Do I (only) need my body?

In this course you explore how the body’s innate knowledge emerges when unnecessary tension, habits, and imitation fall away. Through mindful movement and embodied awareness, you uncover presence, authenticity, and a new depth of expression.

Do I only need my body?

Bodywork begins with reduction: not by adding, but by removing, we reveal what is already present. The body carries knowledge older than any method. When we let go of imitation, adaptation, and unnecessary effort, space opens for what is truly our own. Reduction is not a loss but a return to “enough” – to a presence that no longer strives, but simply is.

The boundary between body and environment becomes permeable when effort softens. Audiences can sense this openness: less expression creates more experience. “Only a body that knows what it is doing can do what it wants” (Feldenkrais, 1966) – a call for awareness rather than perfection.

The workshop combines elements of Asian and Western martial arts with structural and functional bodywork. Individual posture work, dialogical partner exercises, and collective group processes draw on Aikido, Systema, the Talmi Method®, and Meyerhold’s biomechanics. Anatomical and physiological principles and a committed physical presence take center stage - especially where performers and spectators meet directly.

This opens a potential beyond perfected techniques of representation: a continuous reinvention of human behaviors and forms of expression that reconsiders interpersonal interaction. The practice space also expands - parts of the workshop may be held outdoors.

In this practice, “enough” becomes an artistic principle: enough tension to breathe, enough form to appear, enough awareness to touch. A form of art that no longer lives from representation, but from relationship - from simple, immediate being.

Schedule

The course proceeds daily from 10am to 6pm with a lunch break.

Knowledge requirements
Course is suitable for performers of all genres and categories (actors, directors, opera singers, dancers, puppeteers, etc.).
 

Equipment requirements
Free clothing, barefoot or with socks, if possible, please bring a blanket.

Slava Kushkov (M.A.) ist a movement scientist, choreographer, and movement director. His collaborations with Marcel Kohler, Musa Kohlschmidt, Jenke Nordalm, Julie Pauker, Robert Schuster, Jette Steckel, among others, have been presented in Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, Serbia, and China.

Slava Kushkov studied at Humboldt University in Berlin (DE) and at the State Linguistic University in Pyatigorsk (RU). Already during his studies, he integrated sports-medical approaches into artistic practice. His research focuses on attention and awareness in movement concepts and on how they are taught at drama schools.

As a movement artist, he teaches courses for performing artists worldwide and works at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg, as well as a guest lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts, the Freiburg Acting School, the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Academy of Performing Arts in Ludwigsburg, among others.

He has been a dedicated martial artist for 30 years and successfully integrates these practices into his artistic work. He is co-founder of the Martial Arts Convention Berlin and a member of the KULA Company. Since 2021, together with Elena Bechter, he has been the artistic co-director of the company “ART//2020 – darstellende Kunstsicherung” and of the Festspiele im Bregenzerwald.

www.art-2020.info