25.11 + 02.12 & 26.11 + 03.12.2025 | “Sferos” de Kotryna Žilinskaitė (Lt) – Movement & Voice Workshop | Le chant des chevaux + La fabrique de vêtement (Be)

Sferos - Presentation and methodology

The method is built upon a metaphorical framework: the “Five Elements in the expressive dimensions of body and voice.” Each element offers a poetic anchor to concretely explore distinct qualities of movement, presence and interaction within an artistic setting.

• Earth — Grounding, weight, structure. Here, the body explores its density and relationship to the floor and gravity. In vocal and corporeal practice, this translates into a stable posture, measured breath and a voice rooted in support.
• Water — Fluidity, resonance, receptivity. We work on transitions, the flow of gestures and vocal modulation. Attentiveness to emotion becomes material for movement, rhythm and phrasing.
• Fire — Impulse, clarity, transformation. This element is the realm of intention, decisive gestures and the precise release of sound. The voice sharpens, the body asserts itself with energy, the performance gains definition.
• Air — Lightness, openness, connection. Movements unfold and breathe. The voice circulates freely. We explore interaction, transitions and the permeability between self and other, between gesture and sound.
• Ether — Synthesis, freedom, holistic listening. The elements intertwine. Movement becomes more intuitive, the voice more flexible, imagination takes flight. We enter into a living, plastic and open composition.

Who is Sphere for?

Arts professionals — dancers, actors, musicians — seeking to deepen the body-voice connection, refine stage presence and fuel their creative drive.
Care and therapy practitioners — looking to enrich their work with sensitive tools that support emotional regulation, bodily awareness and inner listening.
Anyone on a personal development journey — eager to explore their expressiveness, cultivate harmony between body, voice and feeling, and strengthen their relationship with self and others.

Workshop Format

The workshop spans five hours, dedicated to exploring movement and voice. Certain exercises use suspended fabrics (aerial yoga hammocks) to help the body release tension, experiment with shifting relationships to gravity, and perceive itself as a living, ever-evolving structure.

Workshops program

Two series of two workshops are offered (25.11 + 02.12 and 26.11 + 03.12) in two different singular spaces (Le chant des cheveaux in Beloeil and La Fabrique de vêtements in Binche).

Workshop #1 — Sferos: Five Elements, Voice & Movement

This workshop is an invitation to slow down, listen, and rediscover yourself through movement and sound. We explore the inner sphere — the feeling that the body is not a straight line, but a living, breathing space that can expand, contract, resonate, and hold us.

Exploration

• Arriving in the body and sensing it as a round space rather than a rigid structure
• Gently opening the voice, letting its shape, color, blockages, and freedom appear
• Moving from the imagination of the five elements
• Working with a simple poetic writing practice that naturally emerges from the body
• The closing circle: We end with a moment of reflection — sharing what has moved, changed, or softened. Nothing is forced. Just listening.

Workshop #2 — Sferos: Aerial Hammocks, Movement & Voice

This session dives more deeply into the physical and emotional architecture of the body. The hammock becomes a partner — sometimes supportive, sometimes playful, sometimes demanding. It helps us meet ourselves from another angle: upside down, suspended, unfolding.

Exploration

• Earth — grounding and slow descent: the hammock offers a stable and safe space that supports the nervous system and helps the body release excessive tension.
• Water — fluid, undulating movements: increasing mobility, softening habitual patterns, and improving emotional regulation through continuous motion.
• Fire — spirals and activation of the center: developing coordination, inner strength, and clarity of intention. Heat and focus arise from deliberate movement.
• Air — lightness, breath, and suspension: we refine our relationship to gravity, strengthen balance, and expand breathing awareness.
• Ether — open improvisation and small choreographic tasks: where voice and movement integrate, supporting bodily coherence and creative expression.

What this practice brings

• A more precise and alive connection to the body
• Regulation of the nervous system through supported, rhythmic movement
• A clearer perception of your emotional and physical “sphere”
• Space for curiosity, exploration, and creative play
• The integration of strength, stability, and softness within a single experience

Sferos, exploring voice and body differently: an interview with Kotryna Žilinskaitė

Jacques Urbanska: You started with performing arts. How has that path influenced your current research?

Kotryna Žilinskaitė: I became interested in theatre when I was eight. It was truly a space for play (in the way children experience it), but also for observation and listening. Later on, I studied theatre at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. That training gave me a solid foundation, but it was the urge to connect body and voice differently that pushed me to look further.

J. U.: How did the “Sphere” approach come about?

K. Ž.: The “spherical explorations” of movement and voice are part of a research I’ve been developing for several years. It’s not a fixed method, but rather a living, constantly evolving process. It’s been built up layer by layer, nourished by my artistic, physical and personal journey.

J. U.: What has nourished this approach?

K. Ž.: As a child, I often watched my father practicing Taichi. His movement was slow, grounded, almost silent. That relationship to the body, to weight, to time, really fascinated me. It was probably my first doorway into an embodied understanding of movement.

Then came theatre. What I learned there is that repetition is never mechanical: it’s alive. Each moment repeated reveals something new, as long as you are fully present. Dance followed. Then one day, a physical injury slowed everything down, and I had to search differently—through detail, through subtle body listening.

J. U.: What role do the suspended fabrics play in your practice?

K. Ž.: Their arrival was a revelation. The suspended fabrics offer a different relationship to space and gravity. They helped me rediscover a more supple body, more attuned, carried by gentleness. It transformed my relationship to movement—but also to time: less linear, more organic.

J. U.: What theoretical or artistic influences have “given body” to your research?

K. Ž.: There are several. Butoh, through Juju Alishina (a Japanese dancer and choreographer), introduced me to a dance “from within”, where silence and slowness are active forces.
The vocal work of Kristin Linklater (see Freeing the Natural Voice, Routledge, 2006) and Yurijus Vasiljevas (Professor of the Department of Stage Language, St. Petersburg State Academy of Theater Arts) helped me integrate voice as an extension of the body.

I also studied music therapy at Vilnius University, and explored somatic approaches like Paul Newham’s Voice Movement Therapy (The Singing Cure, 1993) and Body-Mind Centering developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.

Each of these practices gave me tools to experience voice, movement and breath as a living, sensory, interconnected whole.

J. U.: How would you describe “Sphere” today?

K. Ž.: It’s an invitation to explore voice and movement as sensitive, artistic practices. It’s an open framework where each person can work with their own materials—sensations, memory, imagination. For me, “Sphere” links the intimate and the collective, gesture and sound, observation and presence. It’s an ongoing exploration, shaped by everyone who takes part in it.

J. U.: You also lead many parallel projects. How do they enrich your practice?

K. Ž.: For several years now, I’ve been organizing festivals, concerts, making films and plays, and taking part in interdisciplinary and choreographic performances. Many are influenced by Butoh. I also lead creative workshops, and I’ve founded two complementary spaces in Vilnius.

Užiateka is a center for cultural and interdisciplinary practices, a space for artistic encounters, performances, and collective creation. Oasis – art therapy is a more intimate space, focused on healing through artistic practices—particularly voice and movement—through a sensitive and embodied approach.

In connection with Transcultures and its international sound art festival City Sonic, I also currently coordinate the “City Sonic Vilnius” initiative, which led to several events in 2022 and 2023. These projects keep me connected to a wide range of artists and constantly nourish my practice.