Raffaele Rufo

• Ph.D (dance/philosophy)
• Co-Founder at International Forum for Eco-Embodied Arts

This multimedia essay weaves together reflexive discourse and conceptual discussion on the reciprocity of perception between humans and trees with textual, photographic, and audiovisual materials from the author's somatic explorations in urban parks and forests. Drawing on Natasha Myers's studies of plant sensing and David Abram's eco-phenomenology...

This interactive lecture explores the role of the somatic arts in challenging the culture of separateness between humans and nature typical of Anthropocentrism. My aim is to enhance the debate on how to grow liveable futures in the face of ecological disaster. We will reflect on the possibility to reactivate our eco-consciousness through embodied p...

Looking for ways to address and attune to the urgent ecological crises of our age, this special issue problematizes the notion of the “more-than-human” and explores the nexus between ecology and embodiment across different artistic disciplines and traditions of embodied research. The editorial evokes our ecosomatic processes of co-editing with the...

In this in-depth interview with Prof. Yari Or, artist-scholar Raffaele Rufo traces the autobiographical and philosophical background of his eco-somatic dance practice and discusses its pedagogical and socio-cultural implications for a world in deep ecological crises and a humanity afflicted by the inability to grieve for the loss of ecological conn...

This essay takes the reader into a synesthetic landscape to explore the possibility of relating with trees as intimate companions of movement and becoming. David Abram's ecophenomenology of perception is brought into dialogue with Kimerer LaMothe's philosophy of dance and with other voices in the growing interdisciplinary field of ecosomatics. Base...

This Companion Issue continues the collaborative work of problematizing the notion of the ‘more-than-human’, which began with the summer solstice of 2021, by bringing together different artistic, educational and cultural ways of belonging to earth. The editorial explores listening-with as a speculative and generative (eco)somatic practice for attun...

Based on the author's practice-based ecosomatic research, the article explores the role of the somatic arts in challenging the culture of separateness between humans and nature typical of Anthropocentrism. The aim is to enhance the debate on how to grow liveable futures in the face of ecological disaster. The author reflects on the possibility to r...

How can we approach the heritage of Peter Brook's performative engagement with other worlds in the shadows of anthropogenic ecological disasters? The article performs a poetic and theoretical dialogue between ecosomatic and dramaturgical pedagogical practices. Our aim is to expose the wounds of separation between nature and civilization and the ina...

The residency aims to curate a re-discovering of the deep knowledge of ecological connection within the human experience, as a necessary process of care, re-connection, and cultural resistance. It offers an experiential forum for embodied practices concerned with reconfiguring our relation of ‘being with’ body and earth and being human and nature....

This Ecosomatics Masterclass is a practice immersion experience to rediscover the embodied resemblance and commonality with matter and the nonhuman, and map ecosomatic approaches and applications for personal and cultural regeneration. The Masterclass a unique opportunity to approach a fast-growing field of practices and knowledges that are spreadi...

The article explores the role of the somatic arts in challenging the culture of separateness between humans and nature typical of Anthropocentrism. My aim is to enhance the debate on how to grow liveable futures in the face of ecological disaster. I will reflect on the possibility to re-activate our eco-consciousness through embodied practices of i...

Introductory speech to La Selva International Ecological Arts and Eco-Somatic Residency delivered by Raffaele Rufo in Rome on 5 October 2023. The speech positions the event culturally and historically in the context of Western colonial history and foregrounds the need to go back to the ancient Greek and Roman roots of the great socio-ecological cha...

We are inviting eco-oriented artists, dancers, theatre- and performance-practitioners, somatic practitioners, scholars, pedagogues and curators to participate in the interdisciplinary “La Selva”: International Ecological Arts and Eco-Somatic Residency. ‘La Selva’ offers up to 30 part-funded and fully-funded bursaries to participate in a unique and...

Interview on the connection and contamination between Argentine Tango and Contact Improvisation included in Aurora Ventruto, "ContacTango: riflessione ed analisi sulla contaminazione tra Contact Improvisation e Tango Argentino. Una proposta metodologica per la formazione del danzatore contemporaneo", Honours Thesis, Italian National Dance Academy,...

The essay examines how we can displace the perceived boundary between human and arboreal life to embrace the possibility of relating with trees as intimate companions of movement and becoming. Based on the author’s movement explorations in nature, encounters with trees are staged as slow improvisational dances of listening and attunement in which t...

The essay weaves together reflexive discourse and conceptual discussion on depth perception with textual, photographic, and audiovisual materials from the author's movement explorations in nature. Inspired by Natasha Myers' concept of "Planthroposcene" and drawing on David Abram's eco-phenomenology of perception, "sensing with trees" is engaged and...

For this special issue of the Journal of Embodied Research we invite contributions that explore how the experience of embodiment is embedded within the larger body of the earth. We call artists and researchers of interdisciplinary practices to propose works that weave threads between somatic, audiovisual and textual ways of knowing. We are curious...

Addressing the ecological crisis as a crisis of embodiment, this essay explores how we can displace the assumed separation between human and arboreal life to embrace the possibility of relating with trees as intimate companions of movement and becoming. The essay is based on the author’s embodied research and includes text and photos from his movem...

Article submitted for the special issue of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices on Somatics and Eco-consciousness. ABSTRACT: Positioned within the growing field of ecosomatics, the article engages somatic-improvisational dance as a perceptual window into the more-than-human world and foregrounds the role of language in passing through this wi...

This article explores how the felt sense of touch, as engaged through the enabling constraints of the Argentine tango duet, can facilitate an experience of kinaesthetic listening in the spaces emerging between the dancer’s inside and outside worlds. The author’s habitual perception of giving and receiving touch as a tango dancer is destabilized by...

The chapter discusses how the felt sense of touch involved in dancing Argentine tango can be explored and understood as a kinaesthetic experience of contagion. Rather than taking for granted the blueprint of the tango duet as a starting point—two people standing in front of each other, ready to dance together in an intimate space, focusing on touch...

A collection of five video essays on embodiment and social distancing, with a focus on practices. RAFFAELE RUFO, “Dancing Together Alone: What Can Be Learnt About Connection When Touch is Forbidden?” (00:10): This video essay reengages the experience of leading a dance improvisation practice on Zoom during the Coronavirus lockdown. As a tango and c...

This study places Argentine tango dancing within the field of contemporary dance improvisation. It proposes a critical somatic framework to extend the practice and understanding of tango as a form of kinesthetic listening. New insights are offered on the feeling of touch and how this is transmitted between the dancers.

This talk, based on my practice-led PhD project, was awarded the 1st place at the 3 Minute Thesis Competition run by the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University Melbourne in February 2018. License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Crosswalk is a site-responsive performance conducted in the middle of a pedestrian crossing in the inner streets of Melbourne and exposed in the homonymous video attached to this article. The performance – an experiment with the duet dance form of Argentine tango – emerged out of a practice-based process of inquiry. My failed attempt to find my tan...