The Grief Portal | Somatic Movement Film by Camille Barton

Length: 16:45
Private publishing date: 27th October 2020
Publishing date: 14th November 2020

Commissioned for performingbordersLIVE20, ‘The Grief Portal’ is a somatic movement video that you can do in your own living room and will bring you back to your own body, allowing you to rebuild from ‘the compost of grief’. In their own words:

“In this moment, it is clear that we have a lot to grieve. We are facing unprecedented social, environmental and political challenges on a global scale. Against the backdrop of Covid-19 individual grief of death and the loss of loved ones, historical grief of colonisation, migration and displacement, environmental grief over the harm and changes taking place in our home world are laid bare for all to see.Something needs to change. We must grieve these systems and allow them to compost, so we can grow more beautiful futures from the fertile soil of our loss.” Camılle Barton

Commissioned by performingborders and Foreign Actions Productions for performingbordersLIVE20.

BIOGRAPHY

Camille Barton (they/them) is a non binary artist, writer and somatic educator, working on the intersections of wellness, drug policy and transformative justice. Their art practice uses dance, improvisation, ritual, bass healing and Afrofuturism to weave new realities fusing pleasure and social change. 

Camille facilitates Embodied Social Change – movement sessions that fuse somatics and partner work to explore how oppression, such as racism and ableism, is rooted in the body; and how we can re-pattern it using mindful attention and movement. 

Camille serves ritual bass as DJ AfroOankali and is interested in the healing power of low end frequencies and polyrhythms. They are currently researching grief on behalf of the Global Environments Network, creating a tool kit of embodied grief practices to support efforts for intersectional, ecological justice.