Workshop Series
Venue: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Facilitators: Alvin Collantes & Thesea Rigou

Somatic Exercises at the Exhibition is an embodied mediation format that invites audiences to encounter contemporary art through movement, sensory awareness, and collective reflection. Rather than approaching artworks solely through intellectual interpretation, participants are encouraged to engage with exhibitions through their bodies, discovering how perception, memory, emotion, and imagination can become tools for understanding artistic practice.

Each two-hour workshop is uniquely developed in response to the current exhibition, translating themes, materials, spatial relationships, and artistic concepts into accessible movement scores and somatic practices. Through guided improvisation, breath work, partner exercises, walking practices, and group compositions, participants cultivate deeper relationships with both the artworks and one another.

Designed for participants of all ages, backgrounds, and physical abilities, the workshops require no previous dance experience. The emphasis lies on curiosity, accessibility, and creating an inclusive environment where every body becomes a site of knowledge and artistic inquiry.

Since its inception, the workshop series has accompanied numerous exhibitions at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, including:

  • Poetics of Encryption (2024)

  • Matt Copson — Coming of Age. Age of Coming. Of Coming Age.

  • Sung Tieu — Schering Stiftung Award for Artistic Research 2024

  • Miloš Trakilović — Not a Love Song

  • Jessica Ekomane — Antechamber

  • 13th Berlin Biennale — passing the fugitive on

  • Kazuko Miyamoto — String Constructions

  • Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst — Starmirror

  • Else Marie Pade — Partitur

  • Jean Katambayi Mukendi — RATIO

  • Klara Lidén — Kunstwerke

Each edition welcomed approximately 25–40 participants, fostering communities of shared attention, embodied learning, and collective exploration within the museum setting.

Artistic Focus

  • Somatic practices and embodied perception

  • Movement-based exhibition mediation

  • Contemporary dance and improvisation

  • Accessibility and inclusive participation

  • Collective reflection and dialogue

  • Audience engagement through the body

Through this ongoing collaboration with KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Somatic Exercises at the Exhibition reimagines the exhibition space as a place where movement becomes a language for encountering contemporary art, expanding how audiences experience, interpret, and remember artistic work.