Make plans now for Embodied Ecologies with Moti Zemelman and Taina Lyons, the 13th Annual Contact Improv Retreat in Cahuita, Costa Rica happening Feb 18-27!

This retreat invites you into a 7 to 9 day exploration of movement, relationship, and belonging. Rooted in Contact Improvisation and informed by somatic practice, ritual, and ecological awareness, we will dance in studio spaces and wild places alike. (Opt in to Feb 18-20 Maratón for the whole nine day experience)

Our journey begins in San José, where we join the annual Maratón de Contact, a vibrant gathering of Costa Rican and international dancers.

Through classes, jams, and shared practice, we cultivate relationships that bridge local and global Contact Improvisation communities, creating connections that continue throughout the week and beyond.

From the city, we travel together to Costa Rica’s lush Caribbean coast, where movement investigations unfold in the rainforest, on Caribbean beaches, among giant trees, and in warm tropical waters. Here we explore the body not as something separate from nature but as an expression of it.

Together, we will investigate what becomes possible when movement is approached as a practice of belonging through embodied relationship—with people, place, and the more-than-human world.

Through touch, movement, imagination, ritual, and attentive presence, we cultivate practices of listening that deepen our connection to ourselves, one another, and the living environment that holds us.

Classes, site-specific explorations, ritual gatherings, evening jams with live music, and community practice weave together a rich experience of embodiment, creativity, and connection.

Contact Improvisation serves as our primary movement language, while the retreat itself opens into a broader exploration of reciprocity, play, presence, and participation in the living world.

This retreat is for those who wish to deepen their dancing while exploring movement as a pathway toward relationship, wonder, and belonging.