Contact Improv Dance Workshops:Sunday Workshops from 2-6pm

*Intermediate/Advanced
Feb 12, 2012 – Timing for flight
April 15, 2012 – Trios in Motion

All Levels
April 1, 2012 – Duets within Ensemble
June 10, 2012 – Momentum and Direction

We will research how directing our movement and thoughts can guide us towards greater ease and options in partnering. The Contact Improv skills taught in the workshops will include both softer rolling points and dynamic lifts. Exercises will guide you to access your core-support, spiral, and multi-dimensionality. We will learn to listen and respond in the moment to ourselves, partner/s and the space around us. The exercises taught are informed by the Alexander Technique principles of whole body integration and freeing patterns of tension to find more effortless and efficient partnering.

The workshops will be taught using a student-centered research approach, where you will have opportunities to direct the learning and sometimes will be called on to take roles of leadership and facilitation.
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Spontaneous Composition: Improv Ensemble Dance Workshops

Sunday Workshops from 2-6pm
April 1 – Duets within Ensemble
May 13 – Habits & Choices
June 17 – “Ready for anything, prepared for nothing” (F.M. Alexander)

We will draw from insights of the natural world to deepen our research in group improvisation. Drawing from nature we will uncover our instincts to respond to others, to our own emotions and body, and to the environment around us. Scores will be taught to develop awareness of the choices available to us on how, when, and in what way to respond with our whole self. How our choices affect others, ourselves and the environment will be explored. Be ready for anything!

We will create movement as a group in the moment, exploring physical, spatial, emotional, rhythmical, and vocal scores. Solos, duets, and trios will be framed within the ensemble. Movement exercises will be taught to engage your imagination and will draw upon your body and mind as inspiration to dance. The exercises will awaken your spatial perception while deepening your connection with yourself in relation to others.

The workshops will be taught using a student-centered research approach, where you will have opportunities to direct the learning and sometimes will be called on to take roles of leadership and facilitation.

The last half hour of each workshop will be open for the public to witness and view our process.

*Int/Adv: Intermediate to advanced level (min. one year of regular CI practice or equivalent).

No-drop ins. Pre-registration required.

Suzanne Liska is a dance artist and teacher and Co-Artistic Director of Flightworks with Diana Groenendijk. She is also the co-founder of the aLOFT Project, a Toronto Improv performance ensemble with guest dancers from Canada, USA, and Europe. As a company dancer for Kathleen Rea’s REAson d’etre Dance Productions, Suzanne danced in the three times Dora Award nominated “Long Live” and most recently in June 2011, for “Vivid 4”. Suzanne has danced in film for Karen Kaeja’s “Mika’s Alley” which screened at the American Dance Festival. She has also danced for choreographers Sue Lee and Pam Johnson and has performed at Dusk Dances, Dance Matters, Art Whispers, DARK, and Harbourfront Centre, as well as many other venues and festivals. Suzanne teaches professional dancers, actors, high school and elementary school students, and community dancers. Her teaching is informed by studies with Pam Johnson, Nina Martin, “Viewpoints” approaches, and the Alexander Technique. Suzanne is currently a faculty teacher at the Randolph Academy for Performing Arts.

Submissions requested for The International Contact Dance Film Festival. The International Contact Dance Film Festival is produced by REAson d’etre dance productions. The festival’s mandate is to provide a venue for contact dance films (films highlighting momentum-based dance and/or partnering techniques include rolling point of contact, balancing over centre of gravity, sloughing, following momentum, lifting using momentum rather than muscle power, “listening” with one’s skin surface etc.). The Inaugural International Contact Dance Film Festival will premiere in the Spring of 2013 in Toronto.

FILM SUBMISSIONS
Submission deadline:
Must be post marked by August 31, 2012. Submissions in advance of the deadline are welcome.

SUBMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS: We are looking for dance films that focus on momentum-based dance and/or partnering techniques. Momentum-based dance and/or partnering techniques include rolling point of contact, balancing over centre of gravity, sloughing, following momentum, lifting using momentum rather than muscle power, “listening” with one’s skin surface etc. Momentum-based dance or partnering methods include Contact Improvisation and affiliated methods such as Axis Syllabus, Dance Parkour or the Kaeja Approach. Choreography in the dance film can be set (i.e pre-choreographed) or created in the moment (i.e. improvised choreography). Dance films can be in the genre of narrative, theme oriented, abstract or documentary and must be sixty minutes or less. There are no limitations on productions date. All rights to the films must be held by the person or organisation submitting.

Film submission details:
Download at www.reasondetre.com

Dance in nature with elements of Butoh and Contact Improvisation.
This workshop, opened to everybody, invites you to a contact dance with nature: well rooted in the ground and in dialogue between your center and the center of the earth and those of your partners. We will go on an inward journey where we will explore the resonance of our body landscapes in tune with the natural surroundings.

Alone and as a group, we will engage in a sensual and playful approach toward our environment, using our skin and senses as interfaces and spaces to meet. When we find ourselves ready to open, we can allow the dance to take us into subtle touches or perhaps wild waves.

Methods
Improvised dance (Contact improvisation, new dance) as well as movement meditation, voicework, breathing and opening to the senses. There will be a big space for playfullness and creativity and also moments of sharings with the group.

Theme this year: dance / meet the duality of nature

The second Thursday and last Friday of each month there is a CI class at Crossways Community Center in Mt Vic, the other Thursdays in the month there is a CI JAM.

Thursdays 5:15 to 7:15
Fridays 5:30 to 7:30

10-day intensive workshop (arr. June 8, dep. June 19)
with NANCY STARK SMITH

An introduction to the full spectrum of dance improvisation work that Nancy is currently exploring using contact improvisation as a base. This will encompass CI technique and practice, improvisation scores (including the Underscore), listening practice, compositional awareness, contemplative practice, jamming, and observing.

Through our dancing and watching, we will study physical and energetic changes of state, natural composition, presence, and relationship—in groups, solo, in and out of contact. Please come prepared for intensive practice (6 hours daily) and a little bit of fun!

a 5 rythms workshops combining “waves” in water and on earth. In this workshop you can discover the magic of improvisation mostly in water but also on earth, so that you will deal with the natural force of both elements.
The warm water invites you to let go and to experiment an organic and fluid way of moving. You learn how to play with its resistance and dynamic, how to transition between following the waves and making soft and clear propositions. You go into aquatic and subaquatic explorations, experience effortless breathing and play with the balance between weight and weightlessness. On land you also learn how to let yourself fall, how to stay in graceful flow or dynamic stillness, falling into motion.

Contact improvisation is a hybrid art form that draws from Aikido and Tai Chi as well as an integration of many other mind-body movement practices.
Through the immediacy of sensation, touch, and the subjective experience of gravity, these workshops engage us with the physicality of weight, force and momentum.
Physical communication, listening, and a process of ‘letting go’ takes us into ‘the unknown’ of what emerges in the dance in the present moment.
We negotiate relationship with self and each other building a sense of tuning to space and group presence.
Let’s, together, enjoy the sensitivity, exhilaration and playfulness of the dynamics of the space-between that contact improvisation opens up to us.

Val Smith.
As a dance artist and movement educator I draw directly from contact improvisation as source, passion and teacher.
I have been teaching and researched this dance form since 1998 throughout NZ, Australia, and the US and continue to want to learn and develop my understanding of its’ possibilities.
Inspired by the intrinsic social politics of contact improvisation, I love how there is always more to know of how touch and connection with others in space opens understandings of self, relationship and humanity.
There is so much more to know!

I acknowledge the following people as significant influences in my contact improvisation practice: Alys Longley, Stu Phillips, Nita Little, Danny Lepkoff, Joey Lehrer, Neil Marcus and Steve Paxton. Also Body Mind Centering, the research of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and other somatic practices heavily influence the material that I play with when teaching contact improvisation.

Performance Improvisation in Contact is a once a month series bringing a cast of new and rotating artists.

Where contact dancers, musicians, poets perform in a 40 minute performance that explores presence, time, space,revelation. Followed by a Contact Jam.

Dancers: Espirito Santo Mauricio, Anne Cooper, Shulamit kreaur, Adolpho Pati, Sahjari Hollands, musician John Deely

At: The Labyrinth, Saint Paul’s Anglican Curch
1135 Jervis st Vancouver BC

CALL: 778 855 7337

Performance Improvisation in Contact is a once a month series bringing a cast of new and rotating improvisation contact dancers and sound artists.

Where contact dancers, musicians, poets perform in a 40 minute performance that explores presence, time, space,revelation.
Contact Jam to follow

Dancers: Espirito Santo Mauricio, Anne Cooper, Shulamit kreaur, Adolpho Pati, Sahjari Hollands, musician John Deely

At: The Labyrinth, Saint Paul’s Anglican Curch
1135 Jervis st Vancouver BC

CALL: 778 855 7337

Performance Improvisation in Contact is a once a month series bringing a cast of new and rotating improvisation contact dancers and sound artists.

Where contact dancers, musicians, poets perform in a 40 minute performance that explores presence, time, space,revelation, poetry.
Contact Jam to follow

Dancers: Espirito Santo Mauricio, Anne Cooper, Shulamit kreaur, Adolpho Pati, Sahjari Hollands, musician John Deely

At: The Labyrinth, Saint Paul’s Anglican Curch
1135 Jervis st Vancouver BC

Please contact Espirito Santo if interested in performing as a contact dancer, musician, voice artist in the upcoming sept 21, october 19, november 16, 2012.

20TH JUNE:
20.30- WARM UP WITH K.J.HOLMES
21.30- JAM OF CONTACT IMPROVISATION

21ST JUNE:19.30- OPEN CLASS WITH K.J.HOLMES

PLEASE CONTACT US TO JOIN!

7-days research workshop for intermediate and advanced movers with Yaniv Mintzer in the Burdag Studio, surrounded by wild nature of the northern Poland

I am interested in a number of subjects for this week:
- dancing in easy-finding the natural comfort and strength of the relaxed body, alone and with partners,
- intuition, imagination, inspiration- working with associative and intuitive body systems, to invite new pathways for refreshing dances
- 360 degrees spherical space-upside-downs, flights and falls, backspace and traveling spirals, expanding and extending our dance
- the connection CI to material and ideas from the Ilan Lev Method ( a derivation of Feldenkraise work, www.ilanlev.org), hands-on material for the senses
- CI in the performative space- forms and structures which integrate material from CI into improvisation and vice versa

This is journey into known and unknown territories, come prepared for surprise, bring your laughter, imagination and curiosity!

Saturday, June 23, 2012
2:30–6:30 pm (UK time)
9:30-1:30 pm (EST)

www.globalunderscore.blogspot.com
Global Underscore coordinator: Jesse Johnson

Nancy and Mike in Chichester, UK
www.contactimprovisation.co.uk/nss—mv-visit-2012.html
UK/Chichester site coordinator: Lalitaraja, lalitaraja [at] oracledance.com

Planning has begun for this year’s Global Underscore practice…here’s an update!

Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas will be hosting/facilitating one site of the 2012 Global Underscore as part of the Somatics and Technology Conference taking place at the University of Chichester, in Chichester, UK, on Saturday, June 23, 2:30–6:30 pm (UK time) and we are basing the timing of the rest of our global practices around this.

Underscore NYC will be practicing at Eden’s Expressway simultaneously from 9:30am-1:30pm EST. Mark your calendars, start reserving space, and let us know you’re thinking about it by emailing Jesse in NYC at underscorenyc@gmail.com.

The Underscore is a framework for practicing and researching dance improvisation that Nancy has been developing since 1990 based on her work with Contact Improvisation. It is a long jamming/CI/improvisation score that guides dancers through a series of “changing states”—from solo relaxation and sensitizing to gravity and support, through group circulation and interaction, to contact improvisation engagements, then opening out to full group improvisation, and back to rest and reflection.

For the past 11 years, a Global Underscore has been occurring near the summer solstice. Conceived and organized by French dancer Claire Filmon for 10 years, the Global Underscore Solstice is an annual event during which dancers at many sites around the world practice the Underscore simultaneously.

We hope you’ll join Nancy, Mike and the other Underscores happening around the globe on June 23!

The Underscore is a framework for practicing and researching dance improvisation that Nancy has been developing since 1990 based on her work with Contact Improvisation. It is a long jamming/CI/improvisation score that guides dancers through a series of “changing states”—from solo relaxation and sensitizing to gravity and support, through group circulation and interaction, to contact improvisation engagements, then opening out to full group improvisation, and back to rest and reflection.

For the past 11 years, a Global Underscore has been occurring near the summer solstice. Conceived and organized by French dancer Claire Filmon for 10 years, the Global Underscore Solstice is an annual event during which dancers at many sites around the world practice the Underscore simultaneously.

Nancy will be hosting/facilitating one site of the 2012 Global Underscore as part of the Somatics and Technology Conference taking place at the University of Chichester, in Chichester, UK, on Saturday, June 23, 2:30–6:30 pm. All dancers with previous experience with Contact Improvisation and with the Underscore are welcome to apply/register to participate. It should be a very special Underscore!

Embedded in the Somatics and Technology Conference (http://somaticstechnologyconference2012.com/), the Chichester Global Underscore will take place in an unusual and fascinating context. Nancy will give an Underscore talk to the conference participants on Saturday morning to offer some preliminary background and outline the basic structure (Global Underscore dancers are welcome but not required to attend). Later that day, the Global Underscore practice will occur, with live music improvised/composed by Nancy’s longtime collaborator, musician Mike Vargas. The Chichester Underscore will be danced by improvisers from London and elsewhere who have had previous training in Contact Improvisation and the Underscore. There may also be a special technological component. The event will be open for observation by conference participants.

After a brief reception following the Underscore, Global Underscore dancers and observers are welcome come out together for an evening meal in a local restaurant.

We hope you’ll join us and the other Underscores happening around the globe on June 23!

To register for participation in the Global Underscore, send email with a brief description of your background with CI and the Underscore to Lalitaraja j.lalitaraja@roehampton.ac.uk.

Come for 3days and nights of dance on Lasqueti Island. Stacey and Monica have been studying for years with Peter Bingham and will bring a wealth of knowledge to 2 classes daily, plus evening jams.

All meals included as well as camping and transportation on Lasqueti.

Go to website for more details

The Sawtooth Building, 2525 8th St. in Berkeley

June 30 – July 3

The West Coast Contact Improvisation Jam: a four day Contact Improvisation JAM the weekend before July 4, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival. That’s June 30 to July 3 at the Sawtooth Building in Berkeley, from 10am to Midnight each day, Saturday Jam until 2am! Join us for four full days of jamming and peer exchange.

This jam is for beginners and experts alike. Maybe you’re new to the form and would like an opportunity to be introduced to CI in an immersive setting, or perhaps you’ve been jamming forever. Come for a single jam, or dive in for the full four days of exploration with some of the most experienced practitioners of the form.

All proceeds from this year’s event will go towards producing a fully-fledged West Coast festival in 2013, with a full schedule of classes, labs and jams. This is an opportunity for the Bay Area Contact community to come together to share, learn, dance and be inspired.

Cost for the full jam is as little as $100 before June 1rst! For more information, aditional pricing and food options, please visit http://www.interkinected.org

The West Coast Contact Improvisation JAM
The Sawtooth Building, 2525 8th St. in Berkeley
June 30 – July 3
also
Fundamentals of Contact Improvisation Intensive on June 29th from 11am to 6pm

A four day Contact Improvisation JAM the weekend before July 4, celebrating the 25th anniversary of yearly Contact Improvisation events at this location. That’s June 30 to July 3 at the Sawtooth Building in Berkeley. Join us for four full days of jamming, peer exchange and facilitated scores and warm-ups.

This jam is for beginners and experts alike. Maybe you’re new to the form and would like an opportunity to be introduced to CI in an immersive setting, or you used to dance but have fallen out of practice. Perhaps you’ve been jamming forever. Come for a single jam, or dive in for the full four days.

All proceeds from this year’s event will go towards producing a fully-fledged festival in 2013, with a full schedule of classes, labs and jams. This is an opportunity for the Bay Area Contact community to come together to share, learn, dance and get inspired.
Cost for the full jam is only $100 before June 1st!

Got Questions?

email: contact@interkinected.org

510-473-7026, leave a message.

Register Here!