and dissociation, private and performative. To Xan this is an expression of their non-binary identity and neuro-queer ways of being in process and performance.    

“Such a special space to move, listen and breath. More places to stim in tandem please! Thanks for vibrating with me” 

-audience-participant of Xan’s creation, STIMMING, The Place 2023

F ollow us on instagram for regular updates: @lunarrrplaygroundz

Lunarrr Playgroundz is an experimental open coven that tries to offer safe(r) spaces of spiritual inquiry, transformation and healing for the queer community and its wonderful allies. It is hosted by Ugly Duck - an arts organisation that supports under-represented voices and emerging artists, on a bi-monthly basis.

The project unfolds through ritual-workshops in accordance with the phases of the moon. It is curated by the main facilitator ByuKa (they/ them), as well as by invited guest queer magic practitioners. Some of the themes we explore are:

Ways of queering and embodying the tarot

Elemental magic

Queer ancestor altars

Rebirth rituals

Shapeshifting techniques &

How to create relationships to non-human familiars

Frameworks for moon worship

Ways of befriending grief

B lood magic

A strology

T ranspersonal Psychology

C haos Magick

A lchemy

The project unfolds through the lens of moon magic- an ancestral and animist ritual technology. This framework can help us reclaim our embodied cyclical rhythm of living, and guide us into how to honour both our phases of growth and celebration, as well as our grief, rest and reflection. Like the moon, we wax and wane.

Instead of the linear, productivity-driven timelines of patriarchal capitalism, we devote ourselves to the creative flow woven by the magnificent planetary dance between the moon and the earth - which directs the seasonal changes, the movement of tides and our planet’s axis. As we are mammals who are birthed, fed and held between the cosmic and the earthly landscapes - we are made and unmade by these rhythms. Like the moon, we wax and wane.

Empowering our lunar bodies can help us rebel against the industrial, machine-like clock that dominates our lives and our relationship to the ecosystems. Our lunar bodies can dream into being futurities that bloom with collective care, care that heals us from the violent spells of hierarchy, binaries and normativity. Futurities that are guided by myths & stories full of playfulness, solidarity, rest. Full of camp hybrids, sacred disruptors, wise fools. Full of recycled altars, ceremonial raves and sensuous technologies.

The project also asks the question- what is queer magic?

Lunarrr Playgroundz - both as a magical praxis & as an embodied mythology that is being collectively written- is inherently queer. Strange, fluid, playful. The moon is a shapeshifter. The moon transitions all the time- from one phase to the other, showing us its many faces, energies and qualities via an intricate dance of reflected sunlight, darkness, vulnerability and power. It’s a performative ceremony of many genders, many kinds of prayers, many pains and many sensualities - gifted to an entire galaxy.

F ollow us on instagram for regular updates: @lunarrrplaygroundz

This work is been developed with the support of Ugly Duck.

Ugly Duck is a London based arts organisation that supports under-represented voices and emerging artists. Established in August 2012, their programme enables makers, community groups, professionals and the public to come together around unique cultural experiences and curated events.

They have converted a beautiful empty Victorian warehouse in SE1 into a busy creative space which became, and still is, the home to countless rising artists.

More info

http://uglyduck.org.uk/

@weareuglyduck

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Ugly Duck, 49 Tanner Street, London, United Kingdom