Curiosity Unleashed
27 May - 1 June 2025
Team
Anne Maria Popanda
T&P Host
Anni is dedacted deeply to exploring the realms of being human. She spent the last 15 years traveling intensively, learning from inter-cultural experiences, relationships, understandings… and studying various ancient traditions such as Yoga, Tantra (Kashmiri Shivaism), Thai Yoga Bodywork, Ayurveda, Vipassana, Shamanism along with modern somatic approaches and embodiment practices. She is Gestalt Therapist and Trauma sensitive Coach (Neurosystemic Integration), facilitator of various Workshops on the topic of (Sexual-) Self-Empowerment and passionate Dancer. In 2022 she organized the first Touch&Play Cologne gathering.
https://aditibodywork.de – Insta/Fb: aditibodywork
Daniel J. Hayes
T&P Founder
Social Entrepreneur, Community leader, Practical Idealist with an MD. and Ph.D. in Tropical Medicine. He’s been dancing, playing, meditating and conversing Contact Improvisation (CI) for over 20 years. He is the founder of the Touch&Play Movement and the Vidàlia eco-village outside Barcelona. He is the current Executive Director of Earthdance the oldest CI based Intentional Community located in Western Massachusetts and partner in CAMP an arts and cultural retreat center on the Coast of Oaxaca. He’s been exploring the intricacies of the Relational Body for over 15 years and is committed to building a more peaceful and authentic world through his social entrepreneurial and creative endeavors.
Inge Veldscholten
Production Assistant. Helper´s Coordinator. Offers Workshops: Speed Dating for 3-year-old + Shadow Dance
Inge’s main question in life is: ‘What does it mean to be human and how could this experience of living in a body on earth be more meaningful?’
This quest got her a degree in Cultural Anthropology followed by 15 years of studying humanity, somatic practices and holistic bodywork modalities – Rolfing, Trager Approach, Yoga, Ayurveda, CI, Butoh – while living on 4 different continents.
She sees the world as a place full of wonder and human beings never fail to fascinate her. When she is at home, you can get a taste of her magic in yoga/movement classes, bodywork sessions and workshops which focus on awareness of the interaction between body, mind, spirit & our environment.
Besides that, she has a keen interest in group dynamics and loves holding space on festivals and events. She has been an active collaborator at Touch & Play events in Germany, Spain, Argentina and Brazil since 2022.
Li Tadaa
Offers Intensive: The Grow Up Movement & Pleasure Journey
Li Tadaa is a gender fluid Lust Coach, dancer & Somatic Experiencing Practitioner with 15 years of experience with movement and embodiment.
Their knowledge of dance and routes to pleasure from traditions around the globe
is combined with the understanding of the nervous system, dance therapy,
somatic trauma healing, shamanism and non-duality.
Through her programs and courses, Li has helped over a thousand people to reconnect
with their inner safety, pleasure & happiness.
www.litadaa.com
Rosalind Holgate Smith
Offers Intensive: Touch Me Maybe
Rosalind is a Dancer, Choreographer and Somatic Movement Educator. She specialises in creating performance installations that explore intimacy between people, place, and the environment and is completing a PhD concerning touch as an encounter with Otherness and the vocabulary used in Contact Improvisation. Rosalind has over 15 years of experience teaching Contact Improvisation and takes inspiration from studies in Body-Mind CenteringⓇ, Authentic Movement, Skinner Release Technique, Martial-Arts and moving outdoors with trees, mud and water.
www.rosalindholgate-smith.com
Jamus Wood
Offers Intensive: Rituals of Intimacy - Contact improvisation, Body Mind Centering®, Embodiment of Submission And Domination.
Jamus Wood is a dancer, somatic researcher and wanderer.
With an Innate curiosity for life and a deep interest in the processes of how growing up into ourselves can unfold. Much of his work attends to resourcing and locating ourselves into these ever changing environments that we live in today.
He feels a deep commitment through the practice of Body Mind Centering® and Contact Improvisation, these practices create an intimate relationship with life and change. Including opening up qualities of presence, textures of the heart and listening.
Julia "Jukka" Slukina
Inclusivity Lead. Offers Workshops: Getting playful with ropes + Tea Meditation
I am a rope artist based in Cologne with a deep passion for people and a curiosity about psychology, sensuality, and the diverse ways humans can connect.
My journey in sex-positivity began in 2018, evolving to include tying, performing, and organizing events. Having various interests from kink and ropes to CI and psychology, I am passionate about contributing to art and sex-positive happenings, including Touch & Play, Eurix, What Is Music. I value authenticity and contact, creating spaces where people can be playful, explore and feel included.
IG: jukka_juls
Skye von Nordheim
Offers Workshop: Kinky Fusion + From Dirty Talk to Sensual Story-Telling
A trained Psychologist, Skye works with a wide range of modalities and methods that have one common goal: Making life longer, better and a little kinkier! Skye facilitates all things weird and wonderful such as Playful Submission and Dominance, Conscious Connection, Embodied Consent, Sensual Story Telling, Fusion Dance, Nature Connection and Rites and Rituals. A seasoned Touch & Play crew member, Skye’s mission is to make play fun, consensual and accessible for everyone.
Tom Segal
Soothe&Care Coordinator. Coordination of Exploratorium Offers Workshop: Bore Me Roughly
Dr. Tom is a separated father, nuclear physicist turned somatic & intimacy explorer, developer and digital sculptor. He appreciates the intense aliveness and psychological nakedness available in sensuality-positive somatic spaces and enjoys attending and facilitating them with humor and a deconstructive, straightforward approach. Tom is a co-founder of the former team “Daring & Caring” and its Intimate Imaginarium gatherings. Following the separation, he is in the midst of re-orienting himself as a facilitator and as a human being.
tomsegal.com
Iryna Biloborodva
T&P Photographer
Besides that, she facilitates bodywork and body therapy groups in Kyiv where she teaches people how to support and help to regulate each other through the body.
IG: iri_mandarina
Dr. Dror Arussi
Musician, Peace Council
Dror Arussi is a versatile guitarist and musician with a deep passion for bringing movement and music together. With a doctorate in music performance from the University of Georgia and over 15 years of experience as a performer and educator, Dror’s artistry blends classical, contemporary, and world music influences. His playing is characterized by sensitivity, rhythm, and an intuitive connection to dancers, creating immersive sonic landscapes that enhance the expressive power of movement.
Richie Parella
Musician, Peace Council
Richie Parrella is a Somatic Therapist, Certified yoga teacher, Reiki Master and sound healer trained in Prana yoga, based in the lineages of Kundalini and Tantra yoga and Ayurveda in the lineage of Dr. Vasant Lad. He facilitates sessions, classes, and groups with the intention to create a safe space for others to explore their inner experience, create transformation, as well as reduce stress, anxiety, and support the allowing of the body, mind, and spirit’s natural ability to heal.
Lê Hutí- Hutan
Musician
His style is deep and organic, using ambient and nature sounds to create trance states before tuning up into juicier and more cathartic sounds.
David & Flor - ñuvia
Artist in Residence
We are a filmmaking couple with a passion for travel, storytelling, and personal growth.
Our work explores themes like spirituality, sexuality, and bodywork, always driven by curiosity and the urge to create something unique.
But it’s not just about the films—we want the people we work with to feel seen and empowered in the process.
niuvia.de
ABOUT TOUCH&PLAY
“Leave your relationships more beautiful than you found them.”
The first Touch&Play gathering took place in 2010 in Berlin and explored The Chemistry in Contact Improvisation (CI). While Classical CI focuses on what happens when two physical bodies meet in space, Touch&Play asks what happens when two human beings meet in space.
Our current frame is a wider one and is described as an exploration of “The Relational Body”. We will experimentially (both experimental and experiential) research the questions and nuances of our dancing bodies as they constellate in any given context and time. Contact Improvisation is one of the main tools we use for this exploration along side Dance, Kink, Somatics, Tantra, Authentic Relating, NVC, Playfighting, Grief Work, Eco-sensuality, Oracling and more. Our values center on emergent play, authenticity, inclusion, embodied consent, care and community.
T&P holds spaces open to dancers and players of all genders, abilities, ages, origins and sexualities. Many of the Touch&Play teachers and attendees who’ve helped shape this body of work over the years will return to co-create a container that feels both comfortable and challenging.
We will connect through a shared classical CI vocabulary, deep consent work and through the ongoing creation of new forms that can enrich our dances, our relationships and our communities.