Compassion & Joy Forest Dance

"The body is a temple. You are a projection of love. Love the Earth, love the air, love the water, love the fire. Love the part of yourself that belongs to the ethers."

— Kuan Yin, Buddhist deity of compassion

Step into a sacred dance, a moving prayer to the qualities of compassion and joy. Step into an environment holding your unique beauty, embracing your belonging to the earth. Step into an act of love.

This 3-hour dance journey is open to all, regardless of age or experience. Here, movement becomes meditation, a conscious unfolding of the body's wisdom. The forest itself will be our temple, its unique terrain and birdsong our soundscape. The dance will be guided in English, with Finnish support if needed.

You are warmly invited to:

🌿 Weave your dance through the wild embrace of the late-spring forest.

🌱 Offer your movement as devotion to the cultivation of compassion and joy.

🌾 Find balance between personal exploration and the unity of communal dance.

🍃 Listen to the wisdom of the Earth and the body's quiet knowing.

🍀 Deepen your connection with nature, surrendering to its rhythm and grace.

Come as you are. Move as you feel. Let the forest, the dance, and the spirit guide you.

DATE : Sunday 25.5.

ARRIVAL : 15.00

DANCE SPOT : Pyynikki forest

MEET SPOT : Pyynikin munkkikahvila by the entrance

FINISHING BY : 18.00

BRING : water, warm layers and your personal intention to move and dance

COST : sliding scale 10-20 euros

REGISTRATION : book your place by paying to FI29 5731 8220 1357 66 with a message "compassion". After payment please send an email to toropainen.laura@gmail.com to confirm your place.

This workshop is held by Laura Toropainen and Dagmara Maslowska.

Laura is a nature connection facilitator, passionate dancer and PhD student in the area of deep ecopsychology. She has many years long experience with non-directed body movement practices led by music and silence. She also loves Afro-Latin and Caribbean dances. Lately Laura has been discovering mythical terrains of deep Dartmoor rivers and valleys while living in Gaia House meditation center in the UK since 2024 spring.

Dagmara is a dancer, somatic guide and mother. She is founder of Luomu Koreo / Organic Choreographies project (2023- ) that explores the intersection of dance and ecosomatics, often beginning from slowness or stillness as a place of connection. She is interested in finding ways to create with or from the more-than-human. As part of Gifts from the Sentient Forest project cohort (https://www.sentientforestproject.com/) she has been in conversation with old Mother Trees, finding how journeying into movement and imagination can empower our sense of belonging, but also love for this world.