LEVELS:

The classes are not divided into levels. In case the teacher found it necessary to ask for certain abilities you will find it inside their class description.
Please read the descriptions and respect your own limits.

In the registration process you will choose your intensive. Just make your decision depending on the themes of the intensives. The classes you can choose spontaneously at the Festival.

On the first day the focus will be on Contact Improvisation principles.

Intensives Classes           Friday Saturday Monday Tuesday   Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood Alyssa Lynes Abhilash Ningappa Mary Pearson Kees Lemmens   Tim O'Donnell Bryce Kasson Alex Guex Defne Erdur Nina Wehnert   Eva Karczag Ivan Baucia Alice Godfroy       Christine Mauch Mario Ghezzi Ville Johansson       João Fiadeiro Miriam Wolodarski Lea Kieffer         Tal Avni         Musicians: David Leahy & Jan Lee
Get the schedule, biographies and descriptions from 2016 as pdf-file - 10 s. (380 KB)
last update 13th of March 16
INTENSIVES
Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood CDN   Andrew began his dance career in 1975 and, for over forty years has dedicated himself to the research, education, development and dissemination of contact improvisation and compositional improvisation as sophisticated movement disciplines and performing art forms. His work has evolved through ongoing collaborations and various investigations of performance, composition, spatial design and movement techniques and has been influenced through the study of gymnastics, the Alexander Technique, Aikido, release technique, contemporary dance and yoga. He studied and performed intensively with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Nita Little, the founders of contact improvisation and danced for the companies of Marie Chouinard, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Jo Lechay and Fulcrum. He was also a member of the improvisational ensembles Improvisational Movement Fund, Echo Case and Discovery Bal. Since 1980, his work has been taught and performed at numerous institutions and international festivals throughout North America and Europe as well as in Central and South America, Mexico, Australia, Eastern Europe, Israel and Russia. He is the recipient of the Canada Council’s Jacqueline-Lemieux award for the year 2000. S U S P E N S I O N [of weight, of time, of balance and of disbelief]   In this workshop, we will explore the many facets of suspension. In a physical sense we will focus on the suspension of our weight allowing a stretch of time as we float in the air for a moment longer. Also, our bodies, like all motor vehicles, are equipped with a system of shock absorbers, also know as suspension, allowing us to cushion the impact of our mass as we move safely in and out of and across the floor. On a subtler level, it may also refer to the postponement or temporary halt of a judgment, an impulse, a decision or an opinion as in suspending our disbelief. Through a dynamic physical collaboration of the senses we will follow our instincts and be guided by what is already in our body in order to access multiple facets of our innate creative wisdom. Find more information and links about his background and work...
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Tim O'Donnell USA   Tim is a New York based dance artist who has been studying, teaching, and performing in both the United States and Europe. His exploration in dance and movement is strongly rooted in a deep physical listening and a sense of adventure. His classes range from the gentle and subtle to the acrobatic and fluidly athletic. He holds an MFA in Dance and has maintained a private practice in therapeutic bodywork and somatic movement since 1991. Currently he is on faculty at Movement Research and Arizona State University. CLARITY IN THE UNKOWN   From a place of deep physical listening we will focus on cultivating Our responsiveness rather than our re-activeness, recognizing and then Altering our known pathways, and composing through dialogue to create new layers and textures that deepen our dancing. I am interested in how we dialogue with each other, the space, our viewers and ourselves. How do we dance in a way that allows us not just to be seen, but understood? How do we listen in a way that helps us take greater risks physically and compositionally? With a strong grounding in contact improvisation we will experiment with these ideas to expand our dancing from the gentle and subtle, to the acrobatic and fluidly athletic. Through attentive and dynamic listening we will discover the balance in falling, redirecting, composing and soaring. It is this balance in listening that allows us to risk the unknown more fully in our dancing. With care and attention we will pose and explore questions from both contemporary dance as well as contact improvisation, working through exercises and scores that will hone our skills as movers, and thinkers. Find more information and links about his work here...
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Eva Karczag NL/HU and more...   Independent dance artist. For the past four decades has practiced, taught and advocated for explorative methods of dance making. First acquaintance with CI was in 1974, watching Danny Lepkoff and David Woodberry dance on the lawn at Dartington College, UK. During that summer, alongside her performing work, she began developing an empirical methodology through the amalgamation of Release Technique and improvisational dance forms, including CI, with her experiences and investigations into Eastern and Western mindful body practices (including Taiji/Qigong, Yoga, Alexander Technique (certified teacher), Ideokinesis, Body-Mind Centering, Kinetic Awareness. She created work, performed and taught as a member of Strider (UK, 1972- 75) and Dance Exchange (Australia, 1976-79), both leading groups in the field of experimental dance. As a result of extensive touring throughout Australia with Dance Exchange she was instrumental in introducing Release Technique, Ideokinesis and CI to the Australian arts community and audiences. She danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company (NY, 1979-85). Recent performances include Promenade, a series of improvised durational performance/installations with visual artist Chris Crickmay and composer Sylvia Hallett; and on-going collaborative duets with Shelley Senter and Vicky Shick (NY), Malgven Gerbes and Bettina Neuhaus (Berlin), and Gaby Agis (London). TOUCH INTO MOVEMENT   Touch comes in many shapes and sizes. From a hand resting on a hand or arm, to a back resting against a back breathing together. We are all born knowing experientially the gift of touch. When we give touch, we receive touch in return – an exchange of information from body to body – reciprocity. Touch can draw our attention from deep inside the body to the surface, to skin, and touch can take our attention from skin to depth, addressing and integrating fundamental facets of our being and giving us information about body systems, movement qualities and thought processes, as well as opening spaces for imagination. In this workshop we will use touch to tune into the details of the body and sensitize it to anatomical understandings, recognition of personal use, mindfulness and imaginative wanderings, and immediate, appropriate response – essential abilities in the play of CI. We will be exploring moving from touch. Find more information and links about her background and work... top Christine Mauch GER   Christine Mauch came to dance as a young adult and has been involved in the practice and teaching of improvisation ever since. She studied intensely with Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Kirstie Simson, Eva Karzcag, Linda Hartley (BMC) as well as Ruth Veselko (Gindler/Jakoby-Work). Complementary explorations in the field of bodywork led to a degree in physiotherapy and graduation as Zen Shiatsu practicioner. Deepening her practice of Authentic Movement, Christine completed a year-long training with Mandoline Whittlesey in 2014. Christine’s teaching and performing draws on her intense research and interest in the field of body awareness, (Contact) Improvisation, and an interest in creating new formats for exchanging on and practicing dance. 2008 - 2010 she co-organized the CI36/37/38 Satellites’ Return Weeks at Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen. DELVING DEEP: shifting attention   Arriving, breathing, reaching into the elastic realm of the body and out into space. Playing the forces of weight. Subtleties of timing. Exquisite dancing, from the compression of the tissue in, from the center out. Meeting, reading, and laughing. In every dance something starts afresh. Something likes to be reminded that there is space to let go, to breathe, to reach, to try, to dare, to listen, to expand, to soften, to shine, to laugh, to forget, to find out, to play, to tune in, to fail, to risk, to share. I am interested in the deeply personal specifics of attention, rhythm, and breath. How each of us is making sense of what is going on in our dance, how we are engaged within ourselves and with the environment. How we can be gentle and wild at the same time. Surrendering to the forces at play is not a passive state, it is a participatory and potentially delightful place of action. Identifying this in basic Contact skills of reading the body in movement, sharing weight, and following through will prepare the ground for curious and open dancing throughout the festival. Find more information about her work here...
top João Fiadeiro P   (1965) belongs to the generation of choreographers that emerged towards the end of the 1980s and gave rise to the Nova Dança Portuguesa. A large part of his training was carried out between Lisbon, NYC and Berlin where Contact Improvisation played a central role in the beginning of his career. In 1990 he founded the Atelier | RE.AL Company that supported the creation and diffusion of many choreographers including his works, regularly presented all over Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and South America. Between 1995 and 2003 he collaborated with the Portuguese theatre company Artistas Unidos where he staged plays by Samuel Beckett, Sarah Kane and Jon Fosse. Between 2008 and 2014 he co-directed with anthropologist Fernanda Eugenio the AND_Lab, a research laboratory around sustainable coexistence, working on the relation between ethics, aesthetics and politics. In 2014, after a 6 year hiatus, João comes back to his chorographic work trough the re-enactment of some of his early solos and by creating a new group piece called “What to do with what remains” in 2015. Real Time Composition has lead him to coordinate workshops in MA and PhDs programs in several schools and universities such as Forum Dança (Lisbon); ex.e.r.ce (Montpellier); SODA MA (Berlin), MA of Performance Studies (Hamburg); and the MA of Choreography and Theatre-DasArts (Amsterdam). He is currently attending a PhD degree in Contemporary Art at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. REAL TIME COMPOSITION   assisted by Carolina Campos Becoming thing. Becoming duration. Becoming event. To be occupied by a body. Being occupied with a body. Disappear in the obvious. (Re)appearing in the absence. The practice of Real Time Composition offers a set of concepts-tools that allows the practitioner to postpone the answer and prolong a “not knowing” quality a bit longer, enabling a precise and clear formulation of the questions which are carry by artists and improvisers. The condition for this practice to be successful is directly connected with the ability we have to develop and strengthen the capacity to inhibit reflex actions. The reason is simple: being "time" the most precious asset we possess when confronted with the unknown, if we act reflexively, on impulse, without taking into account the situation but solely our personal needs and points of view, the (distended, suspended, increased) time span every situation offer us, decreases dramatically. Without this (real) time, there is no duration. And without duration there is no co(m)position. Find more information and links about his background and work...
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CLASSES
FRIDAY
Alyssa Lynes USA/E   is a teacher and dancer who loves to travel and meet & move with people. She is from the US, lived in Freiburg for three years, and now lives in Barcelona. She has her undergraduate degree in Contemporary dance & Spanish and her postgraduate in bilingual education. She has taught in countries around Europe, in the US, in Israel, Thailand, and India. This year she has been a teacher in three CI foundation programs: in Malaga and Madrid, Spain, and in the Fortbildung CI Kompakt Training Intensive in Freiburg, Germany. She is interested in how communication and creative expression play out in partner dance forms. She explores this in her choreography, her teaching, and in her film work. She is a co-director of the film taken at the Freiburg Festival 2012 (“Five Ways In”). CI Waves & Whirlpools Principles While many of us enjoy flow and getting swooshed around by momentum, we can also get lost in currents that take us repeatedly into familiar movement pathways. In this class we will explore ways to invite and accept invitations that lead us into clearer directions. We’ll explore linear and circular possibilities and use them to connect to our partner/s while entering into, maintaining, or leaving physical contact. We’ll research counterbalance and push to reverse directions. When in whirlpool dances, we’ll develop how we can use spirals to change levels and move into and out of lifts with ease. These principals can support us to choose or change the speed, the level, the direction; leading us to confidently play in the ebb and flow of a CI dance. Bryce Kasson USA/ARG/GER   is an improviser—dancer, musician, clown— and teacher. Since 2000 he has been teaching Contact Improvisation, dance improvisation and movement technique in South America, USA and Europe. His teaching incorporates ongoing studio practice in Contact Improvisation and Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Scores, as well as fundamentals of Steve Paxton’s Material For the Spine. In recent years his studio work and teaching are also deeply nourished by both a personal meditation practice as well as Contemplative Dance Practice. He is keenly interested in the moment when an action becomes meaningful, either to the actor or the viewer—whether it’s a new experience of the body in the studio, or a powerful image found or constructed onstage. Multiply! Principles Often, while dancing, our awareness is dominated by a few juicy points of contact, while many other moments of touch fly by unnoticed. In this class, we will experiment with ways to activate our awareness of these “hidden” points of contact, and to engage with multiple points simultaneously. Relaxing our goal orientation, we will look for the pleasure in small fulcrums, tiny resistances, and unexpected connections. The class will finish with an opportunity to continue this subtle, multivalent dance, and/or experiment with how to maintain and even grow this awareness of multiple points as the dance gets bigger and faster. Ivan Baucia ARG   meets Contact Improvisation in 1995; it is an event of great importance in his life. He relates to CI taking classes with different teachers, attending CI Jams and CI Festivals regularly, as well as participating in research groups. Besides, he becomes acquainted with other disciplines such as Capoeira and Tai Chi. In 2005 he settles in countryside of Sierras de Córdoba, Argentina. From then onwards, his relationship with CI becomes part of his daily life. He is involved in the practice, research and transmission of CI in South America. It’s in CI where he finds a language which offers him the freedom to explore and place his identity in movement. Around the Dialogue Between the Bodies Principles Working on the detail of the potentiality of touch, weight and direction, as the raw material of our practice. Concentrating on communication as a phenomenon, in the relationship with other bodies. The rhythm created in the meeting, the manifested presence, the perception of physicality. A time that we create and inhabit together. A relaxed, ready-to-change body. Organizing our training in relation to the axis and the center of the body, and questioning: What is the limit of my stability, where does the fall starts? How do I get in and out of contact? How do I receive and reject a body.
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Mario Ghezzi I   is a performer, movement and CI researcher, yoga teacher and chinese foot reflexology operator. He starts studying contemporary dance, improvisation and CI with Alesandro Certini and Charlotte Zerbey of Company Blu, and in 2008 starts co-teaching CI with C. Zerbey. He has been teaching CI classes and intensives in Italy, Spain, Germany, Hungary. His personal research in movement and improvisation is influenced by experiential anatomy, energetic structures, Taoism, Tai Chi and inspired by the teaching of Nita Little. As dance/movement teacher he's interested in discover our personal ways of dancing and performing. He regularly teaches CI and yoga, and performs in site specific projects with dancers, actors, musicians. Mario is a co-organizer of the ItalyContactFest. Rivers and Mountains Principles Many times I have had the sensation that in CI to be light we need to be rooted, to be stable we need to became fluid, and I had perceived the physical contact as a landscape rich of different qualities, like rivers and mountains. In this class we could experience our body possibilities to transform itself passing through solid qualities to a fluid qualities and from fluid to solid ones. We could notice our sensations, images, emotions that can arise in “staying” in these two qualities while dancing and meeting the partner. Mobility-stability, a polarity that often passes through our movement, dancing CI, sometimes leaving traces one in the other.
Miriam Wolodarski SWE/USA   is a performing and teaching artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has been supported by residency programs at CounterPULSE, TragantDansa, Centre Cívic Barceloneta, Climate Theater, Danceground Keriac, Earthdance, The Hemispheric Institute, and others. She performs with Scott Wells & Dancers, Sarah Shelton Mann, and Rosemary Hannon, among others, and is currently managing The Finnish Hall, an arts and community space in Berkeley. Miriam received her MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University, where she investigated CI, viewpoints, and contemplative dance, and danced in Barbara Dilley's "dEsoLATe DeliGht” ensemble. Her CI practice is also influenced by training in Axis Syllabus, BMC, physical theater, butoh, and circus. Fall to Grace Principles Falling is key to CI, yet falling isn’t something we do, it’s something the Earth’s gravity does to us. Framing the dance in this way, as a response to everything that is already happening in the physical environment, can open up a great sense of freedom and possibility. What we can then do is manage falls: resisting or yielding to inertia, redirecting our masses, leveraging momentum, or adding force. CI is an ever-evolving experiment that resists codification: dancers must therefore rely first and foremost on their own senses to guide them both to safety, and to adventure. In this class, we’ll look at certain anatomical cues and motoric principles that can help us venture safely into known and unknown states of counterbalance, falling, rising, swinging, and flying.
Tal Avni ISR   is an artist, therapist and performer. Practicing Contact Improvisation is a key factor in his body mind health maintenance schedule, and an investigation tool by which, he learns how to learn. The base of his movement studies comes from martial arts, Kempo Jitsu. He has later danced in the contemporary dance group of "adama" where contact was a major tool to extract themes and language. He then went on to join circus "Florentine" where he practiced clowning and other abilities. Music is another strong aspect in his life, and he has a rock group, "Lubazuk", writing the texts and music. Today he is performing in several different venues and teaches CI around the world. Tal is also a certified child'space practitioner, using Feldenkries to support undeveloped babies. Are you available? Principles What is CI ? Is it not a dance? And if so, shouldn’t we perhaps be “dancing” more? An important question for me would be: does one do CI or does one dance CI? In my long years of observing contact I have noticed that once people engage in touch, it becomes quite hard to disengage, and it seems to me that this concept of staying “in-touch” might reduce the potential of a more wider sensation. I’m interested to deepen the relationship between the dancer and the dance, practicing methods to enrich the solo dance to bring more awareness to the space inside the body and the space outside the body. Not hurrying to touch or be touched, rather find a more spacious way to meet up with other “bodies”.
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SATURDAY
Abhilash Ningappa IND   is a performer, teacher and choreographer working mainly in India and Europe. He is the artistic director of Play Practice Artists residency Program in India, which brings artists from various disciplines to work and support an interdisciplinary approach to CI. He post graduated in SEAD (Salzburg) and Post Masters in APASS (Advanced performance and scenography studies, Belgium) on a movement research project called PLAY PRACTICE. He is a yoga practitioner and a martial art teacher, trained in Kalari Payattu and contemporary dance, started his training in India, and later travelled in India and Europe working and practicing. Body in Motion   This class will focus on Improvisation through contact, working on fundamentals like breath, speed and energy, involving the core structure of the body influenced by different methods of Kalari Payattu and contemporary dance, focusing mainly on dancers relationship with the space and the partner; staying in contact through touch and working with the space through movement with a specific focus on fluidity and balance. The practice is about identifying our way of physically expressing certain situations, like a moment of confrontation, and dealing, accepting or reacting. Inventing a score to create an incident, and letting the body react and the mind follow, and other way around. Using senses to provoke emotions created through incidents. Identifying the space filled with accumulated information through movement and research. Alex Guex CH   teaches workshops and classes of Contact Improvisation intensively since 2011 in France, Italy, Switzerland, and USA. He has been trained as a movement art-therapist in California with Anna Halprin. Among his most prominent teachers are Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Nancy Stark Smith, Urs Stauffer, Fredericke Trochner, Ray Chung. His interest in the development of the body during the very first years of life, is a base for his dancing and his approach. Using principles of Body-Mind Centering (he’s currently studying at the school of BMC) as a ground for CI, his approach introduces essential ways to refine awareness/kindness to the body in the experience of touch and movement. The Master of Tone   The master of our tone is how I am used to call our digestive tract. Actually, it’s all of our organs and fluids, which are supporting our structure and setting the basic tone of our movement/posture. However, in this class we will focus on the digestive tract: our soft front axis, experiencing how it supports our spine/eyes/neck - how it sets a strong polarity connected to earth - how it helps to follow a rolling/sponging point of contact and/or dealing with what Nancy Stark Smith calls the 3 last cm (meeting the floor). From this awareness, “matching each others tone” will be our goal, in order to get under the surface, to have a volume, meeting a volume, an animal presence meeting another animal presence, inviting a deep connection with our partner(s). Let’s digest together the nutritive value of contact through our digestive tract!
Alice Godfroy F   works in the space between. Between dance and poetry, theory and practice, academic and artistic worlds, looking for their articulation. She is currently professor-researcher in Dance studies at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis (France). Dancing from early childhood, she specializes gradually in Improvisation and chooses Contact Improvisation as her favourite field of research, performance and transmission. She is member of the Cie Dégadézo (Strasbourg) since 2011, initiator of LdB an improviser’s collective, artistic collaborator for various scenic projects, she explores the knowledge’s of the dancing bodies and the processes of poetizing inside their movements. Variations Around the Puppet   A puppet cannot move by itself, it can only be moved. The puppet offers us an interesting metaphorical model to explore the different ways to be moved in our CI dances: from the most tangible way (I’m responding to the physical touch of my partner) to the subtlest way (I’m playing with the sensorial memory or the imagination of a touch). Working mostly with eyes closed, we develop the capacity we have to hallucinate the touch, i.e. to be moved by an imaginary partner, which can allow us to expand the quality of our dance. Also to make visible all these invisible threads we create in our relation with the others and the space around.
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Ville Johansson FIN   I have been dancing CI for 16 years. During these years I’m interested to analyze dance with Newtonian physics. But my body understand much more of this than me. That's why I like CI so much, its surprises and harmony. From 2002, I have been teaching CI workshops and classes at Helsinki CI community. I taught CI on international CI Festivals: Contact meets contemporary, Ibiza, Kiev, Skiing on skin, NIF, Vilnius. I´m part of the team of Finnish contact festival Skiing on Skin since 2008. Co-organizer of -ECITE 2010, and co-organizer NIM - Nordick Impro Meeting 2002. Not too Much, not too Little   Using the body easily and effortlessly, and combining this aim with some analysis of physics theories, will offer us lot of reflecting points. Mixing physical sensation and images from physics, this class we will clarify your dance from unnecessary colors. We will focus on a "neutral" way of dancing. The reference for finding "neutrality" comes from physics. We will clarify the point of contact. Find natural rhythms for body, open ourselves to receive momentum through impulses. Giving weight with no pressing nor holding back, supporting not lifting. We will give feedback to each other and work together on proposed ideas. Bring pen and paper if you want to write. This class is a collaboration.
Lea Kieffer F/GER   is a performer/dance-maker whose work focuses on improvisation, the power of imagination, wilderness and CI. She combines a deep interest in physical challenges and bodywork somatic practices. She's interested in what's behind the shape, in the raw intentions that create the architecture of a dance. Since 2012 she collaborates with her partner of crimes Rocio Marano, they act under “Los Ninjas” identity (could also be named as “ Bruce Lee's daughters are doing contact”). Together, they create movies, performances, workshops and events. She's a nomad artist performing and teaching in Europe and overseas. Wild Contact with Ninja Flavor   Contact Improvisation is a wild territory that requires openness and readiness for change at anytime. How do we awake and make these resources available? Where do we dance from, in order to be ready for anything? How to embrace complexity and the uniqueness of every moment, and develop resources to navigate through them. Can imagination support this? This class is an invitation to go wild, to be available and elastic with the body with the imagination, to go beyond what is known and identified as safe, to be moved and move the space, with a ninja flavor in the back of the mouth, soft and sharp, daring, ready to shape shift and turn into wind.
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MONDAY
Mary Pearson USA/UK   collided with CI at Oberlin College (USA), while earning a B.A. in Visual Art and studying dance. Her CI practice took root at the mittwochsjam (Berne), contacfestival Freiburg, with Nancy Stark Smith (Earthdance) and the Liverpool Improvisation Collective (UK). She began teaching CI in 2009 (Liverpool John Moore’s University) and has since taught in Liverpool, Leeds, and Glasgow (UK), and mentored at Ponderosa/P.O.R.C.H performance. A multi-disciplinary performance artist, she trained in physical theatre (Kiklos Teatro, IT), comedy improvisation, classical & contemporary dance, and voice. She tours solo performance and teaches FAILURE Lab workshops. www.mpearsonater.com Contradict me, Please!   Contrary to popular belief... flow is not the end of the story. Let’s rediscover risk playing with CI paradoxes. To assume makes an ass out of u and me. Maybe the dance I think you want is not the most fun we could have. Bored of harmony, darling? Where is the tension in my attention? Can I reach between sensations felt deep within my body, and what I see outside my body? Starting slowly, developing readiness to shift tone and change speed, reading the backspace with the spine, we can prepare for joyful failures: soft landings and collisions! Letting eyes ride along with the skull, landing in the outer landscape, we can ‘read’ space, make choices – let’s see what fun we can have from there. Defne Erdur TUR   is a performing artist trained in Sociology, Art Therapy, Dhammakaya Meditation & Body Therapies (Deep Tissue, Integrative Cranio and Trigger Point & Movement) currently doing her PhD in dance. Her movement practice is intensified around CI, Axis Syllabus, Experiential Anatomy, Skinner Releasing & Authentic Movement. She regularly teaches at the State Conservatory and CI Turkey (ci-turkey.org) in Istanbul, and at ImPulsTanz in Vienna. She also travels to teach around the world - in Zurich, Dijon, Athens, Cyprus, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Thailand. Defne is also the co-founder & editor of www.idocde.net dedicated to the documentation of contemporary dance education. Embodying Time Somatics into CI We do measure time, but do we really understand it?! Let alone understanding; let’s sense, reflect on & play together in & around it. Let’s see if we can define it; how it passes through our body-minds & through space as we share it? Diving into the field of sensory experiences let’s work on grasping it, i.e. seeking ways of embodying time as we meet in the dance. Sinking into the ‘skinesphere’ –to find out liberated & sovereign places to move from. Easing into a flow in the ‘kinesphere’–to let go & start trusting the playful mind & knowing body. Allowing individual pathways to merge as we are trusting that the joyful & easeful puzzles of CI will eventually emerge then & there, in body time!
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TUESDAY
Kees Lemmens NL   as a dancer I am richly inspired by other fields of knowledge; having studied architecture and some philosophy. and having worked in architecture and fine-arts. I love how especially CI teaches me about the body, other people, the world. Travelling a lot for dancing, I worked with many international teachers. Taking and giving workshops I see it as a learning together. I have thaught at the LAK-theatre Leiden, the VAK Delft, and presently at The New Dance Center in The Hague. I (co-)organize and teach at CI-events in the Netherlands and abroad. The Falling Underdancer   We are normally supported by the Earth, which may not sound so exciting. But what if the access to this support is changing dynamically, and out of our individual control? For example when, during a lift, the “underdancer” rather than 'the flyer' falls; when the support actually fails? Of course: then the “overdancer” or 'flyer” will probably fall as well, which means we'll be falling together. Wouldn't that be great fun?! I'd love to fall with you! Let's playfully research failing support in a build-up of falling down. In a sense even birds in full flight are supported by the Earth. Rather than flying however, we will let falling and wonderfully failings our dance happen. We may find how security, or even stability, might be improved by mobility and instability? Nina Wehnert GER   teaches BMC®, CI and Yoga in classes, workshops and retreats around Europe, at dance festivals, and contemporary dance schools (SEAD, HZT, Tanzfabrik). She is certified as a Somatic Movement Educator (BMC®), and studied Embodied Anatomy&Yoga. In her classes she has great joy to immerse deeply into the exploration of movement, sensing and perceiving, the development of the body and the quest for being human. She studied with Nancy Stark-Smith, Kirstie Simson, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, Jörg Hassmann and Christine Mauch. She is on the board of "Glia", the german-speaking BMC® Association. Soft and Strong Somatics into CI The support of Diaphragms: diaphragms are horizontal muscular-fascial structures in our body. Pelvic, thoracic, vocal, cranial diaphragms and the diaphragms in our feet and hands. They are connecting and dividing spaces in our body and give us support for flexible, fluid movement that is oscillating throughout the body. We will explore the bouyant quality of the diaphragms, their support for alignment, integrity and breath; as well as their relationship to three dimensional movement. The volumetric feeling in our body through the movement of our diaphragms and breath will support us in trusting, expanding into basic CI skills like bodysurfing, giving weight, moving into the backspace, lifting and jumping.
MUSICIANS David Leahy NZ/UK   Originally from New Zealand, David Leahy has spent the last 18 years living and working in the UK as a double bass player, composer and contact improviser. David’s experience across the arts spreads across performance, practice, teaching and research. He is currently working on a practice based research PhD investigating aspects of spatialization (performers and audience moving) within an improvised musical performance, while continuing to work as an accompanist for Contemporary dance and CI classes. David regularly facilitates both the danced Underscore practice, devised by Nancy Stark Smith and the Music-based Underscore which is his own adaptation of this practice. At the heart of his practice is a deep level of listening and a constant process of questioning 'what is needed?' within the performance or practice space. This regularly translates within a dance space as a varied array of musical offerings, broken up by long periods of no instrumental input at all. These periods of instrumental silence provide the dancers a welcome opportunity to reclaim control of the sonic space around them and to also reconnect with their own inner timing away from any external pulse or melody.   Jan Lee UK   is an improviser, musician, dancer from the UK. Working from unfolding streams of perception and relationship to the immediate environments, she creates soundscapes and music on her keyboard, flute, voice, toys, loops. She researches playing between music and dance in a fluid relationship, grounded in listening and playfulness. In dancing contact she finds ways in as a musician to support and infuse energy through spaces of jam, class, performance. Jan feels passionately about holding spaces for dance that is both porous and challenging in its music output and celebrating a dynamic and equal relationship between musician and dancer. She is inspired by the musician Mike Vargas' thoughts on collaborative negotiations (see his article CQ 2013) and is intending to focus her research and playing on this, during the coming year's contact dances. www.janlee.org Jan has collaborated with David for a number of years playing for his underscore sessions as well as taking part in his Masters research into a Music based Underscore. While David has participated in Jan's current research into dancers taking on more autonomy in relation to music.
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