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Mirva Mäkinen (Finland)

Contact & Contemporary - creating, moving, communicating

How it is to have contemporary dance technique as a warm up of contact improvisation or vise versa? What kind of way learning series of movement can influence your contact improvisation technique and how CI might change your way of moving when you learn movement phrase from someone else? How different techniques come together in your body? After learning something can we separate one technique from other? Or is it just that we learn different skills and after learning it becomes one in your body? What it is to embody something? 

We will learn different warm up techniques, series of floor work, different combinations through the space, principals of movements, and we will create dancing dialogue by using touch, movement, weight and balance.  

I am curious how do we move our center when we move alone or together with partner. How can we continue movement after loosing touch from partner? Is there any gap between? Where our movement is coming from and where it is going at? Is there difference when i am moving alone or with partner? I think body is designed by nature, or has evolved in nature, it is like landscape with great efficiency.

Mirva Mäkinen

I am a 35-year old dancer. I graduated (MA) from the Dance Department of the Theatre Academy of Finland in 2000. After studies I have worked widely in Finland as a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. From 2000 onwards I have acted as dance teacher and lecturer for dance at the Kallio highschool of Performing Arts. I have also taught at domestic and international dance, contact improvisation festivals. Beside that I work as a freelance dancer and choreographer. At the moment I am working in dance company Karttunen Kollektiv and in Circo Aereo, company for new circus.
In dance I am interested in the feeling of flow and soft movement. I love to investigate movement, its rhythm and different ways of inhabiting the body. A feeling of dancing is created by being able to switch the body from total relaxation to extreme intensity and “tension”. I call this the body’s ability to breathe and create movement. My ideal is curiosity and presence, which makes every moment true and meaningful.
I have learned CI by practicing, studying, teaching and performing. I love to explore my body and I am curious for all the movement possibilities. I find other inspiration from contemporary dance, astanga yoga, meditation, aerial dance and acrobatics.

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Rick Nodine (GB)

Spherical Orientation

We have to deal with new issues of orientation in relation to the floor/horizon/room/partner whenever our head leaves the vertical axis. Rick’s work drawls on the structure of the Contemporary Dance class, using choreographed movement to illustrate principles of orientation in spherical space.  Starting with simple floor patterns which facilitate efficient movement in relation to the floor, we then move across the space practising phrases which support the skills of the Contact Improviser. Forward, side and backward rolls, dives, knee slides, handstands, off axis patterns and floor surfing.  We will take these skills and patterns into contact dances, exploring the subtlety required to achieve the more acrobatic aspects of contact improvisation.

Rick Nodine

After completing a degree in Biology, Rick Nodine went on to study Contact Improvisation with the pioneers of the form. He has been studying CI for 20 years and teaching for 14 years. He began a performing career in the early 90's, and has danced in many contexts including theatre, dance theatre, digital media, television, mixed ability, site specific and pure dance. In 2001 Rick became a member of staff at London Contemporary Dance School where he teaches Composition and Improvisation. For the past 16 years he has collaborated with many dancers, actors and musicians to create improvised performance (Jovair Longo, ESP, 5 men dancing, Jamie McCarthy, Kate Brown, Gaby Agis and Neat Timothy).  Since 1997 Rick has created choreography. In spring 2008 Rick was Movement Director for The Revenges’ Tragedy (Melly Still) at The National Theatre and he was Movement Director for the Opera Rusalka at Glyndebourne in 2009.

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Victoria Hauke (D)

directing the movement of energy (and being surprised) -

contemporary dance technique in dialogue situations and CI

Release work and the dynamic aspect of energy movement - similar to processes in Tai Chi - are essential to my work.

In this class contemporary dance technique will be smoothly connected with improvisation scores and contact work. As a base we will focus on the interchanging use of weight - sinking, falling, rebounding and streaming - as a source for movement energy. This supports the connection to the floor, openess, elasticity and organic timing. It creates a physical and sensory condition to let intention and physical information move with clearity through the body.

We will explore various ways how to establish a 'dialogue like relation' with our environement. It could be the floor and gravities response, a visualized organic-architectural structure in the body, the space or another person.

In whatever way we move, our focus lies on investigating how energy moves through the body. How we can reach into and out of the body. We observe the released movement, that we surf and thrive on, or that we intentionally trigger. And we direct the flow, which includes the surprise to see how the body articulates itself. This kind of awareness and skill will open up a whole range of creative compositional choices. It can be helpfull for „pure“ dance, as well as for a more emotional and theatrical performance intention.

We will explore it in joint ventures of set movement phrases and improvisation scores and extend this spacial approach into partner and contact work.

Victoria Hauke

works as a freelance choreographer/dancer, based in Hamburg.

After her dance education in New York, including studies in contemporary dance (among others Diploma at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary dance), release techniques, ballet, yoga, voice and tai chi, she has worked with numerous choreographers and theatre directors in USA, Europe and China, e.g. with battery dance company, N.Y., Clara Andermatt, Paulo Ribeiro, Rui Horta in Lisbon, with the theatre project Mu-Production in Beijing, or with Felix Ruckert.

Since 1999 she has repeatedly been realising projects in collaboration with visual artists. These works and installations were often concipated in the context of exihibitions, of privat or public „not-theatre“ spaces like flats, empty shops, shop-windows, clubs or movie theatres. From 1991 on she created about 40 pieces, which were shown in national and international venues. Currently she is touring her new piece „( )else“. Another premiere is coming up in June 2010.

Victoria has, among others, teaching assignements at K3, Choreografic Centre Tanzplan/Hamburg, at Tanzlabor21, Mousonturm/Frankfurt, at Theaterakademie Hamburg, Fachhochschule Trier. She was asked to teach at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste/Burg Giebichenstein, at Hochschule für Bildende Künste/Braunschweig, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, „Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Arts, Fine Arts & Communication“, University of Hyderabad, Indien. She has an additional education in Spiraldynamik , Grad I + II and a

diploma in Kulturmanagement.

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Sebastian Garcia Ferro (ARG) & Ulla Mäkinen (FIN)

Performance Laboratory

in collaboration with Barcelona International Dance Exchange (BIDE, see below)

The laboratory is intended for people with strong interest into researching movement and presence on stage, and with some experience in dance, other disciplines or performing arts.

The laboratory is not a teacher-led workshop, but a collaborative research facilitated by Sebastian Garcia Ferro and Ulla Mäkinen. Each participant contributes to the work by bringing in questions, thoughts, ideas, images, curiosity and inspiration. The facilitators create a structure where the work can take place, developing ways to explore alone and in collaboration with others.

The theme of the laboratory is performance. During the festival, the lab participants will have opportunities to show and share their work-in-processes to the whole festival.

To participate to the Performance Laboratory, we ask you to write us a few lines in the registration form to tell us about your interest, and why you would like to participate in the lab.

Barcelona International Dance Exchange (BIDE)

is an annual event and an ongoing container of research in laboratory structures, aimed for professional artists in the field of dance. BIDE takes place each year during March in Barcelona. BIDE is initiated and organized by Sebastian Garcia Ferro, Ulla Mäkinen and Daniel Werner. In collaboration with the CmC Festival, Sebastian and Ulla will bring in their experience and interest in the form of laboratories.

As a partner of CmC, BIDE will offer 2 participants of the Performance Lab in CmC 2010 a scholarship to participate in BIDE in March 2011. Please note that for the BIDE event we ask for you to have a professional artistic calling.

Sebastian Garcia Ferro (Arg / Barcelona)

www.youtube.com/sgfdancecompany

Sebastián García Ferro is a Choreographer, Dancer, Contact Improvisation Performer and Musician from Argentina based in Barcelona – Spain. He directs his own company since 1999, creating 16 dance pieces, did more than 15 choreographies residences and commissions in Europe, won several prizes like the 1prix in the 12maspalomas dance contest in 2007. He regularly collaborates with other projects as an improviser and performer, touring in more than 17 countries. He is one of the directors of the Barcelona International Dance Exchange (B.I.D.E.) a platform for professional choreographers, dancers and performers: www.bide.be

He regularly teaches Contact Improvisation and Composition in several festivals, dance studies around Europe and South America, he is also the residence composer and sound designer of the Phonos Fundation at the Pompeu Fabra University-Barcelona.

Ulla Mäkinen (FIN)

www.ullamakinen.com

is a dancer and dance/movement teacher, based in Helsinki. She teaches and performs contemporary dance, improvisation and contact improvisation since 2002 in events and workshops worldwide. Her interests are based in combining several somatic, body awareness and dance methods with her life philosophy and community work. She has MA in Contemporary Dance Pedagogy, and is a certified Pilates teacher as well as an Iyengar Yoga teacher trainee. She is a dedicated organizer of events such as the Contact Festival Finland (www.contactfestival.fi) and Barcelona International Dance Exchange (www.bide.be).

In her MA studies, she wrote her thesis about working in laboratories. You can read this on her web page, www.ullamakinen.com/writings.