People are tired. We are all tired. The world is tired. Even art itself is tired. Perhaps the time has come. We need something else. We need to heal. We need to laugh. We need to engage with beauty, and with a great deal of it. We need to play, we need to be with poetry. We need to be with love again. We need to dance. (…)
– Koyo Kouho (our translation)
The practice of Re_Connection offers a space in which very different groups engage with what concerns us as a society or shapes our lives structurally. The approach combines verbal and non-verbal methods and brings together body, emotions and cognitive reflection. Each session follows a dramaturgy and, much like a ritual, moves through several stages. Without any therapeutic claim and without struggles over who gets to define things, we create a space that is as power-critical and diversity-sensitive as possible: a space in which to notice emotions, connect with ourselves and others, and find focus. We draw on various approaches from the field of transformative education and on movement-based methods, primarily from dance therapy. Resonant accompaniment through live music provides the frame.
… that we do matter to each other.
– Arnd Pollmann, in Bini Adamczak, 2017, p. 266
Re_Connection grew out of the wish to create collective spaces for reflection and recovery for people who are socially engaged and give a great deal of themselves outwardly. In our practice we have found that the combination of bodily, sensory and cognitive experience, together with the element of moving together, is relevant well beyond political activism. For many people it holds the potential to experience community anew: to look after one another more attentively, and to orient our actions more towards needs and less towards interests.
Alongside the concrete Re_Connection practice, we are interested as a collective in a number of adjacent fields, such as ritual theory, the interplay of body and emotions, and collective spaces of healing beyond esotericism. We understand ourselves as part of a society whose structures must and should be questioned again and again as to how far they allow everyone to participate. That is why our workshops take up a wide range of topics as an invitation to a shared experience.
As a transdisciplinary team we complement one another and learn from each other. Exchange with others working in similar fields matters a great deal to us: it helps us develop further, discard what does not hold, and keep learning.
Three phases
We offer short and longer formats of many kinds. Most often these are two- to three-hour sessions following three phases that build on one another. The process is organised around the topics we offer. All exercises are invitations to approach a topic in ways that widen the cognitive engagement. Nobody has to do anything.
Non-verbal group activation and body work inspired by dance and movement therapy. Breath, spatial awareness and simple movement qualities sharpen the sensitivity for bodily states, emotional resonance and relational dynamics. This phase serves to connect with the subject matter and with oneself in a collective setting — without any pressure.
The second phase works with philosophical impulses and social questions. Conversations in pairs and small groups, together with exercises drawn from transformative education, create attention for emotions, social reality and shared responsibility.
In the final phase, verbal and non-verbal elements come together in collective movement and sound. Live music provides a temporal structure that supports the transitions between individual and collective experience.
Topics
Each workshop focuses on one topic of social relevance, starting from one's own person. These can be social questions such as the relationship between solidarity and equality, different qualities of pain such as grief and anger, or patriarchal conditions and climate collapse. The work on topics is continuously developed further, shaped around the space and the participants, and can also be agreed on in advance.
Shame also stands for the longing for growth and authenticity, and is at the same time shaped by social norms.
To the topic →Grief also stands for the longing for love and for connectedness — so what does grief mean, for example, within political action?
To the topic →Constructive force and the setting of boundaries — when is anger an engine for change?
To the topic →Exhaustion, regeneration and a sustainable capacity to act in political engagement.
To the topic →With Hannah Arendt: the capacity to begin anew as a political force.
To the topic →What does hope mean in times of polycrisis? And what role can community play in it?
To the topic →Sound
All our events are accompanied by live music: with instruments from various traditions, voice and live looping. In the third phase it gives the collective movement a temporal structure and supports the transitions between individual and shared experience.
Tempo, density and pauses follow what is happening in the group.
Context
Re_Connection emerged from a pilot phase in 2024 and has been developed continuously ever since. The support of riesa efau. Kultur Forum Dresden in particular has allowed us to gather a great deal of experience. The Federal Agency for Civic Education also contributes to the funding. Thank you!
The format develops further through ongoing practice, multi-day retreats and exchange with participants. Insights from previous rounds feed into theory, methodological development and the preparation of academic accompaniment.
Current
We look forward to your contribution. Submission deadline 10 October 2026. All the details here:
Team
At Re_Connection, topics, content preparation and format development emerge collectively. Those involved bring in expertise from transformative education, dance therapy and music — and develop, test and reflect on the format together.
Cultural scientist and social pedagogue. Civic educator and facilitator. She brings impulses on a range of topics and on sustainable activism.
Professional dancer, psychologist and movement therapist. Body awareness, expression and trauma-sensitive facilitation.
Musician and music educator. Accompaniment with instruments and music from a wide range of traditions, voice and live looping. Ritual frame.
