Moving Freely - An Inclusive Sensory Movement Workshop

Designed for persons with different abilities, including participants with Autism, Down Syndrome and other learning or physical differences, this workshop offers a safe, joyful and non-judgemental environment for creative movement exploration. Led by Aida Redza, this workshop explores the body that remembers as a pathway to authentic movement, connection and memory.  

Through somatic and sensory practices, breath, touch, rhythm and object manipulation, participants explore how the body senses, remembers and responds. Objects (scarves, sticks, fans or any object from home) become sensory-motor tools inviting touch, play, interaction and repetition to awaken bodily memory and discover individual ways of expressing movement freely. Through playful and guided activities, participants can explore coordination, awareness, communication, confidence and connection. At the end of the workshop participants will put together movements inspired from everyday gestures, familiar actions and from sensory activities.  I 

Aida Redza is a Malaysian dance artist, choreographer and socially engaged performance maker based in Penang. She works through the role of the penjaga (guardian), initiating creative projects that nurture, heal and transform by bringing art closer to people and the realities of everyday life.

Her practice explores movement, ritual, memory, environment, cultural heritage and community, with a particular concern for human rights, environmental justice, safety and wellness. She is interested in the conservation of culture and heritage not simply as preservation of the past, but as a living process of remembering, transmitting and reinterpreting knowledge through the body. Her work investigates how traditional practices, rituals, stories and embodied knowledge can continue to evolve and remain meaningful in contemporary life.

Aida works with diverse communities, including youth, underprivileged groups, persons with special needs, mothers and older adults, using dance as a means to listen, connect, raise awareness and stimulate change.

She is Founder of WindRiver Productions, Artistic Principal of Studio Pentas, and President, Artistic Director of Euphoria Penang Modern Dance Ensemble, and an Advisor Panel of Georgetown Festival. Her works include Moved By Padi, Semangat – Restu Padi, Reclaim, Hanyut, Seruan Nadi, Ssegar Angin, Angin Ombulan and Ilmu, presented nationally and internationally.

In 2018, she was named a Kakiseni GameChanger at the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards.