Life of Stone
Wild, Rugged and Grand

A Film by In The Open - Dunami CIC, directed by Anna Dako

Banff, Scotland'25

Film produced as part of Ecologies of Belonging: Coastal Landscapes - Eco-Somatic Arts Residency, Banff, Scotland, March 2025.

In the Open – Outdoor Arts Initiative by Dunami – Movement Arts Wellbeing CIC

See Trailer Below

About the Project

Project Story

Born from the elemental encounters with the northern Scottish coasts, Life of Stone – Wild, Rugged and Grand is a filmic meditation on movement, matter and belonging. Created during the Eco-Somatic Arts Residency: Ecologies of Belonging – Coastal Landscape, the film invites viewers into a tactile dialogue between body, rock, water and wind — a meeting ground where creation and erosion, courage and vulnerability, endurance and surrender coexist.

Filmed across Banff, Findlater Castle, Bow Fiddle Rock and Portknockie Cliffs, the work captures both the vastness of the northern seascape and the intimate gestures of bodies in resonance with its shifting terrain. The movement language emerges through Eco-Somatic Felt Thinking, a practice developed by Dr Anna Dako, in which sensation, emotion and ecology merge through embodied awareness.

The film’s narration — voiced and written by Dako — unfolds as a poetic reflection on the kinship between human temporality and geological time. It is a meditation on the “slow making” of existence: the way the body learns through touch, how creation resides within destruction, and how our own watery selves recognise the ocean’s pulse as home.

The voice of the artist drifts between sensory present-tense and mythic contemplation:

“I now experience myself as a living process of creation and destruction on the go… I am the living rock of water and wind.”

Through movement, breath, and sound, Life of Stone embodies an eco-somatic worldview — one where the self is porous, relational, and continuously shaped by the elemental.

The film speaks of the humility of human making beside the patience of stone, and of the courage to live in rhythm with the wild, rugged and grand.

Themes and Intent

Belonging and Elemental Interconnection – exploring the body’s kinship with geological and oceanic processes.
Eco-Somatic Practice – translating felt, embodied inquiry into visual movement and sound.
Temporal Reverence – juxtaposing the human lifespan with the deep time of stone.
Creative Health Ecology – situating art-making as a process of healing and reciprocal relationship with place.

Residency Context

The film was conceived and produced during Ecologies of Belonging – Coastal Landscape, an eco-somatic residency led by Dr Anna Dako and hosted by Dunami CIC in Banff, Scotland, March 2025. The residency brought together artists from diverse disciplines to investigate movement, ecology and belonging through daily outdoor and reflective practice — a dialogue between body and landscape that became both methodology and material for the film.

Presentation and Screenings

Life of Stone – Wild, Rugged and Grand will premiere in late 2025 as part of a series of film festivals, interdisciplinary conferences, and artistic research exchanges supporting environmental art, dance film, and eco-philosophical inquiry.
The project will also accompany workshops and artist talks exploring Eco-Somatic Felt Thinking and the intersections of movement, ecology and wellbeing.

Other Invitations are also Welcome!

Please contact Us for more information and availability.

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Film Credits:

Movement and Outdoor Explorations
Anna Dako · Marta Bury · Shayne Lilith-Moon

Videography
Tao-Anas Le Thanh

Costumes
Anna Dako in collaboration with the movers

Edit and Post-Production
Anna Dako · Bircan Birol

Concept and Movement Guidance
Anna Dako

Movement Methodology
Eco-Somatic Felt Thinking by Dr Anna Dako, based on her publications:

Dances with Sheep: On RePairing Human-Nature Condition in Felt Thinking and Moving towards Wellbeing, Intellect Books (2023)
Walking to Wellbeing – A Guide to Practising Self-Care in Somatic Felt Thinking, Self-published (2023)

Music
Ibou Sora · Anna Mudeka · Ewan Mackay

Songs

‘Many A Day’ by Sheena Sutherland · ‘Zvichapera’ by Chiwoniso

Text and Narration

Anna Dako

Location Scouting
Anna Dako

Location Consultation
In collaboration with The Vinery, Foyer Banff – Sheena Sutherland

Filming Locations
Banff, Findlater Castle, Bow Fiddle Rock, Portknockie Cliffs Path (Scotland, UK)

Production
In the Open – Outdoor Arts Initiative by Dunami – Movement Arts Wellbeing CIC
Produced as part of the Arts Residency Project: Ecologies of Belonging – Coastal Landscape, Banff (March 2025)

www.dunami-somatics.com/in-the-open/artsresidencybanff-25

Project's History

It's been a huge pleasure to see the Banff '25 Artistic Residency see its performative outputs as part of a choreographic project by O.de.la Dance Theatre by Marta Bury, Poland. As part of this staged, performative lecture, premiered in Rzeszow, Poland in July '25 and performed by Joanna Jaworska, Olga Bury, Piotr Stanek, and Anna Dako, the fragments of 'Life of Stone' have been implemented as screen-based set design for this production.

See links for more information and the visuals.