Welcome to Nature in Motion, a project funded by European Union that explores how movement and nature come together to create a more inclusive, accessible, and enriching experience for all. This score was created Rhiannon and it is about senses and nature.
Welcome to Nature in Motion, a project funded by European Union that explores how movement and nature come together to create a more inclusive, accessible, and enriching experience for all.
Nature has the power to heal, strengthen, and restore. Whether through hiking, adaptive sports, or dance, movement in natural spaces can improve well-being and foster connection. Nature in Motion is about expanding access—adapting both movement and outdoor spaces so that individuals of all abilities can experience the benefits of being in nature.
These audio scores are an invitation. You can listen, move, reflect, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds and sensations they bring. There is no right or wrong way to engage—whether you choose to dance, draw, write, or just be present.
Through this project, we hope to highlight the possibilities of accessing nature near cities, enhance well-being and quality of life, and promote awareness and understanding of diverse experiences in outdoor spaces.
Take a moment, listen, and let yourself move—however feels right for you.
These scores were created as part of the international collaborations coursework on the MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism at London Contemporary Dance School. All facilitators leading these scores are current students on the course.
Hello. This is a score from Rhiannon based in Bristol in England, and it is an invitation for you to connect and potentially move with and in relationship to material and natural material within your environment. It will be around 15 minutes long, and I invite you to find a place inside your house or outside that feels very comfortable and nourishing for you. So once you are in that environment, and that might be outside somewhere, or it might be within your home, or even looking outside of the window and connecting with nature in some way, there, I invite you to look around your environment, the space that you're in, and to find a material that draws your attention.
That could be if you're outside, it could be some leaves or or a plant, maybe a stone, some moss, any natural material that attracts your attention, and If you're inside, you might find a house plant or a feather that's fallen on the floor, a bit of bark or chippings, some kind of natural material that you might have access to from within your home, or potentially something that interests You outside your window, the leaves on a tree or a stone or a rock or some kind of natural form. And at first, I just want to invite you to observe this thing with your eyes, and I invite you to look at it as if you are looking at this thing for the first time. So in front of me, I have some ferns. I'm sitting outside in a wood, and there are some ferns, and I invite you to look at them as if you're seeing them for the first time, and also to take away any label or category or way of kind of naming it in your head, and to just really see it with your eyes and Take in the shape, the color, the texture as if you're seeing it For the first time.
And get curious about this thing. What interests you? What are you drawn to? If you look at it really closely, what do you notice?
Are there patterns? What are the edges?
What surprises you?
Are there different angles that you can look at it from?
and once you've taken some time to just take in this thing with no name, with your eyes. I invite you then to connect with it in other ways, with other parts of your senses, so that might be through touch, feeling, the material, feeling the contours, the texture, the bumps or smoothness. How does it feel to touch this thing? You might touch it with your hand, or you might touch it with another part of your body, maybe your face or a toe.
And if you're sitting inside and looking out, then maybe imagine that you're beginning to touch it, so you can trace your hand as if you were touching whatever it was you're looking at, or a different part of your body. If you're outside or with a plant, you might smell it. Engage with this thing with all of your different senses, smell, touch and how does it feel in your body in this moment in time to be In connection, be relating to this part of nature?
I'm trying really tune into what your felt sense in your body might be, rather than a thought specifically, get really curious about the details of this thing.
What do you notice? How is it impacting you? How are you impacting it?
and after a bit, you might start to notice that maybe engaging with this thing through touch or through sense or through imagining you're touching this thing might begin to move your body, to bring your body into movement in some way. How does this material make your body want to move? That might be in response to the qualities and textures of this material. Maybe it makes you think of a certain shape, or thing makes you bring out a certain type of quality to your movement. Or it might actually be from the physical interaction with this thing that it's leading you into a kind of dance, or a rhythm. I know for me now I'm brushing along this plant with my arm, and it's leading me into a sort of rock, a back and forth motion, rocking into and out of the plant. And this fern has very sort of curving, curving leaves. So it inspires me to make curvy art shapes within my body, and to sort of brush up and down so whether you're directly in contact with or imagining contact with, just spend a few minutes now Going into movement and seeing where it takes you.
What kind of movement qualities are coming out from being into action in an interaction with this thing, maybe it brings out stillness. It might bring out slowness. What's the quality of the speed, the shapes of the movement.
How are you feeling in your body as you move in relation to this thing? Where's your breath and a just take few more seconds. Give yourself 30 seconds to a minute to come to Find an ending in your connection with this thing. I after either imagining or being in connection with this part of nature. How do you then step out of connection? Gently. You take a moment to move away from being in connection, and should just come back to your own body. What do you feel in your body now, after moving in relationship with this, do you notice any changes in your breath? Breath in your mood, in the way you might relate to the environment around you.
I'm sitting in a forest in the UK, and it's one of the first sunny days we've had in a long time.
And so I can feel the sun on my face. I can hear birds singing, and in my body, I feel my breath has shifted from my chest to my stomach,
and that I'm more relaxed and grounded, and also a sort of sense of vibration, or little kind of excitement or swirling from being in interaction with the plant, with the ferns, and that might be similar to your experience, or it might be completely different, but I invite you to take a moment to notice if anything has changed inside your body after this interaction, and maybe nothing has changed, and that's also fine.
and just closing with some gratitude to yourself for taking some time out of the day to make space, to create a moment to connect or explore your relationship with the natural world, and of course, for the small or large, large bits of nature that we might have around us To connect to and the way they continue to nourish challenge contribute to our life and well being with this precious, precious Earth that we live on. I hope you enjoyed this experience, and I look forward to sharing with you again soon. Have a lovely day or evening. Wherever you are!