with Trina Acacia

August 21st, 4PM | Ubuntu Bali

In Indonesian art and dance, there is a timeless understanding that life moves between the seen and unseen, the heard and unheard. Our gestures are not only physical, they are offerings. Our movements are not only visible, they carry what is invisible. This is where the Poetic Body begins: where dance becomes a bridge between the felt and the unspoken, the breath and the emotions, the body and the spirit.

Join us for Poetic Body, a class guided by Trina Acacia, Indonesian dancer, diver, and ocean-artist. This class is crafted for emotional exploration through embodied movement. This is not a class for spectacle, but for sincerity. This is not about performance or perfection, this is about listening and accepting your body and the layers.

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Where Emotion Lives in the Body

Science tells us that emotions are not abstract, they are physical. Anger can tighten the jaw and chest. Grief sits heavy in the lungs. Anxiety often settles in the gut. These aren’t metaphors, they’re lived truths. Studies in somatic psychology and neuroscience confirm that the body stores emotion in different areas, from the solar plexus to our hands.

But long before Western science named these, Indonesian dance already knew. In traditional forms, certain gestures and postures were not just aesthetic, they were vessels for emotion, memory, and offering. Every tilt of the head, every curve of the hand carries meaning: often unspoken, often spiritual.

In Poetic Body, this understanding comes alive, not as choreography, but as freedom. Movement becomes the body’s way of composing poetry: each gesture a verse, each breath a line, giving form to feelings too fluid for words.

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The Seen and the Unseen, The Heard and Unheard

In Indonesian cosmology, the world is not divided into body and soul, but rather flows between the two. The seen (nampak) and unseen (tidak nampak) are in constant relationship. A dancer is not only moving through space, but also channeling energy through time, offering what can be seen while carrying what cannot.

Emotions live here, too. What is deeply felt is not always visible. What is visible is not always understood. In this class, emotion becomes the bridge between the visible and the invisible, between what the world sees and what only you know.

Poetic Body class is a space to explore your oceans within. Together we will:

• Breathe through emotional turbulence

• Learn the spiritual quality of breath, stillness, and repetition

• Adapt water or ocean wisdom to loosen inner resistance

• Trust the cycles of release and return

• Honor the fluidity in how you feel and express, what is unspoken, what is ancestral, what is deeply yours

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The Teacher: Trina Acacia

Trina Acacia is a dancer and diver. She is a vessel of stories, sensations, and raw human truth. A classically trained Indonesian dancer who grew up dancing for rituals and ceremonies, later joined some commercials in Jakarta. Trina grew up amidst natural disasters such as seasonal floods, experiences that shaped her relation with water and respect for nature from a young age.

Later in life, she found an emotional connection with the ocean as she navigated a chronic illness and the grief of losing loved ones. The sea became her refuge, her mirror, and her source of strength.

Her time spent in the ocean has brought a colour to her works: her movements are often described as emotional, wave-like, tender, and haunting. Especially through her use of hand gestures, Trina channels energy and unspoken emotion in a way that invites the audience... and now, you as a student, into a deeper state of feeling.

Through her Kallola project (which means "wave" in Sanskrit), she bridges ocean education, eco-dramaturgy, and dance. Her work includes site-specific dance research & rituals on the coast, ocean-themed performance for conservation awareness, and beach cleanups and ocean education through artistic engagement. Yet at the core of all her efforts, whether underwater, on stage, or in studio is a dedication to emotional truth and human & nature connection.

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Class Details

Thursday, August 21st at 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM at Ubuntu Bali, Canggu.

Register via WhatsApp: +62 812-3862-0082 or Email: namaste@ubuntubali.com

This class is open to all levels. No previous dance experience required. Just a body willing to feel…