A 3-day exploration of the human chemistry in Contact Improvisation

If you're dancing physics, you're dancing contact. If you're dancing chemistry, you're doing something else.
Steve Paxton (1987)

To move within physics is to realize your body. To dance with chemistry is to accept your soul. Combining both could be the most exhilarating thing you have ever done
Touch & Play (2010)

Our web will be up next week with all the details and background information.

Touch & Play Festival
Exploring the human chemistry in Contact Improvisation

Donnerstag, 29. April bis 3. Mai 2010
Ort: Schwelle 7 und Uferstudios
Veranstaltungslink: http://wwwtouchandplay.eu

Touch & Play Festival
5 Tage – 20 Lehrer – 40 Workshops
Das fünftägige Workshop-Festival in Berlin untersucht die „zwischenmenschliche Chemie“ der zeitgenössischen Tanzform „Contact Improvisation“. Mehr als 20 internationale Experten bieten vom 29.4-3.5.2010 in der Schwelle 7 über 40 Workshops an. Anhand verschiedener Körpertechniken und -praktiken können die Teilnehmer erforschen, dass Gefühle und Emotionen Teil des Tanzes sind. Anmeldung unter http://wwwtouchandplay.eu

Contact Improvisation ist ein zeitgenössischer Tanzstil, der sowohl von Amateuren (in Berlin wöchentlich 4 Jams) getanzt wird als auch zur Grundausbildung von Profis zählt. Dabei geht es um die aktive Entdeckung aller Bewegungsmöglichkeiten, die zwei oder mehr menschliche Körper ausführen können (siehe http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_Improvisation ).

Das Festival bietet den Teilnehmern eine große Auswahl von 40 verschiedenen Workshops an, darunter zu den Themen Yoga, Tantra, Massagetechniken und natürlich Contact Improvisation aus diversen Perspektiven. Dafür sind 20 internationale CI-Lehrer und andere Experten eingeladen, darunter Alice Godfroy, Angela Doniy, Anikó Zsófia Überhardt, Daniel Hayes, Daniel Mang, Dieter Heitkamp, Federico Finamore, Felix Ruckert, Irmela Kästner, Jorgos Fokianos, Julie Mona Hunger, Keith Hennessy, Michael Hartenfels, Maren Emde, Mo Herzinger, Norbert Pape, Reka Balogh, Sabine Sonnenschein uvm. Während des Festivals stehen den Teilnehmern zwei kleinere Räume als Open Space für Tanz-Labor-Forschung zur Verfügung.

Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6 HH 1. OG (Nähe Uferstudios)
13357 Berlin – Wedding
http://www.schwelle7.de
Email: info@felixruckert.de
Verkehrsverbindung: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz

TOUCH & PLAY FESTIVAL
A 5-day exploration of the human chemistry in contact improvisation

April 29th – May 3rd 2010
Schwelle 7, Berlin / Germany
Further information: http://www.touchandplay.eu


Welcome to the first edition of the Touch&Play Festival. This five-day event will break open Contact’s physicality to touch and play with the human chemistry that lies beneath. Together with 16 different teachers and artists we will be investigating those aspects of CI that are so often taken for granted or shied away from in our jams, classes and communities. We will be looking at the intimacy involved in creating close and improvised physical contact with another person. We will research the impact of emotions on our dances, engage with our hormones and fears, explore our sensuality by bringing our senses into the game, and create a safe and consensual space for people to investigate the place of sexuality in their dance and play.

Festival teachers:
Dieter Heitkamp, Keith Hennessy, Angela Donnie, Felix Ruckert, Daniel Hayes, Mamen Agüera Perez, Julie Mona Hunger, Ali & Krisana, Mo Herzinger, Jorgos Fokianos, Sabine Sonnenschein, Daniel Mang, Federico Finamore, Michael Hartenfels, Philipp Wittulsky, Alice Godfroy, Irmela Kastner, Andrea Keiz, And more…

Dates:
Thursday, April 29th, 6pm: opening circle
Friday – Sunday, May 1-3, 9 – night: workshops, jams, labs, party …

Fee:
Normal registration (until March 31st): 150,-
Late registration (until April 26th): 170,-

Registration starting now: http://www.touchandplay.eu/how/registration/

P.S.: For informal updates and networking visit our new Facebook network website:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&ref=ts&gid=251629184517

Location: Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6 HH 1. OG
13357 Berlin/Germany
http://www.schwelle7.de
TRAFFIC LINK: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz
http://maps.google.de/maps?daddr=13357+Berlin,+Uferstr+6

Saturday May 1st
1 – 3pm

Saturdays May 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th
2 – 3pm

These jams take place following class at 1pm.

One of the most beautiful summer resorts on the Adriatic Sea is waiting for you!

Sea, sun, nature, poetry and a lot of dance are the ingredients that make up this fantastic Jam at its 6^ edition!

Forget stress and traffic: here you will ride a bicycle or walk to get to the different sites!!

Children are welcome!

Traditionally on Saturday evening we dance poetry!
We will invite local poets to share their work, but please bring your own texts in your language for us to improvise upon if you’d like!
Accommodation in apartments near the park with swimming pool.

Please bring a sleeping bag and a towel.

Schedule: please be there Friday at 6.00pm, the jam will end around 5.30pm on Sunday

More info on the website.

P.O.R.C.H.
Ponderosa.ongoing.research.collaborative.happenings.
P.O.R.C.H.is committed to a mutual exchange between creative professionals and an ongoing dialogue in the field of dance and related forms. We aim to facilitate an artistic international exchange by creating an ongoing network that creates a bridge for our future projects. Check out our main partner in crime, the Alternative Conservatory: (www.la-alternativa.us)
P.O.R.C.H. is guided by a professional team of curators and faculty active in the creative and performance fields from various countries. In 3 one month long modules it presents a diverse training ground for a new or continuing perspective in performance and improvisational life practice.

Training Module May 24-June 20, 2010
Performance Module July 5-25, 2010
Choreographic Module 3 Aug.15-Sept 12, 2010

In collaboration with Kathleen Hermesdorf of The Alternative Conservatory with weekly Guest Teachers: Albert Matthias, Nancy Stark Smith & Mike Bates, Peter Pleyer, Stephanie Maher, Maria Franscesca Scaroni, Dag Andresson, Tove Sahlin, Frank Willins, Keith Hennessy,Pipaluk Supernova, Jen Polins, Saliq Savage.

The program is limited to 20 people. please send a letter of interest and cv.

deutsche Version siehe unten—-


FIND YOUR INNER ROCKSTAR
6 day intensive workshop with PIPALUK SUPERNOVA

WHEN:
Monday, May, 24 to Saturday, May, 29, 2010
Workshop daily from12 am – 6 pm

Saturday, May, 29, 12 am to Sunday, May, 30, 3 am:
15 HOURS PERFORMANCE- CONCERT- EXHIBITION

WHERE: Schwelle 7, Berlin, Germany


FIND YOUR INNER ROCKSTAR
„…do you have conscious or perhaps unconscious fantasies of playing mad electric guitar and screaming “fuck” into a microphone?… an intensive dance, improvisation and music laboratory + performance experiment people : professional artists in the fields of dance, music, theater, performance art, installations time.

For rockstar week Pipaluk is teaching improvisation tools and techniques including vocal training and hands on electric instruments and microphones. Dance work and choreographic tools based on release, contact and improvisation techniques are equally integrated. Pipaluk is exploring an open yet highly intense framework for creating multidimensional performance spaces where both audience and performers are constantly challenged to move into unknown territory. Android Bennet, double bass & electronics the most amazing improviser around, an accomplished classical soloist who is fearless in his approach to developing and sustaining musical improvisation and role play. read more about our work at http://halfmachine.org The specific situaltion at schwelle7 allows to transform / install the whole space during the week.

Pictures of INNER ROCKSTAR workshop November 2007 here:
http://schwelle7.free.fr/rockstar/


PIPALUK SUPERNOVA
Pipaluk (Copenhagen) is choreographer and the artistic guide for the Copenhagen based artist collective HALF MACHINE, creating huge events and multilevel installation pieces in the crossfire between installation artists, dancers, musicians, inventors, programmers, architects and more…She experiments in large scale dynamic installations and group improvisations, where each artist creates freely based on his or her specific interest, yet take part in a defined development or interactive grid. She studied dance, mime, theater and music with many great (and famous) teachers, and toured the world with her own productions in dance, performance and music.
Read more at http://www.pipaluk.net and http://www.halfmachine.org


FEE: 100 Euros

REGISTER
If you wish to participate in this workshop, please write a mail briefly stating your motivation and artistic interest to xs4jan@gmx.de

WEB: http://www.schwelle7.de/Pipaluk%20ENGL.html

SLEEPING:
We can host up workshop participants basic opportunities to stay overnight. The cost is 10 EUR a night per person. More: http://www.schwelle7.de/GAESTE.html

VENUE:
Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6, HH, 1. OG
13357 Berlin – Wedding / Germany
Phone: 49 (0) 173 – 6118404
http://www.schwelle7.de
Email: info@felixruckert.de

Traffic link: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz
http://maps.google.de/maps?daddr=13357Berlin,+Uferstr+6



--deutsche Version—-

FIND YOUR INNER ROCKSTAR,
6 Tage Intensiv-Workshop mit PIPALUK SUPERNOVA

WANN:
Montag, 24.Mai bis Samstag, 29. Mai 2010, täglich von 12:00 – 18:00 UHR

Samstag, 29. Mai 12 Uhr, bis Sonntag, 30. Mai, 3 Uhr
15 STUNDEN PERFORMANCE- KONZERT- AUSSTELLUNG – durchgehend geöffnet

WO: Schwelle 7, Berlin

FIND YOUR INNER ROCKSTAR
„…would you like to scream into a microphone and play mad electric guitar while dancing your heart out, do insane theatrical improvisations and writing popsongs…???“

Ein Laboratorium für erfahrene Tänzer, Musiker und Installations-Künstler. Wir konzentrieren uns auf den Prozess von improvisierter Begegnung hin zum Performance Material. Für die beteiligten Künstler wird es darum gehen individuell und kollektiv definierte Experimente zu generieren. In der Zusammenarbeit möchten wir Einblicke erhalten in verschiedene Möglichkeiten von künstlerischer Erfahrung und Kommunikation auf mehreren Ebenen. Wir möchten Fähigkeiten neu definieren und Autorität hinterfragen, in dem wir uns gegenseitig auf kreativen Schlachtfeldern herausfordern, Leer-Räume besetzen und Ideen ans Licht bringen. Der Prozess umfasst tanztechnisches Arbeiten, Musik, elektronische Komposition und Stimmarbeit, aber auch das praktische Gestalten von interaktiven Schaltkreisen und Auslösern wobei Medien und Installationskonzepte zum Einsatz kommen. Die Gruppenarbeiten basieren auf Interesse und professionellen Fähigkeiten.
Die speziellen Gegebenheiten der schwelle7 erlauben es den Raum innerhalb der Woche komplett zu verändern und zu gestalten. Am Samstag /Sonntag wird der Raum dann in einer 15 h Performance bespielt und ausgestellt.

Bilder vom Rockstar-Workshop November 2007 hier: http://schwelle7.free.fr/rockstar/


PIPALUK SUPERNOVA
Pipaluk (Kopenhagen) ist die künstlerische Leiterin des Kopenhagener Kollektivs HALF MACHINE, das große Events und Genre übergreifende Performance-Installationen realisiert, die im Kreuzfeuer zwischen Installations-Künstlern, Tänzern, Musikern, Erfindern, Programmierern, Architekten und anderen entstehen. Pipaluk experimentiert mit dynamischen Großinstallationen und Gruppen-Improvisationen, bei denen jeder Künstler persönlichem Interesse folgend frei arbeiten kann, zugleich aber an einer definierten Entwicklung oder einer interaktiven Partitur beteiligt ist. Sie studierte Tanz, Mime, Schauspiel und Musik mit vielen großen (und berühmten) Lehrern und tourt weltweit mit ihren eigenen Tanz-, Theater- und Musik-Produktionen.
Mehr unter: http://www.pipaluk.net and http://www.halfmachine.org


KOSTEN: 100 EUROS

ANMELDUNG
Bei Interesse am Workshop bitte ein kurzes Schreiben zu Motivation und künstlerischem Interesse an xs4jan@gmx.de

WEB: http://www.schwelle7.de/Pipaluk.html

ÜBERNACHTUNG: siehe http://www.schwelle7.de/GAESTE.html

STUDIO:
Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6, HH, 1. OG
13357 Berlin – Wedding
Phone: 49 (0) 173 – 6118404
http://www.schwelle7.de
Email: info@felixruckert.de

Verkehrsverbindung: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz
http://maps.google.de/maps?daddr=13357Berlin,+Uferstr+6

Playa Del Fuego (PDF) (http://www.playadelfuego.org) is a Burning Man Regional Event that happens twice a year with around 1000 attendees. Camp Contact is a regular camp at PDF dedicated to Contact Improv Dance and other movement and dance forms. We have a 30′ in diameter covered dome that we set up and use as our dance space. The space is available for classes and jams. In addition to Contact Improv classes, we’ve hosted Yoga, Modern Dance, Butoh, Ballet, Martial Arts and many others.

Camp Contact is devoted to providing a space for Contact Improvisation and other somatic arts to happen at various festivals and events, specifically Burning Man and related regional events. This consists of providing the organization for participating as a part of a theme camp, to include food and camping areas, kitchen, and other amenities. Classes and workshops for Contact Improvisation are provided during the festival by the camp members and friends, and the remaining time the space is available for open jams and other somatic practices such as Thai massage, acro-yoga, various dance forms and other related activities.

Toronto hosts the annual Ontario Regional Contact Jam:
May 28, 29, 30

Advance registration deadline is this Monday (May 24)
– Last chance to get the whole weekend for $75
– Good time to ask for a Toronto billet host

What, Who, When, Where:
– Contact Improvisation dance jam!
– Beginners and all levels of dance experience welcome
– Introductory workshops and all-levels mentoring
– Starts Friday May 28 at 6:00 pm
– Ends Sunday May 30 at 4:30 pm
– Dovercourt House, 805 Dovercourt Rd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
– Full weekend schedule: http://groups.google.com/group/ontario-region-contact-jam/web/weekend-schedule

All included:
– Shared performances and talent show (see below!)
– Guided warm-ups and workshops
– One-on-one mentoring
– Bodywork and healing arts
– Deejayed dance
– Two floors of contact improv
– Sumptuous food provided throughout the weekend

Cost (all-inclusive):
– $75 (just $3 per hour!) if paid by Monday May 24
– $85 payable on opening day May 28
– Create your own custom package at the door for $5 per hour
– Cheques payable to “Ontario Regional Contact Jam” may be mailed to: 18 Victor Ave, Toronto ON M4K 1A8.
– PayPal: http://tinyurl.com/OntJam65

Billeting:
– Crash in someone’s spare bedroom.
– Contact OntJam2010@contactimprov.ca ASAP

Talent Show:
– We’re having a talent show and other performances.
– Most of the performances slots are available for short (5 minute) spur-of-the-moment ideas right at the jam itself.

Call for Volunteers
– We are looking for people to help out with food prep, etc.
– Please use the contacts below

Contact:
– Inquiries: OntJam2010@contactimprov.ca
– Easier said than written: 416-427-2177 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              416-427-2177      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              416-427-2177      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
– Web page: http://contactimprov.ca/on/ontario/2010/
– RSVP on Facebook: http://facebook.com/event.php?eid=372045709502

Special guest teacher and DJ: Aaron Brandes (Brando)

Brando has been researching and teaching movement practices for over 10 years. He has taught and performed CI throughout the United States, Europe, Israel, and Guatemala. Brando has been published in the international dance journal Contact Quarterly and was a curator for CI’s 36th anniversary event. Four the past 3 years Brando has been actively engaged in the programming at Earthdance. He was one of the main organizers for the Intercontinental Contact Festival, post CI36, and has facilitated several other major festivals, jams, symposiums, and events at Earthdance. Brando received his Masters Degree in Education from Smith College and is a teaching artist at Enchanted Circle Theater.
He was a resident at the Kripalu Center for Yoga for two years and is a nationally certified Yoga instructor. Currently Brando teaches regularly in Western Massachusetts and holds space for numerous jams. Brando also is a member of the Zany Angels dance/theater company based in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Workshop: Visiting the Fundamentals of Contact Improvisation

We never get BEYOND the fundamentals. We can only aspire to master them.
– Mark Koenig

There are many concepts that are important to learn in this dance technique. Classes are crucial in that they give us all the space to take another drink from the Spring of kinesthetic intelligence and structured exploration. This then supports us to go back to our jams and open structures with new inspiration and perspective on this wonderfully expansive form. In this class we will explore some of the core physical principals of CI such as: our relationship to the floor, gradations of tone, use of gravity, feeling our partner’s structure, and safe falling.

I am also interested in seeing what questions arise through the class.

Some of the key concepts I think are essential in starting a nourishing journey into Contact Improvisation are:
Letting go of holding yourself through tightened muscles and learning the movement principles that lead to fluid and effortless dancing. Exploring how to move through space in several different varieties and gradations of Tone and Weight. Learning to soften your body so that you feel soft and light on another body. Maintaining the integrity of your structure while giving support. Feeling and understanding how your structure can receive support from the floor and from another body, so the dance becomes effortless and nourishing. Rather than getting caught in the ideas of what is supposed to happen, you can learn to pause, listen and open your dance to the endless possibilities in each moment. Learning how going up, falling back, or folding down, can all be easy and connected. Learning to luxuriate in every part of the dance.

(This workshop is open for everybody. The material will be prepared in a way that as well beginners as experienced dancers can profit fully.)

In the five years of their collaboration, co-teaching CI to beginners as well as to professional dancers all over Europe and America, Daniela and Eckhard have been developing a system of basic tools to access and deepen into Contact Improvisation.

In this workshop we will explore the center-periphery connection as a key principle to separate and reconnect the limbs to the center in different ways. Through the action of releasing and activating, reaching and folding, spiraling, etc, we will develop different movement patterns, that will help us to let go from old and inefficient ones to find ease and flow in our own pathways along the floor and through the different levels listening to gravity and momentum.

With more awareness for our own body in motion, we will be ready to connect to our partner’s body and fully commit to the dance, while we stay centered and grounded, as we enter our spherical space.
We will explore the full range of giving and receiving, from light touch (you are responsible for your own weight) to full weight sharing. Through respectful listening and body actions like scanning, sensing, reading, leaning, proposing, following, accepting, resisting, balancing, counter-balancing, etc, we will engage ourselves in an open physical dialog.
Understanding and integrating some of the principles, we will find more trust and freedom in our own body, own movements and in the communication with our partner.

Eckhard Mueller (Germany/France)
co-founder of the Contact Festival Freiburg, is enthusiastically dancing and performing CI since 1988. In his teaching he is playfully searching for depth in the understanding of the form. As a member of Cie dégadezo, he has participated in diverse choreographique dance-theater pieces since 2002.

Daniela Schwartz (Argentina/France)
is involved in the practice, preformance and teaching of CI since 1998. Memeber of Cie dégadezo. As a visual artist, she is interested in the body, space and movement in the present moment as Materia for research, expression and création. Her multiple medias : video, objects, installation are present in her practices.

More info: www.blogas.lt/contactimprov

ARTiculating Presence: The Geometry of Attention
5 day intensive workshop with NITA LITTLE

WHEN:
Monday, May 31th to Friday, June 4th, 2010
Workshop daily from12 am – 6 pm
Improvisational Performance: Friday, June 4th, 8:30 pm

WEB: http://www.schwelle7.de/Nita%20Little.html

WHERE: Schwelle 7, Berlin, Germany


ARTiculating Presence: THE GEOMETRY OF ATTENTION

Creative acts of the embodied mind are the means by which dancers non-verbally interrogate borders, enter other bodies, and define the dimensions of internal and external space. Working with the mind of the dance and the dance of the mind, this highly physical workshop will take us to the edge of our boundary definitions as it engages and trains attentional skills, informs creative knowing and encourages bold acts of physical and mental extension. Building movement vocabularies that encompass the physicality of mind, this workshop trains creative action in ensemble dance improvisation and Contact Improvisation. Strongly geared toward interpersonal interactions within an ecological understanding of space, it will ask that dancers identify imagination within their physical awareness. Here, we will learn to act with the kind of creative support that clarifies our purpose and our presence, bringing the world and the dance to life. We will reach to find the materials of interpersonal non-verbal communication as we explore the agency of presence, the speed of awareness, unconscious cognition, and the conditions of environmental imagination. This workshop bridges full physicality with changing states of awareness. We will move within a spectral array of movement possibilities as we balance the softening of physical release with the clarity of directed action. The purpose of this workshop is to inform your dance research by challenging binary ideologies as we expose the mindbody to new potentialities.

Structured to train technical as well as creative skills, this workshop will build toward an improvisational performance. Each day will be spent in theoretical discussion and physical/mental training as well as composition and practice. In this work we will investigate the resonant webs of awareness derived from movement scores that direct and modulate attention as the bases for compositional structures.


NITA LITTLE
Nita Little choreographs, performs, teaches and writes about improvisational dance and theories of embodiment in action. She participated with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and others, in the explorations that became Contact Improvisation in 1972 and has been significant in its emergence. Her work on the embodied mind and the “meaning” of attention dates back to the early 80s when she initiated a curriculum, The Mind in Motion. This work explores the range of experiential states of the embodied mind and reveals principles that define Contact Improvisation as well as ensemble dancing. She collaborated in numerous performing companies introducing Contact Improvisation throughout the United States and then initiated a number of performance groups. Her performance practice is a mix of both formal and improvisational choreography that utilizes scores.

Nita has received funding and support through the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the NEA/Dance USA National College Choreography Initiative. Her San Francisco based ensemble company, Divisadero Dance Research investigates the resonant webs of awareness derived from movement scores that direct and modulate attention as the bases for compositional structures.

Over the years Nita has been both faculty and guest artist at numerous colleges and universities including New York University, California Institute for the Arts, Texas Christian University, Temple University, Tufts University, Scripps College and UC Santa Barbara.

Nita teaches and performs regularly at national and international dance festivals including ImPulsTanz, Vienna, The Side Step Festival, Helsinki, Kontakt Budapest International Improvisation Festival, ContactFestival Freiburg, Germany, the Zip Festival, Italy, the Seattle Festival of Alternative Dance and Improvisation and the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival, Berkeley California. Nita has recently become a PhD candidate as she is completing her doctorate in Performance Studies at The University of California, Davis.

MORE: http://www.nitalittle.com/

FEE: 150 Euro
REGISTER: per email to xs4jan@gmx.de

SLEEPING:
We can host up workshop participants basic opportunities to stay overnight. The cost is 10 EUR a night per person. More options: http://www.schwelle7.de/GAESTE.html

VENUE:
Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6, backyard, 2. floor
13357 Berlin – Wedding / Germany
Phone: 49 (0) 173 – 6118404
http://www.schwelle7.de
Email: info@felixruckert.de

Traffic link: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz
http://maps.google.de/maps?daddr=13357Berlin,+Uferstr+6