The Labyrinth and the Dancing Floor

Mon, 19 Jun, 2023 at 03:00 pm to Fri, 23 Jun, 2023 at 02:00 pm

Dartington Trust | Totnes

Dartington Trust
Publisher/HostDartington Trust
The Labyrinth and the Dancing Floor
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How can we break out of the modern industrial mindset that holds us captive, and find our feet on the dancing floor of Earth?
Over the last decade, the Dark Mountain Project has held a unique space in which art, story and myth entwine to help us face the realities of a time of ecological unravelling. As the climate crisis and a mass extinction accelerates, it feels urgent that we actively transform the ways we engage with life and reconnect with the wild world around us.
Join Charlotte Du Cann, Nick Hunt, Caroline Ross and Mark Watson to forge a co-creative practice that can challenge the dominance of modernity, and regain our original kinship with the more-than-human world.
Since the publication of the Uncivilisation manifesto in 2009 the project has served as a gathering place for writers and artists seeking to ‘uncivilise’ themselves and their work, and to remember our original role as connectors and communicators within the sentient networks of Earth.
In this spirit, the course sets out to teach essential practices and tools, to navigate times of descent, using story, myth, plant medicine and natural materials that help root us in place and time. We will be walking into the liminal hours of dawn, holding a dialogue with the land, using our imaginations to speak with the other-than-human world, and engaging the head, heart and hands of everyone taking part.
As part of this ensemble investigation, we will be gathering roots, dreams, materials and words. We will be creating work to celebrate what we encounter, as human beings have been doing for millennia, reconnecting with our archaic bodies and remembering our ancestral kinship with plants and creatures and the elements.
This 5-day course will involve: group discussions, smaller working parties, a writing and making task, and a sharing of creative work at the end of the week. It will provide opportunities for working within a Dark Mountain frame, in-depth conversations and a chance to focus on your relationship with the planet.
Our exploration will track the shift of the year, as we reach the zenith of summer solstice. During this week you will be in the company of four Dark Mountain ‘spiral’ guides: with Charlotte Du Cann, discover how to work within the mythos of the Underworld, following the bee-shaped dance steps of Ariadne; with Nick Hunt, step out into the twilight to make imaginative journeys into edges and the unknown; with Mark Watson, hold fast and encounter the plant world, working with flowers and trees of midsummer; and with Caroline Ross, gather wild and salvaged materials and engage in ways of unmaking and remaking, to create a collective thread of return.
We look forward to journeying with you!
Main image ‘The Labyrinth’ (detail) by Thomas Little.
ON THIS COURSE YOU CAN:
- Immerse yourself in the Dartington Estate
- Work within a Dark Mountain frame
- Experience in-depth conversations with fellow explorers
- Deepen your creative practice
- Connect and strengthen your core relationship with the living world
Residential: £795* | Non Residential: £595 | Deposit: £150**
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Dartington Trust, Dartington Trust,Totnes, United Kingdom

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