Open Floor International ~ Ground Floor Lab

28 October - 2 November 2025 ~ BERLIN, Germany

Teaching Faculty ~ Deborah Lewin and Bence Gáspár

 

An Exploration of Life Through Movement for Personal Healing, Professional Growth, and Community Building

A foundation in the most up to date approaches to embodiment and mindful movement, our Ground Floor Lab is an intensive, experiential, 30 hour introduction to the Open Floor curriculum. You’ll come away with an understanding of the core teachings and practical skills to use them in your movement practice, your everyday life, workplace and communities.

The Ground Floor Lab will take place at Ballhaus Rixdorf, Berlin, GERMANY - see below for full details.

Curriculum Highlights

The key concepts and foundational principles of Open Floor movement practice.

Each movement session includes a look ‘behind the scenes’ from a professional perspective for an understanding of the intention, structure and purpose of each experience.

The Practicalities

  • Tuesday 28 October - Sunday 2 November 2025

    • Tuesday 28 Oct

      10.00 - 13.00, 15.00 - 18.00

    • Wednesday 29 Oct

      10.00 - 13.00, 15.00 - 18.00

    • Thursday 30 Oct

      BREAK, 15.00 - 18.00

    • Friday 31 Oct

      10.00 - 13.00, 15.00 - 18.00

    • Saturday 1 Nov

      10.00 - 13.00, 15.00 - 18.00

    • Sunday 2 Nov

      10.00 - 13.00

  • Please see the registration form for more detailed information to help you assess which rate to pay. 

    • Generosity Rate of €1750

    • Supporting Rate of €1195

    • Sustainability Rate of €795

    • Access Rate of €495

  • Venue Ballhaus Rixdorf Studios

    Address 76 Kottbusser, DammBerlin, BE, 10967, Germany

    Link to Google map

  • 50 hours of instructed study in Embodied Movement Practices.* 
    To support your understanding of the Open Floor curriculum, it is highly recommended that some of those hours be in Open Floor Movement Practice.  If there is none available in your area, you can find online offerings in our calendar of events. You can also further familiarise yourself with Open Floor Movement Practice by reading through the curriculum material.

    *Includes Yoga, Tai Chi, Alexander Technique, Somatic Experiencing, Feldenkrais as well as Movement Meditation/Conscious Dance Practices such as: Open Floor, Soul Motion, Movement Medicine, 5Rhythms, freedomDANCE, ZeroOne, The 360 Emergence, Azul, BISO, Tamalpa, Continuum, Laban, Biodanza.

 
 

Meet Deborah

Professionally, Deborah has been working in the field of movement and embodiment for 30+ years. She qualified as a Sesame Movement and Drama Therapist in her early 20s, soon broadening into the field of conscious movement and teaching 5Rhythms® for over 25 years.

In 2014, she was one of a group of 15 Founding Teachers of Open Floor International (OFI) and in 2016 attended OFI’s Therapy in Motion training with Andrea Juhan and Irit Ziv-Ron. In 2023 & 2024, she completed both the Foundation & Applied Training with The Centre for Systemic Constellations.

She has a blended professional life, working online and in-person, with large groups, small groups, and one-to-one. Her respect for the wisdom of the creative body is incisive and contagious.

“I am committed to personal development, and nurturing individual and collective transformation….. I hold the teaching space with deep attentiveness, clear instruction, and an absolute delight and love of movement.”

Meet Bence

I have been dancing and meditating since my childhood, and practicing yoga since I was 17. And since I was 5, I wanted to be a biologist. Every now and then the idea came to dance professionally, but then studying biology and critical social theory ‘won’. Dancing, although a very important part of my life, remained a hobby. At the age of 25 I was ready to start my healing journey—choreography gave way to movement improvisation; psychedelic trips to psychotherapy, retreats and ceremonies; ‘just enjoying’ and pleasing others to self-discovery and striving for integrity.

As a queer person with Jewish and Roma ancestry and a childhood in post-socialist Hungary, I experienced injustice and inequality in countless forms, so it was inevitable that I seek ways of using the privileges I had to empower myself and others. My first access was through education and intellect, and then the physical, somatic followed. When I learned that inclusion, diversity, equity and social justice are inherent to the Open Floor movement practice, another piece of the puzzle found its place.

While I was doing my PhD in biology–still trying to find my way in the image of the world that I received at the beginning of my life–I understood that the Open Floor was wide enough to make space for both worlds... I didn’t have to choose anymore between dancing and studying. So I trained to be an Open Floor teacher, and this container is spacious enough to be a medium for anything I can transmit—only what I have experienced myself.

 
 
“I felt an enormous amount of gratitude for the tremendous depth of Deborah’s teaching and experience. I was fascinated by her ability to shape the experience whilst enabling deep connection. I felt carried and challenged at the same time.”
— GFL, LONDON 2024
“GFL was amazing! It totally exceeded my expectations. I learnt so much, of which I am already incorporating into my daily life and have made amazing friends. This workshop is a must for anyone who wants to deepen their connection with themselves through embodied movement and to do so in such a rich and diverse community and with skilled and inspiring teachers. Highly recommended. Definitely will be back for more!”
— Emma B.
“I think this was an amazing experience and insight into the training of open floor. I love the practice and I am curious to learn more about it. I love the openness, how i felt welcome and felt belonging. I felt guided and supported all the way from signing up for the course and well after i arrived home. The teacher team was so good and complemented each other perfectly. I felt belonging to the group and so much love and connection because of all the exercises we did together. The course material unfolded itself for me during the week together with my body expanding and embracing more. It was really a full and very rich experience that I am still digesting. So very thankful for having experienced this! ”
— Silje
“This was an incredible 6 days of embodied dancing. There’s nothing else like it, and I heartily recommend it to all. This really is “dancing to learn”.”
— David C.
“I came to the lab shortly after experiencing one of life’s greater challenges and came away in awe of the power of collective embodiment. It gave me a wonderful sense of ease and stability and has inspired me to continue pursuing ways in which embodiment can enable deep connection, exploration and creation in my life. The program itself is explicit and at the same time seemingly limitless. What a joy!!!”
— Sam F.
“The GFL was groundbreaking for me. To be in a space with people willing to work on themselves, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually for 5 days is powerful to say the least. To be seen and held individually is equally strong. And to be guided by excellent teachers and excellent musicians makes for a pretty unforgetable experience. This is deep work, this is movement practice in the purest and widest sense. I feel like i can be in conversation with my higher self, dance with it, and I also feel the invaluable force of the dynamic within the group, which is still settling and expanding within me, and will do so for the weeks to come....”
— Lisa K.
“The London Open Floor Lab team created a beautiful spacetime for us to explore the many dimensions of our embodied inter-being through dance/movement, intimacy, meditation, art and words/thoughts. The venue was a wee oasis of nature, nourishing food and plenty of space to be moved by the music of the city and its sound system. I left the week touched, thoroughly danced and feeling aspects of my inter-being that continue to rippling out through my life and those around me in ways that are very exciting and energising. Thank you!”
— Coll