- Somatic City

DE oder EN | 2-day workshop Environmental Somatics with Katja Münker

Jun. 6 2026 – Jun. 7 2026

Somatic practices for living & surviving in the city

The city is a built and grown landscape of buildings, streets, and paths full of people, animals, plants, things, movements, sounds, smells, colours and shapes!

In this multitude of impressions, which are constantly overlapping and changing, our nervous system is challenged to select and foreground what is essential to us. This vital task consumes energy and can sometimes strain our nerves. At the same time, this selection narrows our horizon of experience and can lead to a certain numbness.

This workshop is dedicated to life in the city from a somatic perspective and uses body-perception experiments to explore how we can find serenity, connection, depth, joy and perhaps even poetry in the overwhelming overflow of information in the city.

Methods & contents

Feldenkrais Method & somatic practices
experiential anatomy & physiology of the nervous system
improvisation
meditation practices
outdoor activities

Input from

philosophy of the body
cognitive science
artistic research

The workshop is dedicated to anyone who wants to explore the body, movement, and sensory experiences consciously and playfully and utilize this potential to constructively live and survive in the city. It can be used by educators, therapists, architects, urban and spatial planners, among others, as professional development or simply as a light everyday adventure with restorative potential.

The language of instruction depends on the composition of the group.

Ausführliche Seminarinformationen

Environmental Somatics is a form of body-oriented learning and movement education, enhancing orientation and the ability to take action while being embedded within a living, the surrounding world.

The Environmental Somatics training is an on-job specialisation in Somatic Pedagogy for the application and facilitation of body-awareness practices in environmental contexts.

Environmental Somatics is a form of body-oriented learning in environmental context based on movement-perception-practices. It promotes embodied orientation and the ability to relate and act in our living environment. The training enables personal and professional embedding of contents and practices in different fields of action.

This training includes the basics of Somatic Pedagogy & Practice as well as its application in differently formed and inhabited urban and natural environments. The specific relations and interactions in and with the environments are tested, analysed and understood. Improvisational and compositional principles support the diverse adaptation of Somatic Practice to cultural, social, architectural, aesthetic and landscape conditions. Philosophical and cognitive scientific background knowledge support deeper understanding of the practice and its effects. In addition, basic techniques in somatic-artistic research and documentation, for the accompanying development and evaluation of one's own work are applied.

Aim of the training

The aim of the training is to understand and accompany body-perception processes, to use this knowledge for the care of our self-world-relationship and the shaping of our living-environments. Environmental Somatics are oriented towards an experienced sensory availability and bodily presence. Thus, the practice strengthens the ability to adapt and attune to situations and to act in relation. The aim is to make the practice part of our responsibility for the common good!

Additionally to the regular modules the training includes:

3 individual coaching sessions of 60 minutes each outside the modules
3 group coaching sessions outside the modules
Individual project support and peer evaluation
Feedback on own text production
2 supervised trail-presentations
Organisational and content-related support for the final presentation and its evaluation
Additional teaching material

Applied methods in the training

Feldenkrais Methode
erfahrbare Anatomie & Physiologie
Improvisation
Meditationspraktiken
Outdooraktivitäten

Including

Body philosophy
Cognitive Sciences
Natural sciences
artistic-somatic research
fields of application

For whom is the training recommended?

The training is suitable as a complement to or a new orientation for a wide range of professional fields: for example, architects can incorporate the intensification of spatial perception into their planning designs, urban planners can take sensory aspects into account when designing social spaces, or teachers can learn mediation strategies in order to design experientially immediate spaces for their teaching in a world that is becoming more and more virtual.

The training is aimed at all those who want to use somatic strategies constructively, visionarily and respectfully to shape our living environments and our life together.

It enables the individual embedding of contents and practices in different fields of action and leads to certification by the Somatic Academy Berlin with a final public presentation. Participants learn to apply body awareness in their private, professional, social or political work.

Curriculum of the complete Environmental Somatics Training

This training includes 5 modules and 250 hours.

The modules 1-4 can be booked seperately as workshops as well. The training will be in english (with german partial translation) or german, it depends to the group.

Module 1	May 26 - May 30, 2025 \| Body & Environment \| in & around Berlin Basics of somatic pedagogy and its application in environmental contexts Experiences in the application of somatic approaches will be gathered in different urban & natural landscapes and compared in their effects Based on Feldenkrais Method and experiential anatomy, understanding of states of presence, of movement and environmental awareness Improvisation & meditation exercises are used to train the ability to be in place
Module 2	Sep 27 - Oct 04, 2025 \| Orientation & Ways \| In the Alps Development of movement, orientation and navigation in mountainous terrain Based on Feldenkrais Method & experiential anatomy, teaches human orientation skills using the nervous system and senses Exploration of both the inner body and landscape pathways to allow a location-based, improvisational action and a satisfying connection with the environment
Module 3	Mar 28 - Mar 29, 2026 \| Research & Documentation \| Berlin Somatic Academy Strategies and forms of reflection from artistic research are applied to somatic processes Basics of Artistic/Somatic Research Critical reflection of one's own somatic and creative process Development of one's own documentation practice appropriate to the object of research
Module 4	May 23 - May 20, 2026 \| Dimensions & Connectedness \| At the Baltic sea Expands and deepens orientation skills by exploring the experiential dimensions of height, depth, expanse, closeness, and distance Philosophical and neuroscientific foundations are used to provide a deeper understanding of relatedness and empathy The somatic emphasis is on the perception of space and environment, the breath, and the ability of resonance
Module 5	Sep 29 - Oct 04, 2026 \| Design of environmental references \| In & around Berlin Strategies for designing lively, inspiring and responsible body/perception expereiences Developing topic- and site-specific, somatic outdoor projects For dealing with groups, body/perception-based skills in leadership/leading and going along/following are trained

Team

Pedagogical direction:

Katja Münker (Feldenkrais Method / Somatics / Dance/Choreography / Artistic Research / Walking Art / Mountain Guiding)

Guest teachers:

Andrea Keiz (video documentation / video art)
Susanne Martin (PhD, Dance / Performance / Research)
Undine Eberlein (PhD, Body Philosophy / Somatic Research)

Video-Impressions

Seminarleiter*innen

Katja Münker

www.movement-muenker.de/

Continuing education lecturer and director of Environmental Somatics and EMERGE/ Somatic in Dance at the Somatische Akademie Berlin. Member of the German Feldenkrais Association & ISMETA-registered RSME/RSMT/RSDE.

Trained as a physical therapist, Feldenkrais teacher, and mountain hiking guide, as well as in contemporary dance, (contact) improvisation, instant composition.

Conscious and embodied learning, the potential between individual freedom and collective inclusion in the environment, as well as joy, ease, and consciousness in the movement are the focus of her teaching. Her research-oriented practice is informed by deep-sensing investigation and reflecting evaluation. Beyond teaching her work includes performance projects, conference papers, and publications focusing on somatics and choreography, as well as on walking. Regular teaching at universities including FU Berlin, UdK Berlin, and HZT Berlin. Artistic research collaboration with AREAL_artistic research lab Berlin.

Kosten

Costs

160€

Dates

Jun 06 - 07, 2026 | Saturday - Sunday | 09:30am - 04:30pm

Anmeldeinformationen

Zeiten
Jun. 6 2026 –
Jun. 7 2026

9:30am - 4:30pm

Preise

Full Price: 160.00 EUR

Zahlung Banküberweisung, PayPal

Hinweise This workshop is an addition to the Environmental Somatics training and can also be booked separately. Please contact Katja Münker directly, if you have questions.