Desire Lab (for female identified & assigned people including gender queer/non binary female assigned folks) led by Hana van der Kolk

Sex/y, eros, and even intimacy live in a teeny tiny box for many of us. It’s hard to see that box because we’re in it. And we’ve learned in our bones that there’s potential danger in refusing and even naming the box; different danger and stakes depending on how our bodies are raced, classed, gendered, sized and more. It’s a very complex and layered web inextricable from politics and economics and more. And there’s a lot of confusion and patterns of extraction in that web. And I have found that there’s a lot of joy, surprise, radical intimacy, repair, and fierce wisdom possible when we wonder (with and through our bodies, with and alongside others) what else desire (erotic and otherwise…I think they are inextricable) could be, where else/how else it lives in us/the world, and what it might look and feel like when wild imagination, deep mutual respect, and profound sensitivity are present in the erotic. And I’m interested in what this wondering could teach us about other stuff.

I believe that this process necessarily includes attending to difficult stuff that can come up: fear of unworthiness and loss of belonging, shame around what we want and what we don’t want, confusion, dissociation, the pain of seeing the ways cisheteropatriarchal, racist, transphobic, fat phobic, ablieist, capitalist conditioning shapes how we feel about ourselves/our bodies and others'. Expanding my erotic life hasn't/doesn't mean just the sensuous, playful, and delightful, though that’s all definitely important too! It also has/does mean the grief. But I feel grief and joy/wisdom live close together not only in regards to sex, but in many other areas.

In this lab we focus on cultivating awareness of, empowerment in, and communication about our desires as female identified and/or assigned/femme/non-binary people* beyond people pleasing, patriarchy, and limited tropes of what’s erotic/sexy. While we will turn our attention to erotic/sexual desire, we will do so by attending to the inherent entwining of erotic and “non-erotic” desire. Through meditation, movement, writing, breath work, and small group activities/discussion we will create a collaborative space for exploration. This workshop is accessible to many whether you have established embodiment/erotic practices or are newer to this realm of inquiry. All practices are adaptable to individual needs.

*identites are fluid and categories are not hard and fast. If you wonder if this workshop is for you, please be in touch. 

Daylong IN PERSON

at Refuge in Troy, NY

April 30, 10am to 6pm

Sliding scale $40-300 (please see my financial transparency statement below)

Email hjvanderkolk (at) gmail (dot) com to register)

Financial transparency statement: I make my living teaching classes like these and offering one-on-one counseling/coaching sessions. I also occasionally get paid for work as an artist and event organizer and guest artist/teacher in university settings. I come from class and educational privilege in my family of origin. I DO have to earn my daily living expenses independently, but I benefit from my class background and from white supremacy as a so-called white person in many ways. I am also a queer, non-binary, single, middle-aged person living with chronic health challenges and I regularly participate in mutual aid practices in my home community of Troy and in other places where I spend time and enjoy the land and culture. I consider all of these conditions, the cost to use the spaces I teach in, along with the economics of where I am offering things when pricing my work. Please consider your overlapping circumstances and identities when choosing your pricing option. Let’s get all of us what we need/more free one little and large effort at a time. Thank you! 

For more information about Hana visit: https://www.hanavanderkolk.com/current

Hana van der Kolk

I am an artist, dancer, educator, Internal Family Systems and sex and gender expansion counselor, and an organizer of community events and spaces. I have been based on the unceded homelands of the Mohican people (now known as the Stockbridge Munsee community) in what is called Troy, NY for nearly eight years. A life-long dancer/performer, I have taught my community dance class “radial diamond kinetics” and other dance/movement/performance practices internationally for over 10 years to a wide range of populations. I also facilitate others in learning to teach rdk and other body-based tools for personal and group transformation. 

I taught yoga from 2002-2012 (primarily in Los Angeles and NYC), having studied with many renowned teachers/schools, and have practiced meditation in the Burmese and Thai Forest traditions for twenty years. I have also studied numerous dance forms, Body Mind Centering, Alexander Technique, Gyrokinesis, fitness, Contact Improvisation, ritual facilitation, Dream Lab method, astrology, Bondassage (certified in 2015), Urban Tantra (certified in 2021), and the Internal Family Systems method (level 1-trained in 2016). My approach to facilitating groups and counseling/coaching individuals is informed by these above methods, years of practice and study, and many phenomenal teachers, and is first and foremost fueled by my delight in learning, love of people and community, and deep curiosity about pleasure and what it means to live in a body and be human.

I worked with Troy Bike Rescue for 5 years building community coalition and helping to facilitate the shop’s youth program, threw Troy’s underground dance party Polly with many others, am part of the FlagSSS Day collective, recently initiated the new Club SPA spa, hold an MFA in dance, and just completed my practice-based PhD in art. My dissertation, which will come out in book version in 2023, focuses on queer friendship and body-based approaches to re-enchantment/the interruption of capitalism, individualism, human-centrism, and the gender binary.