How to be feral

This workshop invites a return to what is already there: our feral nature, without apology.

We begin by unpeeling. Loosening the human-centred conditioning that shapes perception and constrains response. As these habits soften, instinctive intelligence — the feral knowing we were taught to mistrust — reawakens.

We practise staying with the tension between instinct and attention. Spontaneous without collapse. Attentive without rigidity. Alert, porous, responsive, and accountable to what surrounds us.

As sensitivity deepens, the boundary between body and environment begins to thin. Perception reveals itself as reciprocal. We learn how to be affected without resistance, and how to act without dominance. Movement shifts from expression to relation. Dance becomes ecological attention — a form of listening, a form of conversation.

This workshop is using practices from my book How to be feral: movement practices to re-wild your body. 

It takes place in three different locations: one morning indoors near London Fields and the rest of the workshop takes place outdoors in two different locations in Hackney marshes. 

What we explore together

• • We move indoors and outdoors, alone and in pairs, through simple, accessible scores that don’t require prior movement experience — only curiosity and a willingness to be surprised.
  • Receiving body and environment before moving: learning to slow down perception before expression
  • Movement scores that challenge habitual patterns and open new physical vocabulary
  • Dialogue with the environment and its non-human inhabitants — stones, wind, roots, other creatures — on more equal terms
  • Moving and witnessing in pairs, building trust and non-judgmental attention
  • Reflection and sharing: making sense of what emerges, together

‘She generously invited us into her practice, beginning indoors with a series of movement exercises to unsettle our upright human ways of perceiving the world, before leading us into the woods and marshes where she guided us to tune into our senses and receive the environments.’ — Samantha, artist and psychotherapist

What might shift

You may find yourself moving more spontaneously while staying genuinely present. Some of the constraints of social and cultural conditioning may loosen — not permanently dissolved, but made visible and therefore more negotiable. Your movement vocabulary will expand. Your sense of what counts as intelligence — whose, and where it lives — may too.

‘Claire creates a safe space and process that opens up new thoughts and movement possibilities. I was able to make new discoveries.’ — Helen, theatre maker

Who is this for?

Everyone. Experienced eco-somatics practitioners and complete beginners. The only requirement is an open mind and a body willing to move in unfamiliar ways. If you believe that embodied intelligence and genuine connection with the more-than-human world matter — for personal flourishing and for the larger crises we’re inside — this work is for you.

‘I left the workshop feeling creatively invigorated and excited to do more.’ — Samantha

Get in touch to find out when the next one is. nea