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Workshops / Talks / Performances  | Stretch Festival Online Oct 2020 

Date
Day
Time CET
Events
OCT 30
Friday
07:30
Breathe with Thilo Keller
OCT 30
Friday
11:00
Moving and Sharing in our Very Own Queer Space with Jochen Kleres
OCT 30
Friday
13:00
Signing Intimacy / a private shared inquiry with Gal Naor
OCT 30
Friday
13:00
Plush Animal Play with Peter Banki
OCT 30
Friday
16:00
Sensual Self Massage and Touch with Zahiro Ji
OCT 30
Friday
16:00
Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public with John Stasio
OCT 30
Friday
17:30
Stretch, Don’t Strain - Cultivating A Home Yoga Practice with Kevin Kortan
OCT 30
Friday
17:30
Boundless Eros: A solo Belly2Belly practice with JoJo Bear
OCT 30
Friday
19:00
The Naked Truth - Your Story is our community with Joseph Kearney
OCT 30
Friday
20:30
Stretch Heart Circle with Marco Astolfi & Torsten Bless
OCT 30
Friday
22:00
Genital Meditation with Julian Martin
OCT 30
Friday
22:00
Rope Flow Meditation - Beyond Bondage with LoveDragon

Breathe with Thilo Keller

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With the blossoming of Corona I have noticed how I went into fear mode: fear for my parents, for my health, fear of the unknown… This creates stress and weakens the immune system, even worse when we act out of fear... Breathing and holding your breath not only strengthens the immune system.
It helps in transforming existential fears, making them tangible in your body. Elements: Breathing, meditation and gentle movement

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Friday

07:30 - 08:30 CET

Moving and Sharing in our Very Own Queer Space with Jochen Kleres

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The Corona epidemic has limited queer spaces and disrupted
queer social life, confining us more to the privacy of our homes. This has especially affected aspects of queer living that extend beyond domesticity so compatible with heteronormative ways of life. At the same time, our homes are also personal, intimate, regenerative, protective etc. spaces and a particular resource to queer life.

Let’s try and capitalize some on this and use online-tools to connect with one another in our very own queer space—at home—across some physical, social and global distances. We can share a part of ourselves in our home space and offer it for others to relate to us. The workshop will guide participants to focus on: How does it feel to be in your space?
Which aspects do you want to share with another, which do you want to keep for yourself? In the end we will not only meditate these questions and share an online view of our space but fill this space with our personal dance movements as an offer for others to connect with us. No prior dance experience is required, merely an openness to explore expressing yourself through movement.
Let’s try and capitalize some on this and use online-tools to connect with oneanother in our very own queer space—at home—across physical, social and global distances. We can share a part of ourselves in our home space and offer it for others to relate to us. The workshop will guide participants to focus on: How does it feel to be in your space? Which aspects do you want to share with another, which do you want to keep for yourself? In the end we will not only share an online view of our space but fill this space with our personal dance movements as an offer for others to connect with us.

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Jochen Kleres is based in Berlin. His background is in sociology and
contact improvisation. He co-facilitates a contact improvisation group for gay, bi, trans, and queer men at Village Berlin e.V. He also aspires to become a dance therapist.

Friday

11:00 - 12:30 CET

Signing Intimacy / a private shared inquiry with Gal Naor

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An invitation to an intimate empowering journey in which we enhance our inner dialogue to be soft, loving, and intuitive. We will experiment with both communal and individual inquiries on the quest to find our unique ways to connect, express, feel, and acknowledge. We will explore Self-Intimacy in a non-verbal context, learn how to listen to our body-knowledge, discover our authentic individual Sign Language, and dance to connect and unlock emotional baggage.

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Gal Naor is an Israeli Sign Language interpreter, theater maker, choreographer and founder of The progressive wave, a creative independent in Berlin. In their work, they combine dance, performance art, visual art, and consciousness studies. Their approach to the performance world is inclusive and based on the understanding that each body should move in its unique way. Including a diverse range of performers, their work is encouraging the empowerment of queer identities.

Friday

13:00 - 14:30 CET

Plush Animal Play with Peter Banki

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Many people give up their plush animals well before they go into puberty. However, there are also quite a few who never give them up, and courageously carry them into adulthood. This workshop is a unique opportunity to “out” yourself as a plush animal lover, or otherwise open yourself to an experience that is warm, funny and intimate. Choose your favorite one, or bring along all of them!

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Peter Banki is the founder and director of Erotic Living. He has an extensive background in Iyengar yoga, dance and Capoeira Angola. His somatic and movement practice forms the basis of his work in the erotic sphere. He also holds a Ph.D in German studies from New York University (September, 2009). His book The Forgiveness To Come: the Holocaust and the Hyper-Ethical came out recently with Fordham University Press.

Friday

13:00 - 14:30 CET

Sensual Self Massage and Touch with Zahiro Ji

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In this workshop we give our body a self treatment with elements of Dynamic Bodywork, Meridian Streaming Techniques and Thai Yoga Massage.
We will travel with touch through our bodies using our palms, fingers, arms, our legs and feet with different dynamics and qualities. Here sensuality is invited and clothing is optional . This means you are welcome to take off parts of your clothes or leave your clothes on, just as it feels good for you. To be comfortable we will use a chair (best without backrest) and a mat on the floor.

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Zahiro Ji originally coming from contemporary dance is now besides a movement facilitator mainly a Thai Massage Facilitator and teacher. He works as a holistic health practitioner in Berlin, Germany. Offering bodywork and movement in various surroundings. He loves to link both of them together to create new fields of exploration. In September he starts a one year "Intuitive Thai Meridian Massage Training" and a " Sensual Thai Massage" Weekend.

Friday

16:00 - 17:30 CET

Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public with John Stasio

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_Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public_
These words of Cornell West will provide us a stepping off point to engage in conversation (and inquiry) regarding the connection between our personal spiritual/erotic, healing and transformational work and the mandate that we play a role in the transformation of our world. We will use meditation, poetry and conversation to explore how hot activism can be.

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John is the founder of Easton Mountain, a community, sanctuary and retreat center in upstate NY. He is a body-centered therapist, workshop facilitator, with a long history of activism with ACT-UP, Queer Nation and social justice causes. His work seeks to promote community, spiritual growth, and transformation as a foundation for social change. He loves to cook for guests at EM, engage in lively conversation with friends and hang out with his dog.

Friday

16:00 - 17:30 CET

Stretch, Don’t Strain - Cultivating A Home Yoga Practice with Kevin Kortan

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We all need support and guidance in creating a new habit. For it to be effective, a home yoga meditation practice doesn't need to be an hour long. As one master put it, it's better to do a short practice with some consistency, than to do a long practice inconsistently. Experience two 20-minute practices - a daytime practice to motivate, and an evening practice for better sleep. Experience your home practice as something you want to do, a refuge, a haven of healing & strength.

• Set a timer for 15 mins before the workshop begins to allow time to sign in.
• Set up a yoga mat (or on a firm carpet) and any props you would like to use (for example, blankets, a bolster, a chair if you use one.)
• If possible, set up your camera so that your whole body and mat can be seen in the frame during the practices, ideally whether seated, standing, or lying down. If that is not possible, no worries.
• If you do not wish to be seen during the practices, you can keep your camera off.

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Kevin Kortan enjoys working with men in groups and individually, helping them become more authentically themselves through the practices of yoga, touch, and sound healing. He co-created and taught the workshop "Power, Pleasure, & Play" with Kai Ehrhardt in New York and Easton Mountain. Kevin danced professionally, touring internationally including the world-renowned Trisha Brown Dance Company. He has taught yoga for 25 years and trained yoga teachers for over 15 years. Kevin is also a Yoga Therapist, Movement Therapist, and teaches Experiential Anatomy, Dance, and Chanting.

Friday

17:30 - 19:00 CET

Boundless Eros: A solo Belly2Belly practice with JoJo Bear

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Did you want to experience the depth of going inward? We are so accustomed to reach outwardly and for something to fulfill us from the outside, how about indulging in a practice where we can witness the magic of how breath and awareness of our hearts, bellies and our root can deliver us to bliss? In this solo clothing optional practice you will need a place to lay down and camera pointed towards you.

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JoJo Bear is a Somatic Sex & Intimacy Educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. His passion is teaching men the importance of conscious awareness around sex, sexuality, the body and pleasure. JoJo teaches the Wheel of Consent™, Belly2Belly™, erotic hypnosis. As a somatic Coach, hypnotherapist, sexological bodyworker and sex educator JoJo's commitment is to bring safety, agency, trust and to allow men to tap into their boyish curiosity regarding pleasure!

Friday

17:30 - 19:00 CET

The Naked Truth - Your Story is our community with Joseph Kearney

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The seeds of storytelling - where do our ideas come from? Why do some work so well and others fall flat? Reflect on your life's journey to date, can you tease out some pivotal moments, some memories that are clear and come to you again and again, something filled with joy, some sad thoughts, some time in your life you were successful and some time you failed?

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As a Dramatherpist, journalist and actor/public speaker I have been telling queer stories all of my life. I tell stories at a centre in Amsterdam; Mezrab, and it has been a tonic for my soul. The art of storytelling has so many healing properties and can help the teller and audience to re-frame a memory or share a common understanding through metaphor and ritual. I use this healing storytelling in my work.

Friday

19:00 - 20:00 CET

Stretch Heart Circle with Marco Astolfi & Torsten Bless

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This Stretch Festival offers you the opportunity to experience intense days in times that already are extraordinary. Here you can find a space just for yourself to talk about what moves you, in a community consisting of fellow Stretchers. The Heart Circle was created by Native Americans and adapted by the US Radical Faeries. It is a place where we can sit together in trust, to speak from the heart and listen with our hearts, honoring different life experiences and lifestyles without judging and discussing.

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Torsten works as an editor and writer, has found his way to the Authentic Eros/Village community through the Easter Stretch Festival 2015, graduate of the One-Year Training 2016 and co-host of the Village Heart Circle since the summer of 2017 (together with Marco).
Marco is a literature translator, a writer, a storyteller and a faerie. He uses his autobiographic writings as a tool for healing, integration and transformation. Fellow Stretcher from 2014, Village regular, co-hosts the monthly Heart Circle for gbtq men and the Book Club. Attended the One Year Training in 2018 and currently assisting the 2020 one. Privates Talks is a revised upgraded version of the Cock O’Clock workshop given at Easter Stretch 2019.

Friday

20:30 - 22:00 CET

Genital Meditation with Julian Martin

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In most of our sexual activities, we increase excitement in a short time from zero to 100%. With this partner exercise using genital touch we examine what happens if we stay consciously in the range between 20 and 80% over a longer period of time. What happens in our body? Are there any wishes coming up? How can I influence my arousal by breathing?

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Julian originally studied acting, singing and dance before he discovered his passion for massage and bodywork. He regularly organises and leads courses for men and weekend workshops in Zürich under the title of “Men Bodywork”. The main areas of work are breath, voice, movement, touch, self-acceptance and the discovery and expression of your own needs as the key to a free and fulfilling (sex) life.

Friday

22:00 - 23:30 CET

Rope Flow Meditation - Beyond Bondage with LoveDragon

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Surrender to the magic of the flowing ropes. In this introductory workshop we will playfully explore the soft side of ropes. This is a no strings attached exercise (pun intended), so we won’t use any knots or restrictived ties at all. Bondage afficinados are invited to practice mindfulness and learn new skills for connection outside their techniques. The ropes will be tools to facilitate relaxation and sensuality in a structured, safe and consensual partner exercise.

This workshop is designed for two people in front of the camera, and you should have one rope of approximately 8m length. I strongly recommend those made from natural fibres (jute or hemp, e.g.) as synthetic ones have the tendency to burn the skin and moving ropes on skin is the main part of this workshop.

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Constantly traveling, he makes a living of giving massages, organizing Playfight Rituals and Tango workshops as well as reading Tarot.

Friday

22:00 - 23:30 CET

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