Shapeshifting for divination
A movement workshop taking you into an elemental journey through poetic visualization and somatic guidance. We will playfully engage with animal/ non-human based tarot cards. We will allow the body to become a vessel for divinatory practice, inspired by embodied ecologies and collective myth making.
We will explore how we can create our own shapeshifting methodology using breathwork, writing and movement, and at the end we will talk about our insights, interpret each other’s cards and create intentions for the new moon.
In this ritual we will ask through embodied processes- What kind of identities do we need to carry and create in humanity’s transition from the industrial capitalist disenchantment into a deep animist engagement with the world? How can embodiment and divination practices help us undo human supremacy, and connect us back to a symbiotic, multispecies web of relations?
This series is also an embodied research into anti-speciesism. We will inquire about our own biases, fears and unconscious hierarchies related to non-human people, as well as be curious about how they can act as our mentors, friends or inspiration into our lives at this moment in time.
We will allow these ritual interactions to help us deepen intimacy to our sensorial body, as well as collectively research worlding practices inspired by speculative fiction, through a feminist, anti-capitalist and anti-colonial lens.
For who
Lunarrr Playgroundz is a container of queer magic for the queer community and its allies.
Access:
All workshops will play with movement, breathwork, voice and writing in different measures, depending on the theme and facilitator- but you will always be in charge of how you wish to interact with our suggestions and guidance, as well as the intensity and rhythm which feels pleasureful and needed to you on the day. Consent and autonomy are fundamental to the space.
There are no prerequisites for the rituals. Any levels of movement or magical practice are welcomed: from curious creatures to baby witches & to geeky magicians who speak crow language! (if you do, please message for a skill swap :)
The ritual is open to all abilities, and people with mobility issues are very welcomed - you can choose during the journey to sit on a chair, lay down or move as and when you are comfortable. Unfortunately the studio is on the second floor, accessed only by staircase.
For any questions feel free to email: @byuka.krow@gmail.com
About the facilitators:
Byuka is a trans & disabled artist, witch, dancer, movement director & poet.
They explore folk futurism and practices of queer-animist world building through performances, film, tattooing, community rituals & workshops.
Their work plays with ancestral healing, embodied ecologies, speculative fiction, divination & intimacy.
They co-curated an exhibition about queer future ancestry with Arts Council funding in collaboration with Mimosa House and Queer Circle in 2025. And they are the researcher, facilitator and curator of their project Lunarrr Playgroundz - a ritual healing space for the queer community, where creativity and spirituality intersect following the ancient technology of moon magic.
Their work has been shown at the Royal Albert Hall, Iklektik, Camden's People Theatre, the National Gallery, Matchstick Piehouse, Ugly Duck, The Barbican, Guildhall, BBC Sounds, Mimosa House, Queer Circle.
follow them at:
https://www.instagram.com/fortunetailedbeast/
About the project
Follow us on instagram for regular updates: @lunarrrplaygroundz
Lunarrr Playgroundz is an experimental open coven that tries to offer safe(r) spaces of spiritual inquiry, transformation and healing for the queer community and its wonderful allies.
The project unfolds through ritual-workshops in accordance with the phases of the moon. It is curated by the main facilitator Byuka Makodru (they/ them), as well as by invited guest queer magic practitioners. Some of the themes we explore are:
Ways of queering and embodying the tarot
Elemental magic
Queer ancestor altars
Rebirth rituals
Shapeshifting techniques &
How to create relationships to non-human familiars
Frameworks for moon worship
Ways of befriending grief
Blood magic
Astrology
Alchemy
The project unfolds through the lens of moon magic- an ancestral and animist ritual technology. This framework can help us reclaim our embodied cyclical rhythm of living, and guide us into how to honour both our phases of growth and celebration, as well as our grief, rest and reflection. Like the moon, we wax and wane.
Instead of the linear, productivity-driven timelines of patriarchal capitalism, we devote ourselves to the creative flow woven by the magnificent planetary dance between the moon and the earth - which directs the seasonal changes, the movement of tides and our planet’s axis. As we are mammals who are birthed, fed and held between the cosmic and the earthly landscapes - we are made and unmade by these rhythms. Like the moon, we wax and wane.
Empowering our lunar bodies can help us rebel against the industrial, machine-like clock that dominates our lives and our relationship to the ecosystems. Our lunar bodies can dream into being futurities that bloom with collective care, care that heals us from the violent spells of hierarchy, binaries and normativity. Futurities that are guided by myths & stories full of playfulness, solidarity, rest. Full of camp hybrids, sacred disruptors, wise fools. Full of recycled altars, ceremonial raves and sensuous technologies.
The project also asks the question- what is queer magic?
Lunarrr Playgroundz - both as a magical praxis & as an embodied mythology that is being collectively written- is inherently queer. Strange, fluid, playful. The moon is a shapeshifter. The moon transitions all the time- from one phase to the other, showing us its many faces, energies and qualities via an intricate dance of reflected sunlight, darkness, vulnerability and power. It’s a performative ceremony of many genders, many kinds of prayers, many pains and many sensualities - gifted to an entire galaxy.
About the venue:
Chisenhale Dance Space (CDS) has been making space for artists to lead, experiment, and create for over 40 years, serving marginalised dance artists from Tower Hamlets, London, and across the UK. We support an Artist Community that spans all ages and roles within experimental performance, including performers, choreographers, teachers, curators, producers and advocates for sectoral change. We prioritise the needs of those who have been historically marginalised, including artists of Global Majority heritage and disabled/neurodivergent artists. Our programmes are artist-led, centred on the belief that artists best understand their needs and are key drivers of change in the sector. We offer a responsive framework of opportunities and peer support tailored to the challenges artists face.