TO FAWN THE FAUN — Public Call Out
One-day performance practice ritual for dancers and performance artists, actors, vocalists, clowns and tricksters
Research workshop | Athens | 14 February 2026
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Practical info:
• 14/02/26, 10:00-17:00 | Duncan Dance Centre, Athens | max. 15 participants | The workshop is free. A vegetarian lunch will be provided.
Workshop description:
To fawn is to appease power. The mythological faun has been with us for a very long time. Both deer forms move through the world with sensitivity, but in radically different ways.
Fight Flight Freeze or Fawn:
soft body>>head tilted>>jugular exposed>>movement initiated in response>>
Faun; Faunas; Pan; embodied wild resonance.:
the echo>>the ripple>>the reverb>>the swarm>>energy vibrating through soft muscles>>
Dancers know both figures intimately through kinesthetic empathy. Through performance practices we will investigate the archetypal social “feminized” behaviour of fawning not as a trauma to fix, but as an ecological intelligence shaped by strategic compliance under patriarchy and late capitalism.
When these archetypes meet in the studio, can we use their sonic and movement languages to braid the modern and mythic worlds?
How can performance reveal the intersection of instinctive survival responses and the reclaiming of wild, resonant presence?
Can strategic submission create underground spaces for genuine resonance?
Fawning is not broken. Pan is not dead. They are adaptive responses to a world that suppresses resonance.
Schedule:
Morning: Guided warm up, discussions and opening the practice, guided improvisations into fawnish behaviour.
Lunch: Collective vegetarian meal offer
Afternoon: Focusing on explorations through your own performance language (movement, voice, sound, text, or if you work more conceptually, with material/objects).
Filming will only be used for internal artistic research. No material will be shared without explicit consent.
This workshop is self-funded and accountable to no institution. It exists for the community it gathers and for the collaborative relationships that may grow from it, supporting the ongoing life of the performance project.
It is for performance-makers with established practices in dance, performance art, experimental theatre, voice, live art, or other forms, who are comfortable with intensity, and can work somatically and conceptually at once.
This workshop is a container for intense embodied exploration. Please come with an awareness of your own boundaries and mutual respect, embracing non-judgmental witnessing throughout. Performance can be a sacred space where we practice vibrational ecology, creating pockets of resilience and resistance beyond self-censorship.
No previous knowledge of the themes is needed, only an interest, and a willingness to reflect on the questions it raises in your own body and practice.
The workshop will be held in English
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To apply → email Αυτή η διεύθυνση ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου προστατεύεται από τους αυτοματισμούς αποστολέων ανεπιθύμητων μηνυμάτων. Χρειάζεται να ενεργοποιήσετε τη JavaScript για να μπορέσετε να τη δείτε. with:
- 1. A short personal description of you and your performance practice (max 150 words).
- 2. Why does this research speak to you now? (max 150 words)
- 3. Describe a moment when you noticed yourself “fawning” — in a studio, rehearsal, performance, or life. What did your body do?
- 4. What helps you return to a sense of wild resonance or aliveness in your body? (max 150 words)
Deadline to apply: 12th February. A vegetarian lunch will be provided. Please wear clothes you can move and vocalise in, bring layers and water.
[If you work more conceptually and you want to bring material to use in your explorations, please let us know what you want to bring]
Facilitator Bio
Maria Isidora is a British/Italian performance artist and choreographer based in Athens.
Her work moves fluidly between dance, voice, sound, and text, often in collaboration with musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists.
Recent projects include performances with Office for a Human Theatre (Nuvelario, Frankenstein, Italy; Nomadic School as faculty teaching site-responsive methodology), the experimental polyphonic choir Into The Wandering Night (TEG Festival, Armenia; KET, Athens) and the site-responsive ballet Mimicry with choreographer Sarah Kate Wilson (London).
In 2025, she undertook research trips to East Africa, Armenia and Georgia, investigating water as sonic matter, polyphonic singing traditions and pre- Enlightenment sacred architectures, expanding her methodology for site-responsive voice work beyond the Mediterranean basin. Her audio-visual installation Timekeeping won the North East Emerging Artist Prize 2022-23. Her work is informed by animist philosophy, erotic ecology and practices of transformative justice.