Our Chorus and my Hero :
a dialogue between the Me and the We

The practice of "our Chorus and my Hero" plays with dimensions of time, space, emotions, movements, and narration. Using  simple movements and syntax (e.g. walking, stopping), you move through space, learning to read each other.

These exercises allow a unique exploration of the conversation between the 'Me' and the 'We' : different ways of being together and cooperating. While moving through space, with guidance, questions may arise:

• What space do I spontaneously occupy and shape in relation to others ?
• What are my perceptions of leadership?
• What engagement or risk-taking does it require of me?
• What is my impact on the group, on the flow of the exercise?
• What support do I need? How does my supportship manifest ?
• On what and whom can I rely?

It's a journey through the roles of leader, supporter, or hero that explores and challenges your unique ways of making proposals, supporting others, or positioning yourself with divergent viewpoints, within the group.

A collective improvisation

The practice of "Our Chorus and my Hero" is based on collective improvisation, an essential pillar of UDN's sensory practices. When improvising, it's difficult to predict and control. The exercise  requires an embodied and engaged presence. Your ability to sense and adjust is stimulated, letting go is encouraged, and our common responsibility is central to the exercise. Instead of selecting a particular posture in advance and maintaining it throughout, improvisation requires us to shift with fluidity between roles, making this practice a condensed and compelling metaphor of a living organisation.

On the last day, we will show the fruits of our collective journey in a final improvisation in front of outside guests - you can invite your peers. It is more of an authentic sharing than a performance, with no bar set for "success" our "artistic quality". Just a moment in time and space to share a fragment of what we will have touched during those 3 days, and to allow others to move through their own sensible doors and reflect with us.

           UdN's journey in the UK

Our adventure in the UK began in 2015, when we travelled across the English Channel to support the Transiton Network in their governance transformation.  This fruitful collaboration sowed seeds across various Transition hubs around the world, and influenced the early phases of the Transformational Governance Project in the UK. It was a pivotal moment for us as well, and we're excited to reach out for international solidarity once again.

Université du Nous is back to inspire and be inspired by other movements across the country, and you're invited to join our first bilingual seminar open to all.

Economic model

We have shaped and honed Conscious Participation as an economic model for our seminars, as a way to reclaim power over the market economy, to offer an alternative to the scarcity-based laws of supply and demand. A conscious and political way to explore what money and transaction can mean and look like, supported by the "invisible hands" of the gift economy.  Participants are asked to pay two fees at different stages in the process:

Security Framework

Martine van Ditzhuyzen

After a journey on stage as an actress and puppeteer, I encountered Université du Nous at a time in my life when I was questioning the impact of theater on our cultural and social environment, and its connection to change. Today, I put my expertise as a sensorial-artistic facilitator at the service of UdN, exploring the stimulating and mobilizing potential of artistic practices under a new light. I strongly believe in the power of imagination to reinvent new ways of living and embodying our citizenship.

Lydia Pizzoglio

After 10 years working in the paramedical field, I decided to make more space for my social and citizen engagement. Trained and experienced in new forms of governance, I co-founded Université du Nous in 2010, where I share my skills as a trainer (shared governance, Game of Tao facilitation, collective intelligence methods) and leadership coach. I strive to use my communication and federation skills, as well as my  rigour, both inside UdN and when transmitting to others. It is my way to work on my own capacity for change in order to contribute to a meaningful societal transformation. 

Yves Abanda

My search for meaningful cooperation is rooted in my mixed coloniser/colonised heritage. I seek the wisdom and dilemmas of those who do not write history, as much as those who explicitly hold power. 
My art of transformation and accompanying change began with the need to adapt in order to live beyond mental illnesses, mostly those of my kin. 
I recently joined Université du Nous to hone my skills, gain in precision and repertoire—and help individuals and groups to transform their suffering, confusion and feelings of powerlessness into an emancipating force.

I will be the live interpret for this seminar, translating between french and english -  and I will take care of the logistics. I'm excited to meet you in Stroud.

Meet the team at large

Université du Nous is a Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collective (Collective Interest Cooperative Society) founded in France in 2010, with its roots stemming from the Reunion Island. We are known in the social & solidarity economy for popularising the notion of Gouvernance Partagée (Shared Governance), and for empowering hundreds of organisations and more than a hundred thousand individuals seeking radical and profound ways to re-organise their collective decision-making, cooperation and sharing of power in order to change the world.

Our seminars are designed to be transformative experiences, raising more questions than they provide answers. Journeys blending practical, experience-based learning, somatic and artistic exercices, metaobservation of shared phenomena, and a sharp awareness of the self as well as the politics of cooperation. 
We love to explore uncharted territories whilst revamping charted ones - and this is what coming to the UK and holding our first open to all seminar feels like. This Chorus and Hero will most likely be unique and not follow the same patterns as the ones we hold in France.

We are curious to see how this lands, what stays with you and what feedback and novelties we'll face in the UK.

Reinventing and deepening our cooperation postures and skills is a political matter.

Deconstructing our relationships to power in order to shape radical, empowering and liberating cultures of cooperation requires a simultaneous transformation at both personal and organisational/community levels. They do not need to be opposed but articulated, and we believe this articulation to be an underestimated political matter. Resistance work, justice work, healing work - all benefit from a deeper and embodied approach to sharing and relating differently to power.

Giving as a source of Abundance

Creative Commons & The Gift Economy

This work was impactful thanks to a decision we took early on to experiment radically with the gift economy, inspired by countless traditional and indigenous ways of being, and more recently by the  work of J.F Noubel . We continue to believe that “giving is a source of abundance”.

Our educational resources are stamped with the  CC BY-SA creative commons license  and most of them are accessible open-source for free. Many are already translated in english and a few other in dutch, spanish and portuguese. We're looking forward to translating the rest of these creative commons in english in the coming years.

To this day, this approach continues to generate genuine moments of awe and inspiration, confusion, and sometimes sheer frustration, confronting us with our relationship with money and its shadows.
Our collective has acquired more status and recognition over the years, and our senior members have acquired a precious experience that sometimes tempt us to yield to high price tags. The mega machine of the capitalist world system, and its toll on our minds and purses continues to make it a challenge to stand our ground and hold this radical proposition, that only functions when those who have more contribute more than those who have not.  

More details about this seminar's pricing below.

Check our Resources Page Here (FR) 
 
Contact us directly to access our Resources translated in English.

Conscious Contribution

We speak of ‘conscious’ to emphasise lucidity and awareness. By changing the usual rule, participants are encouraged to decide for themselves how much to give - and to reflect on why they give it.

Many questions arise :
What is the value of what I have received ?
What contribution would I like to make ?
How can I support this movement of transformation ?
Can I finance what I want to see happen in a shared future, beyond what I have just experienced ?

What we receive from some helps us provide to others. In this way, conscious Participation weaves a web of interdependence between thousands of participants engaging with our seminars across space and time.

The 4 Rules of Conscious Contribution

Full version here 

Anne Cécile Trillot

Participant - Chorus and Hero, FR

 Looking for ways to support the "We" in my project, I was guided towards this 3-day experience of the "Chorus and Hero". A complete immersion, like a waltz between the "Me" and the "We". I delved into myself, in my body, in my flesh. I felt connected to the group in a magical way. Without words. Without knowing each other. Without expectations. Only through a subtle listening of the movements and energies around us. We experienced the beauty of collective creation. Like a magician, Martine helped us experience states of grace between the Me and the We. And we were more capable of observing it thanks to the collective intelligence lens brought by Laurent. I left this immersion deeply transformed, down to my cells. And I happily let the benefits infuse now. Thank you very much. 

François Ledoux

Participant - Chorus and Hero, FR

 15 of us gathered for 3 days with 2 animators, to experience an amazing program that moved us out of time. In the big room, the person in the front turns their head and then their body, and hands over the lead. And there you are, behind, supporting the proposition. Places and roles in the group change by sensible movements of the body, rather than well-thought decisions. Joyful and sound choreography, slow and fast, in the air and on the ground, silent or sung. Surprise after surprise, the leadership is learned hopping from one to the other.