Project Affectionate participate in Common Ground climate community action.

Project Affectionate, eco-somatic movement collective 

In October 2023 Sofia Ananda, Herminia Ayala and I started an eco-somatic movement group, meeting at Teach Ceoil on Tuesday mornings since then. With more than 13 people joining us over the past year and such interest in moving together, through the interconnection of nature and the felt senses with spatial awareness, we set up Project Affectionat as a collective. 

We shared different practices including Contact imrov for the winter and now I offer a Re-Wilding Bodies workshop each week for free -moving through the senses, incorporating Antoinette Spillanes Seasonal Score, Mary Nunans Release technique, Body Mind Centering, Joan Davies Origins, and many more techniques that I've picked up along the way and through an MA in Contemporary Dance UL '06. This mindful meditative process prioritizes restorative movement practice for all abilities, but is particularly suited for burnt-out embodied activists! 

Project Affectionate as a group is presently focusing on our embodied connection to water and our concerns for our drinking water quality and the river water decline in our area and indeed everywhere with climate change, neglect, bad habits and dangerous practices against nature.

We took part in p(Art)y section of HERE and Now, Live Art Festival 10th August, 2024

https://rachelmacmanus.art/portfolio-items/here-and-now-events-upcoming/

We also took part in Culture Night p(ART)y Live Art event in the Peace Park, Ennis.

https://culturenight.ie/event/party-here-and-now-culture-night/

We got selected as one of the community volunteer groups to participate in Common Ground:

Common Ground is a project from Common Knowledge, funded by Rethink Ireland. The project is aimed at bringing rural communities in North Clare together to learn the skills needed to start biodiversity and climate action projects/meitheals in their local towns and villages.

Over the course of the programme, representatives of each participating group have had the opportunity to learn new skills, meet other local communities and enjoy shared meals at The Common Knowledge Centre near Kilfenora, connecting both with Munster’s natural heritage and with each other in a meaningful way.  The impact of this project is that they will take everything they've learnt and share it with their communities through working together in their climate-action meitheals. This project focuses on both positive environmental action, and on social inclusion and building community!'