 |
| Image found here |
I have been going to the Interfusion Festival since 2017, and I have been hooked ever since taking a Foundations of Ecstasy course with Monique Darling and Peter Petersen (read that blog post here). I was so disappointed when the 2021 festival was canceled due to COVID-19, but I certainly understood due to the circumstances. While COVID is still a part of our lives, I am so glad the Festival went on as planned this year. I think they took the proper precautions to keep everyone as safe as possible. All attendees (and I assume vendors and presenters?) had to be vaccinated, and we had to present a negative COVID test that had been taken no more than 72 hours in advance. We wore masks the whol time, and we each received a welcome package containing masks, hand sanitizer, and a COVID take-home test. Despite COVID, the show had to go on!
As in years past, I attended workshops of all different kinds. While I first attended Interfusion because of my interest in dance, I always enjoy exploring the other types of workshops offered. Sometimes I have taken fewer dance classes because there are more opportunities to dance than, say, hold hands with a stranger and cry together, but since social dancing (and certainly blues dancing, which is my favorite) has taken a hit due to COVID, I haven't danced in nearly two years. So I was ready to dance! I took a Brazilian Zouk beginner bootcamp throughout the weekend (taught by VinÃcius "Vinny" de Souza, who was wonderful!), as well as a creative bachata class with Stephanie Metzger and a kizomba class with Marc Brewer (from America's Got Talent. Who knew?!) and Rose Turuka. All of the dance teachers were so good, and the classes were great for beginners or people like me who really needed a refresh!
Here is a video of Vinny dancing with Jessica Lamdon, another great Brazilian Zouk dancer:
And this is Marc and Rose doing a fusion kizomba dance together:
I really enjoyed all of the dance classes, but I also loved a lot of the other workshops I attended. These were a few of my favorites:
 |
| Image found here |
- Qi Gong - I had only ever done Qi Gong once before, also with Peter Petersen, at a previous Interfusion Festival. That was only part of that workshop, so we only did the traditional energy gathering pose (stance? movement?). But this year, an entire workshop was dedicated to Qi Gong, led by Dante Baker. He is a great teacher, and I loved learning the different movements (some similar to Tai Chi but not quite) and how those movements can help with your internal organs (and that each organ is associated with a different season, element, color, emotion, and sound). It was like meditation in motion for me, which I really enjoyed. I found it more centering (and simply more fun) than sitting cross-legged with my eyes closed trying to clear my mind.
 |
| Image found here |
- Authentic Relating - I took two workshops with Ryel Kestano, who teaches about making real connections with others. The first class covered the importance of being your true self when trying to relate to other people, as well as moving through levels of conversation (from the superficial to the relational, i.e. what is happening and how we are feeling in the here and now). We did an interesting exercise with a partner in which we would share our assumptions about each other and then discuss how hearing those ideas made us feel, and then the impact of the other person's feelings on us. The second class I took with him was really meant for couples, but luckily I met this wonderful woman through the experience, and I think I made a new friend! That workshop was about designing the relationship you want. We worked through three stages of an exercise: making the relationship's context, or the nature of the relationship, explicit without assumptions; asking each other what we desired from the relationship; and negotiating the needs and desires of both partners. Now that I have had practice with this exercise, I am interested in doing this with my boyfriend. I would like for us to talk about our relationship, how we feel about it, where we think it's going (or where we want it to go), etc., as opposed to just going with the flow as things are. I think this class gave me the tools to have a deep conversation like this with my boyfriend, and in turn, design the relationship that I would like to have with my partner.
 |
| Image found here |
- Erotic Blueprints - I wasn't sure what to expect when I signed up for a workshop called "Discover your eLove Language," but I learned A LOT! Stacie Ysidro and Johnny Vajra are a couple and led the workshop. The class was all about being your authentic sexual self and being able to identify your desires and what brings you pleasure, and owning those things! This idea of erotic blueprints is featured on the Netflix show Sex, Love, and Goop (which I have yet to watch but definitely want to see now!), and it's essentially like the five Love Languages except specifically for sex and sexual pleasure. People who fall under each blueprint have certain turn-ons, ways they like to be touched, "superpowers," and "shadows" (i.e. negative attributes). The erotic blueprints are energetic, sensual, sexual, kinky, and shapeshifter (a combination of the other four). It was so interesting to learn about these ideas and try to figure out where I fit in. I took this information home and shared it with my boyfriend, and the physical connection we had was SO STRONG, and we didn't even have sex! This was another Interfusion workshop that has changed my life, just like the one I took in 2017. It has impacted the way I see myself as a sexual being, showed me how to connect with my partner and fulfill his needs, and at the same time receive the pleasure I want in a way that I want it. Mind blown!
I took several other workshops: manifestation, conscious sexuality, connecting with nature... Interfusion has such a diverse offering of classes, and there is definitely something for everyone. My boyfriend expressed an interest in attending, so maybe next year we'll go together. I'd love to take some of the workshops made for couples with my real partner and not a stranger! I am enamored with this festival, and it would be amazing to share it with someone else and experience the festival through his eyes as well as my own.
---
Want to read more about the Interfusion Festival? Here are my many other blog posts from previous years:
Fall 2017 (now the Festival is strictly over MLK weekend)
2019 (I guess I didn't bother writing a blog post about the one in 2018?)
2020
I guess I got lazy this year in only writing one post for the entire weekend instead of one for each day. Maybe next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment