SOPHIE SPIRAL
Sophie Schultze-Allen (they/she) is a dancer and dance researcher based in Berlin. They facilitate playful workshops that deepen our connection to Earth and each other. Sophie sees the possibilities for embodiment practices to act as connective practices that can help us practice collective liberation and Earth regeneration. In group workshops, Sophie uses methods such as InterPlay, Somatics, movement improvisation, art-making/printmaking and creative writing. Sophie was born in Germany but raised in Berkeley, California and has been making community engaged art for the last 15 years.
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Sophie also works as a dancer and dance dramaturg helping to produce dance works for stage, site-specific/outdoor, and online viewing. This includes collaboration on HEX (2022) with Carly Lave and The Intervention of Loneliness (2020) with Ming Poon as well as coordination for A Dance Walk: Tempelhofer Feld (2022) and choreography of Ancestor Tree I & II (2021 & 2022) as part of the KlimaKunstLabor at the Center for Art & Urbanism (ZKU Berlin).
In 2021, Sophie completed a Masters in Critical Dance Studies at the Free University Berlin with a thesis exploring dance practices that center decolonial and climate justice action.
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The research is continuing through a PhD at the Free University Berlin within the funded project SFB 1512 'Intervening Arts'.​
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The PhD project “Towards Decolonial Ecologies in Dance: Connective Practice as Micropolitical Intervention,” explores how dance, somatic practices, and choreography can provide pathways towards the creation and dissemination of critical consciousness based on alternative economies grounded in the principle of gifting and accountability. It asks how body-centered practices share experiences and incorporate alternative ways of knowing. In this respect, Connective Practices reach into ecological and post-colonial contexts. How can movement practices form a foundation based on recognition and attentiveness towards other actors and position themselves against anthropocentric thinking?
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Funded by the German Government (DFG) from February 2022 – June 2026.
It is located within the subproject B02 "Interventional Choreographies: Formats and Practices of Decolonization and Ecology".
