Unlocking collective intelligence through embodied awareness
Have you ever watched a flock of starlings in murmuration, thousands of birds moving together in an ever-changing, effortless flow? It’s called “murmuration”.
Did you know that human beings are capable of the same natural coherence?
In today’s world we often face tension between our individual needs and the needs of the collective, and this tension can pull us away from our natural ability to move together. Although we look for safety and comfort, true growth often emerges when we are willing to meet transformative challenges.
We tend to rely on analytical thinking to guide our decisions, but our ability to collaborate, innovate, and build healthy relationships does not come from the mind alone. It begins in our state of being, our bodies, and our presence. In a world that can feel disconnected, our bodies hold resources for resilience and genuine human connection.
We can teach you how to murmur.
We offer movement-based somatic practices that help individuals and teams reconnect with their innate collective intelligence. Through experiential learning we strengthen trust and inspire creative collaboration. Just like starlings moving together in fluid harmony, people can learn to act together with purpose.
The Expanding Awareness Approach
All our embodied practices are grounded in the understanding that human awareness is ever expanding. To access the full potential of our individual and collective intelligence, we cultivate awareness on three interconnected levels.
Our model is based on years of experience teaching and dancing Argentine Tango, a partner dance rooted in complex, improvised connection. It is built on our experience with large groups and organizational settings, and supported by trauma-informed therapeutic approaches, diverse body-based disciplines, and insight into the functioning of the nervous system.
Body Awareness
Becoming aware of our state of mind and body, our emotions, our nervous system, our needs, and our intentions.
Environmental Awareness
Developing awareness of our surroundings, of ourselves as humans in space, of our position and movement, and of the environmental factors that influence our state, feelings, and actions.
Social Awareness
Expanding our sense of self to include our presence within a group of other human beings. This includes understanding how we move and interact together, how we build trust, offer consent, set boundaries, collaborate, lead, follow, and create collectively.
When our awareness expands to include all three layers, we can fully engage our potential as conscious beings who are part of a larger whole. Expanded awareness fosters trust and safety. From that connected space we can learn to support each other and to grow.
Our Programs
At Murmuration for Humans, we offer experiential programs that help teams build trust, navigate change, and cultivate organic leadership. Each service draws on embodied awareness and movement-based learning to enhance collaboration and collective resilience. We provide sessions in fluent English and fluent German, adapted to the needs and culture of your team.
Embodied Practices for Innovation and Change
Our experiential approach supports organizations navigating change by cultivating grounded awareness and adaptive collaboration.
Periods of transformation can be both inspiring and challenging. New ideas and directions often bring uncertainty, shifting roles, and the need for fresh ways of collaborating. In such moments, guidance and embodied awareness can help the group remain connected and open to creative flow. With our practices, participants learn to stay present, to regulate their own energy, and to attune to others. This allows new ideas to take shape within a sense of trust.
This program is especially beneficial when:
- Your organization is entering a new phase of development or restructuring.
- Your team is working on innovative projects that require collaboration beyond existing patterns.
- You wish to strengthen emotional resilience and creative flow during times of change.
By integrating embodied learning into moments of transition, teams can align around a shared sense of purpose and direction.
Embodied Practices for Stronger Teams
Our embodied, movement-based team workshops help groups strengthen trust and collaboration by reconnecting people with their own awareness and the collective intelligence.
When working in teams, one of the main challenges is creating a group dynamic that unlocks each member’s creative potential while allowing the team to move together toward meaningful results. A team is more than the sum of its parts, yet true coherence rarely happens by chance. Our practices help foster trust and connection within the group. These qualities allow each person to participate fully in the collective process while feeling seen as an authentic individual.
Our approach is particularly beneficial when:
- You are forming a new team where members are still getting to know each other and finding their rhythm.
- You are looking to enhance your team’s coherence and collaboration skills.
- Your team is struggling to reach its full potential due to interpersonal tensions, emotional conflicts, or a lack of trust and cohesion.
Through embodied experience, teams learn to move together with ease and purpose.
Embodied Organic Leadership and Followership
Through embodied leadership and followership training, we help teams develop attunement, psychological safety, and shared responsibility.
Leadership is often still seen through the lens of command and control. In Argentine Tango, a dance built on the art of leading and following, we explore a different paradigm. True leadership is an act of attunement, an invitation to trust and share a vision. Followership is a practice of active consent, an authentic expression and a desire to collaborate. We call this organic leadership and followership: a form of grounded teamwork that emerges from within the group.
This offer is especially beneficial when:
- Your organisation is looking to move away from rigid hierarchical notions of leadership and towards a model of connected leadership and empowered followership.
- Your organisation already operates with a flat structure and seeks to enhance its processes by cultivating spontaneous leading and following.
By bringing embodied awareness into leadership and followership, teams cultivate trust, safety, and genuine human connection.
Who We Are
We are Veronica Toumanova (Paris) and Thomas Rieser (Berlin). Together, we bring over forty years of combined experience in teaching and dancing Argentine Tango, along with professional backgrounds in creative design teams within corporate environments and in medical research on the therapeutic power of embodied practices.
We are each involved in teaching at and managing long-established tango schools in our respective cities. We have also co-organised Tango Connects Berlin, a multidisciplinary conference exploring how Argentine Tango can serve as a catalyst for connection and collective transformation. The idea for Murmuration for Humans was born from our conviction that the deeply transformative and connective experience of Argentine Tango can be applied far beyond the dance floor.
Thomas Rieser (Berlin)
With a background in the history of art, philosophy, and linguistics, Thomas initially pursued an academic and artistic path before completing extensive training as a movement teacher and movement therapist. In 2004, he founded Nou Tango Berlin, his own tango school in Berlin, marking the beginning of a long career dedicated to working with people and embodied learning.
Parallel to his artistic and pedagogical work, Thomas developed deep experience with trauma-informed and therapeutic approaches. He has taught classes for people with disabilities, inclusive movement workshops, programmes for individuals dealing with grief and severe illness, and tango-informed seminars for leadership and organisational development. His work bridges embodied practice, relational dynamics, and human development, with a particular focus on psychological safety, connection, and the nervous system.
His research interest led him to pursue a PhD on the role of embodied awareness and movement-based approaches in therapeutic and social contexts. His dissertation work explores how embodied, experiential movement practices can support resilience and emotional well-being in vulnerable populations.
Throughout his career, Thomas has remained committed to integrating artistic practice with evidence-informed perspectives from neuroscience, trauma studies, and somatic education. His work today brings together more than twenty years of experience with large groups, community building, and business-oriented learning environments, creating spaces where awareness and human connection support transformation.
Veronica Toumanova (Paris)
With a background in fine arts and visual communication, Veronica Toumanova had built a career as a User Experience Designer, working in Research and Development for large corporations in the Netherlands and Germany, and for a small design agency after moving to Paris in 2007. Passionate about dance, she discovered tango in 2000 and in 2012 made a radical career change to become a full-time Argentine Tango professional, teacher, performer and writer.
In 2013 she co-founded a tango school in Paris Tango Mon Amour, together with a team of local teachers. Her tango practice is informed by her experience with various body disciplines such as ballet, contemporary and yoga. Since 2007 she has taught workshops and performed all over Western and Eastern Europe and in North America.
Her lifelong interest in psychology and neuroscience inspired her writing. Veronica’s essays on the psychological, developmental, and social aspects of tango are translated in eighteen languages and some of them are published on various online platforms. This work resulted in two published books , Why Tango, recently also published as a German translation.
In addition to her artistic and teaching work, she is an engaged political activist. In Paris, she is part of a feminist collective that works to make the local tango community a safe space for women. Her interest in psychology and trauma-informed approaches also led her to join a grassroots movement advocating for the legalisation of psychedelic-assisted therapies in the European Union.
Interested in our work?
Tell us about yourself and your team, and how Murmuration for Humans can facilitate healthy group dynamics in your organisation. Together, we can define the objectives and the format of our service. Or simply leave your contact email and we will get back to you.
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Showcase
Thriving Together, for Virgin Voyages
In the summer of 2025, The Brilliant Lady ship by Virgin Voyages was preparing for her maiden voyage. With a newly formed crew of 1200 people from all corners of the world and with very different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences, the challenge was to help team members not only to get to know each other in informal and playful ways, but to create a deeper collective cohesion, a sense of safety, trust, and mutual support ahead of the crew’s first sailing experience.
We led embodied practice workshops for several groups, taking them on a voyage into body awareness, nervous system regulation, consent, trust building, and connected group awareness.
The results of these practices helped shift the atmosphere toward greater cohesion, especially among participants who were naturally shy or found it difficult to connect with strangers, as well as sensitizing more outgoing personalities who tended to step into leadership roles impulsively or without intention.
“It was an absolute pleasure collaborating with Thomas & Veronica as part of the inaugural The Virgin Way experience. Over a six-month period, we worked closely together to design and deliver a customized workshop for 1,200 of our shipboard crew during the Thriving Together section of the program.
Their creativity, professionalism, and commitment to impact helped us craft a one-of-a-kind experience that fostered trust, connection, and genuine engagement among our crew. I thoroughly enjoyed thinking creatively alongside this team and would highly recommend them for future kinetic leadership activations.” Alaina Julia, Virgin Voyages