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I support you in a process of unlayering and clarifying your creative practice so you and the world can experience its presence and its presents
Lia Ηaraki
What is The Onion
The Onion is a creative coaching method of supporting the participant to unravel their creative universe and clarify, articulate and organise its parts, so that it can be shared with the world in several forms and ways. The Onion was developed and is guided by artist / practitioner Lia Haraki the last six years.
Τhe process happens in a safe environment either as a workshop series in a group situation physically or as a one-on-one coaching in a series of sessions (in person or online.) The participants who join can be artists, creatives or anyone who wants to make their creativity work in a way that is useful to them and others.
What happens in the workshops / sessions
Creativity can often be chaotic and its untamed nature can often block or even post pone the actual work to be done. In the Onion the participants are given questions, information, time and space to explore, understand, organise, ground, articulate and make their creative universe conscious. This happens by looking at their creative world from eight different perspectives and understand how these are present or important to their creative process. The perspectives and elements explored are:
Creative values
Ideas-desires-interests
Practices
Needs
Tools
References
Fears and doubts
Impact
By mapping out, writing, moving, voicing, sketching, listing, thinking and discussing, participants explore these elements throughout the workshop. As a result they create their own set of maps and by the end of the sessions they create a future plan of goals and priorities.
What is the difference of the group workshops and the one on one sessions
In the group workshops the participants are given time to work with useful tools , ways and practices and at the same time interact, communicate and exchange their findings with the rest of the group.
The group workshops are happening twice a year in January and September.
Find here the next weekend workshop and how to book your space
The one on one coaching Lia works with the participant and specifically focuses on their work and its potential. Τhe coaching takes place in a series of in-person or online meetings. To start this process write to Lia at info@liaharaki.com with your interest and she will arrange a first introductory meeting so that you both see if you want to enter the process.
Finf here more information on the one to one coaching
Who can participate in The Onion
The Onion coaching is for creatives, makers and artists of all genres and disciplines. The process is ideal for practising artists or creatives who have been creating for at least five years.
More about the Onion
The philosophy behind Onioning
Creation is usually the development/construction of an idea towards an end result. In the Onion participants are given a different perspective to the creative process as a process of undoing rather than doing, by removing the unnecessary so that the outcome can be revealed rather than developed. By using the onion peeling both as a metaphor and as a practise, the participants are guided to become aware of the layers of their creative universe and peel off / release the layers that keep their creativity hidden or blocked.
Vesseling and Chanelling
The Onion process is designed to take participants through a process of Vesseling in preparation for Channelling. Vesseling and Chanelling are the two words Lia uses to define the creative process and its sharing with the world. Specifically Vesseling is all about listening and looking at ones inner creative world and includes practices of unlayering, listening, embracing, articulating, organising, imagining, intending and planning. Channeling is how one will eventually share their creativity with the outer world and so it focusses on the ways and forms it might take.
How the Onion was developed
The Onion has been created and developed by artist / practitioner Lia Haraki in 2018 and has been attended by over a hundred artists and creatives ever since. Lia who has been creating performance and other works the last twenty years often had difficulty in anchoring her creativity, which often seemed chaotic.
In her words:
'The onion was developed after a period of fogginess and confusion from various unprocessed information coming from my many years of non stop creating which was blocking my creative energy. After several burn outs, I decided to pause, breath and reflect. I slowly and steadily went into a process of unlayering and acknowledging the elements that formed my creative universe by mapping it out and listing its parts. It was a long and interesting journey where i really took time. By looking back at my work, i could distinguish the ideas and desires that were still interesting to me , honour my values, have compassion for my fears, appreciate my references, realise the impact of my work and imaginethe future i would like to head towards. My thoughts and intentions became more clear and so I was able to make room for inspiration and clarity. I recharged and restarted with a conscious mind as to where i wanted to go next.
It soon became clear to me that I wanted to share these findings with other creators and support their process. Nevertheless what I understood through guiding the onion process the last six years, is that the participant needs to realise that most of the work is done by them and not by me. So in case you are thinking of starting this process please know that you need to be willing to ‘do the work’. This means to enter with a conscious intention to acknowledge, via ways I will be sharing, where you have been with your body of work, where you are and where you want to go. On my side I will be supporting you by creating a safe space for you to be listening to yourself grow!
If I tried to sum up the experience of the Onion with one word, it would be: exploration. Lia Haraki has masterfully and brilliantly distilled the essence of all the bits and pieces that make up an artist’s universe into this workshop. Each session is a dot on your own, personal map, where, by the end of it, you can see all the underlying connections and how each overlaps and informs the other - on a theoretical as well as a practical level. Never too didactic, always attentive, and full of enthusiasm, Lia fully immerses you in this exploration, guiding you and gently but consistently pushing you to clarify what, how, and why you do what you do in your art. Most importantly, you leave with a renewed awareness and a fuller picture about your work, as well as with tools and methodologies that you can keep applying, revisiting, and enriching on your own. I’d recommend the Onion wholeheartedly for any artist or practitioner looking to dive in into their world, find inspiration and a clearer view of their practice again. You will be in very very good hands. ‘
Christos Mouhas (performance, dance and media artist)
More Testimonials
More free texts on the Onion
'THE ONION PROCESS - UNLAYERING THE ARTISTIC PRACTICE'
‘THERE NEEDS TO BE LISTENING TO RECEIVE THE SOUND OF KNOWING’
If you have more questions please write to us at: info@liaharaki.com
guided by Lia Haraki
Being in tune with being
and moving from that reality
The body in the ‘IntuNition’ practice is treated as a vessel of information and knowledge which can be embodied in space and time through repetitive movement and its variations. There is no right or wrong way to move only various keys that usually unlock new possibilities of embodiments.
The practice begins with a standing meditation connecting to the heart organ and gradually makes its way into repetitive movement. The participants are guided to listen to and be with their diffferent bodies (mental, sensual, emotional, metaphysical) .
IntuNition is shared in the form of a workshop where guidelines are given in relation to the state of mind one needs to be in throughout the practice, states of the body and ways of embodying the transformative qualities of the variant movement as it occurs. Also emphasis is given on stamina and strength as this is a durational practice.
Its story
The IntuNition practise begun to develop through the movement research of the solo ‘Tune In’ by Lia Haraki back in 2013. Lia has been teaching it in the form of a practice and as a movement research workshop together with her sister Evi Haraki Mahera who was mentoring Lia during the making of the solo. The workshop was taught in various places including Nicosia, Limassol, Cologne, Venice, Thessaloniki, Prague.
Who it is for
All individuals of any age and physical ability with an interest in the moving body and a curiosity to find connections between the formed and the formless self. No previous dance experience is needed as the IntuNition physical practise can be done in each individual’s abilities.
Previous IntuNition workshops
Performance Laboratory EU Programme, 2021 Dance House Lemesos November 2012, October 2017
Studio 11 Cologne March 2013
Tanec Praha festival June 2013
Venice Biennale for visual arts June 2013
Pop-up festival Nicosia 2014
Dimitria festival Thessaloniki 2014
Relevant texts:
‘IntuNition’ performance by Lia Haraki, Rialto theatre, Picture by Pavlos Vrionides
led by Lia Haraki
The audience is hungry for moments of honesty and when they witness it, they get hooked. L. H.
What it is
‘Performing Biography is a stand-up solo performance practice created and taught by performance maker Lia Haraki. Τhe practice focusses on how autobiography and stories from ones life can become a meaningful source of material for the stage. It has a very simple structure where one individual uses the microphone to share a story. Nevertheless, the story is not only expressed through text but other tools are also used like movement, gesture, vocalizing, and any other medium which the performer considers relevant.
All together the Performing Biography is a performance practice, connecting ones history and experience to the audience, through empathy, fragility, and humour.
The workshops
The practice is taught through workshops which can be joined by either proffessional or amateur performers of any genre.
During the workshops, Lia shares tools and ways of generating material through the priniciples developed as part of the practice, which were inspired by stand-up comedy principles as well as choreographic and deviced theatre methods.
The participants then have the chance to embody personal stories, perform confessions, exaggerate lies, manifest truths and expose hidden talents and faults in a series of short solos, all done in a very safe group environment. The process is physical, mental and emotional as expected when dealing with personal life stories.
Who it is for
Artists from all genres who want to explore integrating biographical elements in their practise.
‘self-referential, self sarcastic
and experiential information
becomes relevant to others,
by bridging the subjective to the objective
and the personal to the collective. ‘ L.H.
Previous workshops
The workshop was taught by its previous title ‘Standup PerformDance’ in various places including:
Dance House Lemesos (with Cathryn Robson)
Impuls tanz Vienna festival (with Guy Cools)
Kalamata International festival (with Guy Cools)
Danshuis Station zuid Τilburg (with Guy Cools)
How can an artist’s desires meet the needs of the world?
This is a five day coaching laboratory where participants identify, articulate and perform elements from their body of work that can become useful and relevant products or services in today's world.
The coaching focusses on the value of immaterial art, its use and function in society. Artists are encouraged to find ways to fill the missing gaps that can contribute towards making a more functional, healthier and happier way of living for humans, their communities and the planet. Through written, aural and physical exercises, they have a chance to put their services into practise and witness them be experienced by the rest of the group, who offer feedback and a dialogue for discussion.
‘Art as service’ was developed from the experience of mentoring artists for their participation in Lia’s project ‘The Performance Shop Concept’ (theperformanceshop.org) during its presentations at the pop festival Nicosia 2014, Limassol 2015, The Athens and Εpidaurus festival 2018.
The workshop was taught previously at BOW | Bodies of Work, Limassol Municipal Arts Center, Limassol, Cyprus (https://denisearaouzou.com/Bodies-of-Work)
Μore on the Performance Shop
One on one coaching is also an option and if interested email info@liaharaki.com
The repetitive poetry practise is both a vocal and an embodied practise. As a continuation of the IntuNition ritual, this time words are repeated, varied, and transformed into signs and sounds through the guidance of Lia’s embodiments map . During the practice the vocalizing which takes place is received through microphones, gets amplified, and manipulated with the help of sound designer Yiannis Christofides, only to be projected back into the room as part of the sound environment!