>Hello,
>
>I will be on tour this summer with a workshop and a documentary film and I
>am trying to stop at as many intentional communities as
>possible.
>
>Soma (somadocumentary.com) is a documentary about an anarchist group
>therapy in
>Brazil which incorporates capoeira, Wilhelm Reich, and anarchism. The
>workshop (nickcooper.com/antipowerworkshop.htm) follows the
>non-hierarchical currents in history, philosophy, psychology,
>criticism, and organizing tactics. From Lao Tsu, author of the Tao Te
>Ching to Subcomandante Marcos, of the Zapatistas, the workshop looks at
>struggling against oppression in ways that don't create other
>oppressions.
>
>Please let me know if you are interested in setting anything up, I will
>be travelling between June and August around the US and Canada.
>
>more info about the film:
>
>trailer: http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/octoberpreviewsmall.mpg
>
>Blinded by torture and with great difficulty walking, 75 year-old
>Roberto Freire continues his work in a small collective of anarchist group
>therapists in Brazil, fighting the psychological effects of
>authoritarianism.
>
>Nick Cooper travelled from the United States to Rio de Janeiro,
>Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to capture the exercises, the voice, and
>the movement of Soma Therapy. He spent many long sessions with Roberto
>Freire, who having survived the Brazilian military
>dictatorship, developed Soma (body) thirty years ago, incorporating
>Wilhelm Reich's teachings, a martial art / dance form called capoeira
>angola, and the political ideas of anarchism.
>
>Angola is the traditional African form of capoeira, a Brazilian martial
>art, which slaves disguised as a dance. Through capoeira, slaves
>struggled for freedom, practicing movements of evasion to help them
>escape. Capoeira angola uses many things which Soma therapists find
>lacking in traditional therapy -- group participation, music,
>spontaneity, collaboration, mischief, playfulness, and the occasional kick.
>
>Wilhelm Reich was a 'banished' psychoanalyst and former disciple of Freud.
>Reich believed that people learn neuroses through authoritarian models in
>the family, school, and at work. Reich sought to remove the
>authoritarianism from analysis.
>
>Some Brazilian anarchists find Soma's focus on the internal effects of
>authority to be distracting and indicative of privilege. They expect
>anarchists to spend more time in the street, initiating action against
>authority. But, although many Soma participants are activists, they are
>equally interested in exploring of the psychology of action.
>
>--
>peace,
>Nick
>freerads.com
>nickcooper.com
>houston.indymedia.org
>somadocumentary.com