The Desire project was envisioned and created by Brinda Jacob-Janvrin in 2017 and looks at how we hold desire in our bodies. Of the firm belief that reclaiming and having agency around our desire is a path towards true empowerment, this project invites us to explore sensations, emotions, images and questions around desire, longing, and belonging.

The intuitive body is central to our explorations for its capacity to bridge the conscious and unconscious, the inner and outer experience. Authentic Movement practice is the language used for accessing deep layers of inner knowing, feeling, memory, sensation, and possibility organised in the living library of the body. Longings, fears, emotions, and unrealised impulses are allowed to emerge from the body-mind-consciousness and be integrated.

Dreamwork is another potent source through which we access the unconscious material and expand on it through active imagination. Dreams are a healing medium through which we can witness the various stages of transformation, particularly if they are followed over extended periods of time.

The Desire project is both an exploration of a personal journey and creative process as well as an offering and an invitation to the community. It currently manifests as workshops, residencies, spiralling into desire and art and movement installations / performances.

Spiralling into Desire documents a woman’s descent into her deep body to access and retrieve her true autonomy. The performance also draws parallels from the epic poem, ‘The Descent of Innana’ by Enheduanna (?), which narrates the story of the Sumerian goddess Innana’s descent into the underworld, to visit her pregnant sister Ershikegel – the queen of the dead.

Movement, video art, text and sound populate the liminal landscape into which the audience is gently invited. We are transported to a realm where myth meets modernity, where timeless tales resonate with contemporary struggles. Authentic Movement and Natural Dreamwork are the chief modalities used to research and document this descent.

Spiralling Into Desire is part of the larger Desire Project which explores how we hold desire in our bodies. We are deeply interested in what is possible for the community when eros is equally prioritised as logos.

‘Spiralling into Desire’ brings together mover Brinda Jacob-Janvrin and filmmakers Roohi Dixit and Ziba Bhagwagar to document the Desire process. In this exploration of the authentic movement process, the camera is the witness and the relationship between filmmaker and mover is one of deep compassion. The embodied presence of both the mover and the witness allows for the transformation of the soul into substance. Spirit and matter are no longer separate and we’re in the presence of deep mystery.

Spiralling into Desire traces a woman’s descent into her deep body to access and retrieve her true autonomy and draws parallels from the first epic poem ‘The Descent of Inanna’.

The movement x film collaboration in its current iteration of 15 minutes, is produced by the Studio for Movement Arts and Therapies Trust, in collaboration with Zero Rules, and is supported by Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore.

The invitation of this workshop is to drop our thoughts, ideas and judgements around desire and instead experience desire as sensation, as energy, as arousal or an awakening. The body is central to our explorations and Authentic Movement is the language used to access layers of sensation, feelings, memories and images.

Our journey to begin to reclaim our erotic sovereignty, allows us to find our voices and live our authentic lives with discernment, joy, compassion and pleasure. We move away from the patriarchal notion of either/or towards the feminine approach of yes, and.

The Desire Residency Retreat, an immersive residential workshop set in nature. It is an utterly intimate, sensual, and restorative practise that is designed to awaken the fullness and expansiveness of the Eros and re-ignite the flow of energy and sensitivity in our inner world.

We will spend time moving in nature and open ourselves to the deep connections between the Body, our immediate home and the Earth – our larger home, to experience an enhanced sense of aliveness and connectedness to the world around us, while remaining grounded strongly in Body and Earth, to which we belong.

As always, Authentic Movement practises are an integral part of this exploration, and along with our moving body, we will also get an opportunity to explore our dreaming body. The evenings will be spent grounding our experience with some theory around Desire and Authentic Movement.

This work is a powerful antidote to the chaos surrounding us. We live in a world that privileges Logos over Eros, Power over Love, and Mind over Body, creating a polarised and divided condition within our psyche, which is reflected in the world around us. Learning to engage with and honour our desire allows us to break this vicious patriarchal condition of ‘either/ or’ and move towards the more inclusive and feminine approach of ‘yes, and’.

Reclaiming our Eros is a form of activism in itself

The Desire project is an invitation to move into our bodies and explore the sensations, emotions and imaginations around our desire and longing. When we move into our bodies and begin to feel desire as energy, we can move away from our thoughts, ideas and judgements around desire. This erotic awakening invites us to

• Engage with and have agency around our desire which leads us deeper and deeper into our unique process.
• Let go of our fixation on the external Other and move from power struggles to empowerment, from entrapment to freedom.
• Unravel imposed programming & conditioning so that we can show up in the world fully resourced with the right psychological, sexual, somatic & spiritual tools to ground us into the deep knowing that who we authentically are, is enough.
• Find our authentic voices, and live our authentic lives with discernment, joy, compassion and pleasure.
• Move away from the patriarchal notion of ‘either/or’ and towards the Feminine approach of ‘yes, and.’

Authentic Movement is a simple but powerful practice in which the mover moves with her/his eyes closed in front of a witness. The mover waits to be moved and follows this movement that is suggested by their body, as opposed to performing or moving for the witness. This facilitates a journey into the inner world of the psyche. Authentic Movement practice is extremely helpful within the context of psychotherapy, medicine and meditative practices and is a potent source for artistic expression.

According to Dr. Tina Stromsted, a dear teacher of mine and one of the pioneers of this form, “through the process of Authentic Movement, we are reconnected with deeper instinctual resources and spiritual intelligence that dwell in the molecular structure of the cells and recover unlived parts of our nature on intrapersonal, interpersonal and transpersonal levels. During a time when many of the patriarchal power structures that have given meaning to our existence for thousands of years are crumbling, Authentic Movement allows practitioners, within the context of a healing relationship, to discover a new paradigm that offers guidance from an inner source.”