23/04/2026
𝑀𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝑓𝑜𝑟
𝑻𝑶 𝑩𝑬𝑮𝑰𝑵 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑨𝑪𝑻 𝑶𝑭 𝑮𝑰𝑽𝑰𝑵𝑮
Deep Ecology, Poetry and Contact Improvisation
Experiential Study Program
7 - 30 June 2026 in Chiang Dao, Thailand
With Dolores Dewhurst Marks, Nikkom Putta, Maximiliano Bonacquisti, Philippa Arnold and Fern Sripungwiwat
info pack: https://tinyurl.com/GIVINGCI54
𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐰𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 is an artist working with poetry, dance
improvisation, performance. Co-directing and curating Art Continuum Nomadic Residency, Being Nature project, and Towards Centre for Embodied Arts and Transformative Learning.
Her project Being Nature invites to discover a deeper self connected with the natural world. Inspiring an intuitive embodied understanding of the human body inseparable from nature, opening space for whole-body listening direct experience, improvisation, multidisciplinary artistic expression as a sincere movement towards emerging life.
With Sasha Dodo she co-teaches long durational study programs in Thailand, travels and shares internationally.
She is the author of The Lost Place book of poetry, and is currently working on Empty Rituals book of poetry, and Inspiral a book about Contact Improvisation.
𝐍𝐢𝐤𝐨𝐦 𝐏𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐚 is a deep ecologist originally from Chiang Dao. He has worked in the field of environmental activism for over 20 years as a forest ranger, researcher, journalist and educator in national parks and NGOs.
In the past 10 years, he has shifted his focused to the field of deep ecology, an idea that was introduced to him through spending time with Karen people and learning from them about how to live with nature. Moving back to Chiang Dao, Nikom started caring for the ecosystem in his hometown, and created Chiang Dao Youth Camp as a space experiential learning about the environment and nature. He regularly organizes deep ecology retreats, environmental and education trips in and around Chiang Dao.
𝐌𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐨 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢 is a dancer, facilitator, organic farmer, chef, and bodyworker. His practice explores dance as a tool to understand life: how we relate to each other and to nature. Through his work with plants ,food, and farming, he finds inspiration for understanding movement and our intrinsic connection with the earth.
Driven by this search for connection, Max’s professional path is rooted in building community around conscious living. His previous projects include managing a vegetarian kitchen at Casa Presa, a horizontal, self-managed cultural space he co-founded in Buenos Aires to promote art and culture (2012); co-managing “Chacra de Luna,” an organic farm where he produced food while also creating an educational space for visitors to connect with
the origins of their sustenance and learn sustainable cultivation practices (2015); managing “Son de Paz Ecotempo,” a center dedicated to Contact Improvisation, yoga, acroyoga, and permaculture, where he organized classes, events, and retreats between 2020 - 2024.
Currently, he collaborates with Towards – centre for embodied arts and transformative learning, co-managing the kitchen and vegetable garden. This project is a unique opportunity for him
to share how all these paths converge, demonstrating how dance, art, permaculture, and food can become a pathway to togetherness.
𝐏𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐚 𝐀𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐝 is a movement-based researcher, artist, facilitator, and poet whose work is rooted in improvisation and shaped by relationship with place and community. Constantly inspired by the inherent reciprocity of nature, she is curious about how we can come into a deeper embodied presence with the cycles of giving and receiving. This is explored through
the practice of contact improvisation, hiking, farming, eco-somatics, poetry, and community living.
Over the past two years, Philippa has studied and collaborated with ‘Towards – Centre of Embodied Arts and Transformative Learning’ in Thailand, where she has had the opportunity to deepen this investigation through continuous embodied inquiry into the principles of contact improvisation—the dance opening the felt sense of how she wants to live, share, and relate to the world around and within her.
She shares her work in Thailand, Australia, and Europe, inviting body-led exploration into how we move with—and are moved by—the living world.
𝐅𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐒𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐰𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐭 is a multidisciplinary artist and producer, working primarily with visuals, words, and spaces. Her current research is in creating alternative forms of education that offer different ways of being in the world. She is inspired and supported by the practice of movement improvisation, and inquiring into how this practice can inform the way we live.
Carrying the essence from her previous experience as an inquiry-based teacher, writer, baker and film maker, Fern draws inspiration from rhythmsnand relationships within nature, and from there craft things with hands andnheart.
Since 2022, she has been co-creating Towards - Centre for Embodied Arts and Transformative Learning in Chiang Dao, Thailand, while practicing the art of being a bridge between different spaces and cultivating multiple forms of garden.
Photography by Ken Buslay - www.kenbuslay.com
