inEssence – Innocent-ish,
mischief-friendly, come as you are

Psst… you.

You curious, creepy, careful, careless, craving, crawling, cringy, cute creature.
“Just be yourself. You’re enough.” This annoyingly simple idea. 

But “uhm.. it’s enough, thanks” might actually feel like shyness to ask for more, and “ENOUGH!!” feels like too much. 

One of those cases where simplicity creates more ideas than the most elaborated concept.
What does enough even mean, anyway? Which part of me decides? Who influenced that decision?

inEssence is an invitation to peel off the layers glued to our faces by everyday life.
Some we enjoy wearing (kind, smart, creative, well-behaved), some we’d happily throw away (liar, victim, boring, predator). But what if there’s a way to be with all of them?

A playground for the innocence underneath everything we carry

Imagine following the impulses we usually tuck away: the silly voice, the strange little dance, the thing you’d never do at a networking event, maybe even the too long stare?!?
Weird, taboo, delightfully freaky?

Could it be that making these tendencies bigger will make them:

• Great food for impro / performance???
• Less scary???
• Go away???

I am Touch&Play

VulneRebel is our proposal to shift from focusing “up” to authority and direction, into an expansive, horizontal gaze.

This intention starts at the level of organisation. We want to expand the field you play and explore in, with more horizontal structures — sociocracy. Touch&Play Cologne 2026 is being produced by Jukka, Inge, Dennis, Alina, Ryan, Nele, Tomas and David — with Deejay in the role of advisor.

We aim to shape safer, artfully held spaces that both provide comfort and serve as a container for taking meaningful risks together.

We invite consent work, contact improv, eros, somatics, and kink to converse and intertwine, expanding our repertoire of ways to relate. We cultivate a culture that is explicitly inclusive and allows for everyone’s inspirations to shine.

—all bodies, all ages, all relationship constellations, all nervous systems valued equally—

How do you rebel?
When are you vulnerable?

We invite you to take a vow with us: To look at how we co-create our reality when relating. We believe that this is a step towards existing in harmony with humankind and ultimately the beautiful world that is our home.

Are you ready to be a VulneRebel?

Let’s Play

About Touch&Play

Touch&Play is an exciting and growing global network of local communities that come together around a set of shared practices and a common culture.
We’ve been organizing retreats and community gatherings since 2010 and have held events in 16 different countries and 4 different continents.
Our events strike a balance between the local context and culture where a retreat takes places and the global embodied, humanistic and spiritual practices and values that underpin our work. In the end we are striving to build a deeply caring and seriously playful world where we can live authentically and in peace with ourselves and our communities.

“Leave your relationships more beautiful than you found them”