Offers Intensive: Fucking Problems – Playful Explorations

As a workshop facilitator, psychosocial counselor and writer Beata is inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi – when broken pottery is mended with golden threads that make imperfections intriguingly visible, presenting honor and care. She is trained in various somatic fields and in the study of cultural theory, focusing on the complexities of consent, the historical backgrounds of our modern sexual culture and on new possibilities for closeness. 2024 she published “Not Giving a Fuck” lovingly investigating the pitfalls of sexpositivity.

https://www.luhmendarc.com
https://www.instagram.com/beateabsalon/

Co-Offers the Intensive: Guilty Pleasures
CHAPTER I: FORBIDDEN 

Liisa is a workshop facilitator, singer, film maker, curious & fascinated by how we can get in touch with each other… They love to create settings around sensuality, conscious sex, working with consent, emotions, kink, ropes, free dancing, also addressing abuse & empowerment. They also offer therapy sessions and host several sexpositive festivals. Based in Cologne, Germany.

https://linktr.ee/liisafatuma

Offers Classes:

• Beyond the seen
• Patriarchy in motion

Kiku is a Gestalt therapist, facilitator, dancer and pleasure activist — and, last but not least, a soft-core vulneRebel, exploring and relating within this wild mystery called life.

https://linktr.ee/Selbst_Gestalten

Artist In Residence

Offers Morning Classes with Somatic Practices

Barbara is a choreographer trained at HZT Berlin and SEAD Salzburg. She develops projects, performances, festivals, and workshops between urban and rural spatial cultures. She is establishing somatic education and research formats in a former village school. Her co-creative, process-oriented practice—residencies, retreats, and rituals—creates intimate, site-responsive spaces guided by embodied intuition, aesthetic sensitivity, and care.

As an artist, I dedicate my full creative potential to designing aesthetic frameworks for spaces created by other teachers. This includes working with light, organic decorations, and thoughtful placement of objects, as well as clearing and preparing the space through different practices. I focus on caring for the container itself, using the resources and qualities of the place to support what unfolds within it.

https://www.barbara-bess.com

As a child I had a strong focus on meditation, Aikido, Chi Gung and yoga. After spending 10 years studying Aikido, I fell in love with Contact Improv, and have now been dancing (very often) and teaching (occasionally) CI for 25 years. I am driven to combine contact with other practices, including water dance, acro, and other forms of touch. My main job is in biofeedback (measuring and changing emotional, mental and physical states), where I founded a clinical biofeedback company, and also manage a home-use biofeedback company which combines meditation with biofeedback and AI. I’ve also studied Tantra, Non-Violent Communication, and holistic health, and have co-organized various community bodywork and dance gatherings. I often find it hard to approach new people and start a conversation, or use words to ask for things that feel vulnerable, and am more comfortable connecting through touch and movement. But also I try to rebel against my own shyness and follow quiet impulses to use words to create connection.

Hi, I’m Jukka and I feel like a housepet of Touch&Play Cologne. Building my life in Germany since 2021, I have been searching for and trying to create a space where I would feel home. Joining T&P Cologne 2024 for the first time as a teacher, I realised that I found it – a place where people speak my language, where I can be my colourful, dark, chaotic, responsible, touchy, getting easily overwhelmed, intro- and extraverted self. Serving as inclusivity lead at T&P 2025, I felt like I am contributing with what I do best – being there, listening, reaching out, bringing in, and building bridges. This year I feel incredibly honoured to be able to help in more dimensions! Touch&Play Cologne is my home and I am very happy to be there for it!

Outside of Touch&Play you can see me dancing CI in Cologne, helping create Eurix – an international rope festival, teaching rope in Germany and Spain, crafting candles for wax play, performing and doing lots of other fun things. I jump between the worlds of body practices, business and education, and doing research in neurodiversity at the workplace.

I love exploring contact between people and am very curious about group dynamics. And these are also my main spheres of vulnerability: I am often afraid to be too much, too loud, too colourful, afraid not to fit in. So afraid that I either take on leading positions in groups or exclude myself right away. From my first day there, T&P became a place for me to play around with these vulnerabilities, and I am looking forward to the next turn of this journey!

Hey, I’m Nele. I’m pretty new to the Touch&Play universe – I’ve only participated once, as part of the helpers team – but that experience really touched me. I could fully lean into it; I felt deeply connected to myself and surrounded by such a beautiful bunch of humans. It was a deeply healing space that opened up completely new perspectives for me.

I studied Sociology and Educational Science, and now I work as a social worker. My heart is in exploring what more openness, connection, and empathy can awaken in people.

When it comes to vulnerability, I have plenty of practice material. I grew up with body image issues and self-doubt that still echo through my life. I often feel like I’m too much or not enough — sometimes both at once. But I’m learning to laugh about it, to meet myself with kindness, and to remember that this messy humanness connects us all.

I rebel against a culture that tells us to hide our softness, to compete instead of care, to treat self-love as suspicious. Creating spaces where vulnerability is welcomed feels like a political act to me — because healing starts there. Gentle people make a gentler world, and that, to me, is quiet but powerful rebellion.

I love to invite the new and the brave — those who have never been to a Touch & Play before. The shy ones, the curious ones, the ones with doubts, and the unTouched.

What happens when someone like me who has just begun to explore Contact Improvisation and has been to the first Touch & Play suddenly finds themselves organizing it? That’s where I feel vulnerabel right now.  What can I offer to the community from this fresh perspective? How can I support those who are only beginning to dip their toes into these deep, playful waters? And how can I help the team create spaces that feel safer, softer, and more pleasurable for everyone?

As an architect for sustainable housing, I’ve built structures out of earth, clay, and straw. I helped build a community of people who don’t fit into traditional boxes — diverse, open, and beautifully unique. These experiences taught me to create trustful circles, play with what’s in our hands, and celebrate our differences.

I love inspiring others to bring their own energy and creativity — to co-create something that breathes and belongs to everyone who touches it. I rebel against being seen as just one character. Yes, I can make tough calls on a construction site and still melt into softness the next moment. Who says you can’t be both grounded and playful, solid and a little bit wild? In that balance, real connection begins.

After years of exploring cultures, kitchens, and human experiences, Sahara chose to express her creativity also through food.
Vibrant vegetarian and vegan dishes, full of life, color, and inspiration.
Deeply understanding how essential food is as a grounding and joyful part of the participants’ journey, she’s now part of the Touch&Play team for the third year. Thanks to her passion and openness, she brings with her an international team of experienced, like-minded kitchen lovers who share the same vision: to nourish communities with love, creativity, and intention. Together, they create a kitchen that is not only professional and efficient, but also infused with connection, joy, and playfulness.