Tender Attention to the Wild Unknown: A Journey from Sensation to Improvisation and Voice through Body-Mind Centering and Action Theater
with Skye Hughes & Nicole Bindler
April 18, 2026
10am -5pm
This workshop will begin with a Body-Mind Centering warm up that will heighten participants’ senses and prepare them for rigorous use of their body and voice in Action Theater. We’ll begin by exploring kinesthetic senses—proprioception (awareness of our position in space), haptic perception (sensing the environment’s texture and contours), interoception (sensation within and around our organs), and equilibrioception (balance)—before examining how our auditory and vocal systems, which develop from the same embryological tissue, form a feedback loop that shapes expression and listening. We’ll consider how vision moves from sensory input in the eyes to perception in the brain, and how our individual experience, values, and history influence how we see, move, and perform.
Building on the heightened awareness cultivated in the Body-Mind Centering warm up, the second half of the workshop will invite participants to continue on the path from sensation to perception, and further out into the imagination—following this awareness to its wildest, most expressive states. Through Action Theater improvisation, we will use the finely-tuned perceptions of body and mind as a springboard for invention.
As the workshop progresses, we will place particular focus on the voice: through Body-Mind Centering, we will examine the anatomy and function of the vocal apparatus, exploring how to play with volume and loudness safely to avoid strain or damage. Participants will learn techniques to support healthy vocalization while deepening their awareness of how breath, resonance, and sensation influence expression.
Through Action Theater, we will investigate how the source and manifestation of voice and movement co-arise from the same origin, and how the voice amplifies the embodied experience of movement. We will then explore how sensation, movement, and sound transform into words—delving into where words come from, how they emerge from our embodied experience, and where they travel in performance. This investigation is especially valuable for dancers exploring text—sourcing, composing, and performing it—as well as for anyone seeking support to uncover the power of their voice. Together, we will create a nurturing environment to move through any blockages that may inhibit vocal expression, fostering greater confidence, creativity, and freedom in both movement and speech. Through the intelligence of these complementary forms of improvisation, feeling, images, and ideas are embodied, lived, and amplified into movement, vocalization, and words—where even the subtlest sensation can blossom into a new, astonishing world.
Schedule
10am-12:30pm: Body-Mind Centering
12:30pm-2:00pm: lunch
2:00pm-4:30pm: Action Theater
4:30pm-5:00: Harvesting and reflections
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There will be no pre-prepared food or group meals offered during the workshop. If you need to bring food we suggest preparing your own food ahead of time and using the kitchen for light prep or reheating food. You are welcome to store small items in the communal kitchen refrigerator.
Option to stay overnight at WildHeart before or after – come early or stay late. Reach out to us at contact@wildheartcenter.art to confirm your stay.
Who is it for?
This workshop is all-levels. No previous experience is required, however a willingness to move, vocalize, experiment, and fail is necessary to get the most out of this experience. This workshop is especially valuable for dancers who are exploring text—sourcing, composing, and performing it—as well as for anyone seeking support to uncover the power of their voice. If you have wanted to try Action Theater, this workshop will offer a soft landing into the intensity of the work through a generous Body-Mind Centering warm up for your body, mind, senses, perceptions, voice, and imagination.
Testimonials
“Nicole intimately knows human movement from the inside out. Her skillful, caring application of that knowledge has not only helped me to reduce longstanding, nagging pains so I can help my clients more effectively, but has deeply increased my appreciation for my own body.”
–Jessica Newman, Movement Educator, Certified FELDENKRAIS practitioner
“I worked with Nicole in a dance improvisation workshop at Fundación El Ciclope, Córdoba. The workshop consisted of two days of intense work, which gave me important information for further investigation into my dance practice. I strongly recommend Nicole as a resident artist because she is a person who never stops searching and looking for new ways of moving, and most of all, she is a generous artist. I think it’s very rare to find a teacher who can share her knowledge, and is also open minded and willing to learn from others.”
–Griselda de Elejalde, Dance-Theater Artist, member of KAO performatic theater, Cordoba, Argentina
About Skye and Nicole
Skye Hughes makes multidisciplinary, body-based performance. Her artistic practice is driven by the desire to investigate information war, identity politics, oppression, and the climate crisis — how these phenomena are inscribed upon the body, and how that inscription shapes our inner life and connection to each other.
Skye builds her work from the inside out, using body-based improvisation as a way of following sensation to imagination, inviting movement, vocalization, and language to converge and converse through the Action Theater method. She studied with Ruth Zaporah from 2012 to 2024 and now teaches Action Theater, practicing improvisation as a way to stay responsive and in relationship with the process of performance.
In addition to live performance work, Skye makes short dancefilms and has spent time behind the scenes as assistant director for Ed Bowes on four feature-length movies.
She studied dance at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, earned a BFA in dance from the University of Colorado, and is an alum of the Headlong Performance Institute in Philadelphia.
Nicole Bindler–dance-maker, Body-Mind Centering® practitioner, writer, and activist–has practiced contact improvisation since 1997. She is a registered Master Somatic Movement Therapist through The International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. Her work has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, and presented on four continents. Recent projects include curating an evening of Palestinian dance films; somatic research on the embryology of the genitalia from a non-binary perspective; a workshop on neuroqueering embodiment; co-producing the Consent Culture in Contact Improvisation Symposium at Earthdance; and a solo dance, The Case for Invagination, in which her scars speak candidly about trauma and desire. Notable performance projects have included touring as a choreographer with the Bethlehem-Based Palestinian company, Diyar Theatre; a Pew-funded performance residency in Japan including Butoh training with Yoshito Ohno; and performing Deborah Hay’s I Think Not at Unidad De Vinculación Artística in Mexico City. She is co-editing a book, Gathering Sparks: Jewish Arts and Somatics that will be published by punctum books. nicolebindler.com
Retreat Location
This workshop will take place in The Barn, with access to The Nest for lunch and use of restrooms. If you’re coming to WildHeart for the first time, please visit our Directions page for arrival info.
Program Costs
$100 – 200 sliding scale
By offering a sliding scale, and two free BIPOC spots, we hope to make this offering financially accessible. Paying at the higher end of the sliding scale MAKES IT POSSIBLE for us to offer a sliding scale and scholarship spots. Please pay at the highest level that you are able.
Refund policy
No refunds, no transfers
Covid policy
As an act of community care, we ask that all participants assess themselves for communicable illnesses prior to attending the event. If you are experiencing symptoms of a contagious illness, we ask that you respect the space by staying home. Mask wearing is welcome but not required.
BIPOC spots
We are offering 2 free spots for BIPOC folx. Please select BIPOC Spot from the Pricing drop down to use one.
