Workshops

Jennifer-Lynn Crawford

favourite essentials of Contemporary technique

This class is based on a strong belief that dancing is a highly physical, and highly intelligent art - but most importantly, it is fun.  Emphasis is placed on the body as sensory and tactile, giving more depth and individuality to the physical ideas as the class progresses.  Movement develops from shorter weight-based, whole-body phrases into more exploratory ideas, usually centred around specific points of initiation, allowing space for individual decisions towards timing and quality.  Sequences rely on the individual creating a strong relationship with the ground and their own intent, using the whole of the body as potential surface.  Space is also given over to opportunities for freeer dancing to weave through/together set ideas.

Jennifer-Lynn Crawford

studied in her native Canada prior to crossing the Atlantic; the recipient of a Chevening Scholarship and Chalmers Grant, she moved to the UK to join EDge, the postgraduate performance group at London Contemporary Dance School .  Subsequent to this, she was awarded her MA with distinction in 2005.  Her work has been shown in several countries, she performed extensively with Hofesh Shechter’s deGeneration tour and took part in Siobhan Davies’ Bank Project (2007).  Jennifer-Lynn has taught on both the undergraduate and postgraduate programs at London Contemporary and works freelance as often as possible; she is currently on faculty at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, where she lectures in release-based technique.

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Markus Hoft (D)

Mission impossible! - Contact into Partnering

Partnering are choreographed contact techniques. We will create short contact sequences, but even more explore the principle for creating a sequence in my jam dancing. I am interested in shaping my improvised dance that it looks choreographed. We will use the clarity and directness from manipulations and so it can become quite risky if I offer lots of support. Impossible moves can appear because I am alert to support at any moment!
Getting out of balance, weight and momentum, push and pull and sometimes disturbing my partners expectations… You can come alone- or with your partner you want to work with!

Markus Hoft

Studied contemporary dance at moving arts/Köln and Scottish School of Contemporary Dance/Dundee. He also studies physical theatre/ Actiontheater, Capoeira Angola, Contact Tango and is teaching Yoga and Pilates. His focus is to explore the physical (im)possibilities of contact improvisation and to deepen the range of contact improvisation with other dance technique. He is dancing in companies and choreographing his own projects. www.fooldance.de

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Asaf Bachrach (Isr)

whatever is needed - content will be announced on Thursday

Asaf Bachrach

Asaf has been practicing CI for the past 16 years. He has danced, studied and performed in Tel Aviv, New York, Paris and Boston. The teachings of Kirsty Simson, Lisa Nelson, Andrew Harwood and Dieter Heitkamp have been fundamental to his practice. Since 2000 he has been teaching in Europe (Paris, Freiburg Festival, Amsterdam) and the Americas (Boston, Earthdance,CI36, Buenos Aires). Asaf was a founding member of the Contact collective in Paris. Currently he lives in Paris, where he is conducting post-doctoral research in the cognitive neuroscience of language. His current dance-research is based on the proposal of Steve Paxton  to view improvisation as the study of composition.

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Iwona Olszowska (Pol)

CI essentials - how to be light while lifted

is it possible to be even lighter than we think we are?
we will play with our own weight
differences of weight of different body parts
changing the weight of body parts
going below it and above by
playing with fluids in the body, blood and CSF
how to make our container and content /bones and organs/ lighter?
playing with gravity anty gravity pulls
directions of pulls in the body and toward the space
amount/percentage of possible given weight
giving passive and active weight
We will explore that by following images, playing with sensations ...
also with partners

Iwona Olszowska

Founder , artistic director and choreographer of Experimental Dance Studio EST in Kraków, Poland.

Dancer, performer, improviser, teacher of contemporary dance technique , improvisation, contact improvisation, body awarness with influence of Body Mind Centering.

She got dance training in: classes of Alabama University, George Mason University, Calgary University, dance studios in New York (Movement Research, Dance Space, Limon Studio), Duncan Center Praque. She is at the moment in a program of Somatic Movement Educator (related to BMC work).

She performed in cooperation with Gdanski Dance Theater, Maida Withers in Canada, Finland and independently in New York Judson Church, Arts At Settlement, New Mexico, Washington DC and showed her solo work throughout middle and eastern Europe.

She has been choreographing for EST, recently she choreographed also for drama theaters, and couch EST site specific projects.

Her choreographies were awarded on dance festivals in Poland. In 1997 she was awarded Merit Cross for pedagogy work. In 1998 she got ArtsLink scholarship for founded by Soros Foundation for 6 weeks residency in New York. In 1999 she got an award for developing own style and stage personality received by International Festival of Contemporary Dance Forms in Kalisz.

More informations:

www.iwonaolszowska.pl

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Nina Wehnert (D)

share the dance - share the space
from contact into improvisation

I am interested in a form of dance that is communication.
A form of listening. Listening to me- my interests- a partner- the floor- the space- the moment. There are so many possibilities and opportunities!

In this class I will focus on a similar form of listening that we practise while dancing CI - but we will expand it to a meeting with myself in relationship to the space around me. To the people, objects, sounds which create the space. Here we are! Curious in interests and practising decisions in an instant compostion. The instant composition that I am part of when I am in a jam, in a room, on the street, in a bus, in the subway, in an elevator...

My wish is to give material for dance and for focus so that jams become more about sharing and creating space in an open, supportive and artistic way.

For me this goes hand in hand with an interest in those awkward moments in a jam, that probably many of us know: The moments in which we feel "lost": Who am I? Where am I? What to do? What to think? What to feel? How can those moments be actually supportive for my dance, very rich in material and somehow fun, too!

Nina Wehnert

is a dancer and performer. She has studied Contemporary Dance and Improvisation at bewegungs-art in Freiburg and at SEAD in Salzburg. Her ongoing interest is Improvisation, which she is perfoming Solo aswell as in a trio with Christine Mauch and Sandra Wieser. The research in the endless world of Contact Improvisation is definately keeping her live juicy and joyful. She is curious to find over and over again the acccess to her interests, and the access to the motor for moving.
Nina lives in Berlin, teaches CI and Yoga. She is organizing
CI gatherings in different formats in Berlin. Since 2008 she is co-hosting with Christine Mauch the CI festival "satellites' return" at Ponderosa/Stolzenhagen.

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Jeff Wallace (USA)

Dancing into Contact

Contemporary dancers often find the act of coming into contact with another dancer slows the movement. Contact improvisers can find duets a gravity well difficult to fly in. In this class, we will investigate an approach of dancing into and out of contact that supports speed and lightness , exploring our own dance and the moments that we create with our partner while maintaining flow.

Jeff Wallace

first discovered CI through Jaap Klevering and Jaana Turunen in Helsinki in 1986. Other early teachers were Nien Marie Chatz, Andrew Harwood, and Alito Alessi.. He has taught CI at workshops, festivals and universities across the US, Guatemala,and Ireland for the last 15 years, working with populations as varied as special-needs children and professional opera singers. He is a co-founder and senior teacher in GLACIER- an organization dedicated to expanding the practice of Contact Improvisation in the Great Lakes region of the US, and takes great joy in mentoring new CI teachers and communities.

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Trinidad Martinez

Contemporary Technique - articulating the spine and leaping

It calls my attention when I see us dancing contact improvisation that the torso is not very articulated; we don’t use the full range of motion of the spine and the huge amounts of possibilities that affords us. I believe this happens because we need to feel the support of our body in order to receive the weight of our partners.
I would like to explore the connection between the spine and the rest of the body. How can we articulate due to consciousness of new possibilities (including spirals, curves, asymmetry, etc.) and still feel grounded. We will do dance sequences based on Release and Limón techniques in which we connect the weight of the head and arms with the rest of the body.
Leaping and Jumping will also be an important part of the class; the physical sense of jumping. We will work with the image of our bodies as being a bouncing ball; throw it to the floor and have it react, propelled up in the air. Part of jumping is to be soft in the landing; this will give us a more effectivity in sequencing jumps and more accurate visual illusion of a jump.
I will have us go in and out of improvisation in order to understand the sequences from our own bodys' sensations. We should understand technique always from experiencing our own body first in order to keep integrity in our dance and presence.

Trinidad Martinez

founded the Magpai Production Group together with the composer, musician and programmer Dayton Allemann in Hamburg 1998. They have performed a variety of pieces, which have been shown internationally. Together they explore new paths for sound and movement to merge and express together. Their work is subtle, avant-garde and not easy to categorize; it stems from and works with improvisation. They produce shows in collaboration with other artists, believing as they do that stage-art develops in a deeper, more complex and multi-dimensional manner that way.

Between 2003-07 they were part of La Fragua, an artistic collective in which they shared ideals, art and the sense of community. La Fragua was an ambitious project which served as an inspiration for other artists in Murcia and Spain.

Trinidad Martínez works at the moment for: Pat Graney Company, Degenerate Art Ensemble (Seattle) and Yolanda Gutiérrez & Projects (Hamburg). In 2007 she went to Seattle on a  Fulbright Fellowship, in order to expand her knowledge in the field of improvisation.

She worked at Nationaltheater Mannheim, Theater der Stadt Hagen and Jeune Ballet International R. Hightower. Her main dance studies were at the Centre de Danse International Rosella Hightowerin Cannes and Escuela de Danza Internacional Carmen Roche, Madrid. Later on she learnt release technique with Labor G.rassin Hamburg.

www.magpai.net

http://danzaimprovisacionmurcia.blogspot.com/

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Heilke Bruns (D)

organic dancing - from Body-Mind Centering® into Contact Improvisation

Exploring the organs brings a quality of three-dimensionality and vitality into the body. Anatomic pictures, touch and movement will help us to sense, how the organs fill out our body. This awareness will lead us into a delightfull, very articulated rolling over the floor and into a play with weight, lightness and swing. The awareness of our inner space inspires us to contactdances full of details, swing and clarity.

Heilke Bruns

is dancing contact now since 20 years, still loving and dancing it with every cell of her body. She did the training of Body - Mind Centering in USA and combines Contact with BMC in her teaching. So fascinated through CI she did a research project about CI and musicality and wrote the book "At the beginning there was touch". Heilke is teaching in different studios and on international contact festivals.   She made a film about CI for television, has worked with the students from John Neumeier and is teaching BMC and CI at the konservatorium (Hamburg) and highschool for music and performing arts (Frankfurt) 

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Katri Luukkonen (Fin)

Rebound Bunny with Chewy Joints

In this class I want to explore soft, gentle manipulations, how to direct and re-direct the other smooth, sensitive ways? And if I want to do it with more intensity, roughness and firmly - how can I still maintain the listening, sensitive quality of reading the other´s body and it´s reactions and directions?

We will try out different ways of touching and impacting the other. Playing with moving and movable support. How big amount of force we give, and how do we direct it? How does it affect from which direction the force is coming? Is it slow, fast, viscous, vigorous, heavy or light force? is the impact just a short touch or long-lasting contact? What is the quality of our touch?

Among dance and other body-techniques I have been practicing aikido and exploring how the human body - and especially joints -

are reacting, and how it is possible to direct the other very easily through the joints. In manipulating the other is very essential to be able to read the body - what are the directions where the body naturally goes easily in certain situations, and how can I support and ease the organic pathway? Where is the weight and how does it fall? How do I place myself in order to follow/support/resist.....? When to resist, and when to let go? Increasing the tension and surrendering into contact...

In martial arts we are using hands in bonding or locking the other, directing and re-directing, pushing and pulling, leading and following, offering the support, hooking... Sliding, rolling, entering into contact. Hands and arms can be very playful tools to enter and exit from the contact, and easy pathway from the periphery to the center and back. We will practice to stay all the time connected with our centers, and letting our hands just to be extensions of our core, all the time staying connected with the center, hara.

So welcome to play and to be surprised!

Katri Luukkonen / FINLAND

is a dancer and danceteacher from Helsinki, Finland. She graduated from Theatre Academy of Finland 2008 (MA). She has been teaching at various contact- and dancefestivals all over Europe, Russia, India and Finland. She is one of the founders and teachers of "SkiingOnSkin", the finnish contact-festival.

"I love dancing, contactimprovisation and life-improvisation, sounding, singing and playing with my voice. I am attracted to live and love fully. I enjoy travelling, adventures, discussions, friends, fleemarkets, kissing, communitys, surrendering to unknown, meeting and melting, provoking, letting the flow take me, beautiful moments of being as one... "

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Maria Elste (D)

Same,same and different – group improvisation

Starting from a simple score(flocking like birds) we will establish an awareness for the group and let this develop into a more open improvisation structure. It's a playground to explore leading, following, saying yes and being surprised.

open for all levels

Maria Elste

coming from Germany, studied contemporary dance in Finland. She got hooked to the form of contactimprovisation 9 years ago. Since than she is researching the principles of instant composition on the border between theatre and dance, teaching improvisation/contactimprovisation and performing in several projects.Her dance is influenced by martial arts, developmental movement, philosophy and the people she met throughout her life.

„I'm fascinated by the composition happening each moment and curious to understand it's principles. The motivation for my teaching comes out of my deep interesst in any kind of movement. In my classes I usually offer a mix of technical skills and freedom to explore. I want to encourage my students evolving their own questions in an aware and joyful atmosphere.“

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Simonetta Alessandri (IT)

Feldenkrais into Contact Improvisation

Class will start with body work inspired by the Feldenkrais Method® that will help us to establish a physical connection based on reading, listening and communicating through the touch of our hands. We will transfer the precision and clarity that we find in the hands-on work into Contact Improvisation skills. Finally we will use our hands to generate surprising and exciting changes of dynamic in our dances.

Simonetta Alessandri

Simonetta is a dancer, teacher and choreographer who moved to London from Italy 3 years ago. She currently teaches at Laban Center, The Place, Goldsmiths University,

 Moving East and Independent Dance.

After years of dancing with Companies in Italy she began collaborating with various directors and musicians as a performer and choreographer in Theatre, Opera and Site Specific performance. Since 1995 she has made her own choreography and her work has been performed in  UK, Germany, Colombia, Turkey and Japan.

She obtained T.C. at RAD® and she is a practitioner of the Feldenkrais® Method.  She has been teaching in Italy for more than 20 years (First Ballet and then Contemporary Dance and Contact Improvisation and Feldenkrais). She kept Contact Improvisation alive in Rome through her classes and jams for 10 years. and she started ‘RomaContact’ association to support and develop C.I. in Italy.

She has been a guest teacher in Germany, Colombia, Norway, Israel and France.

She is a member of S.o.F.T., a collective researching and creating improvised performances.

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Heike Pourian (D)

"How does it feel to be the apple?"

CI as a tool for understanding & experiencing physical laws -
A Workshop with physics teachers (see german below)

„How does it feel to be the apple?” This subtitle of “Fall after Newton” (the video that was made to document the first years of development of the then new dance form Contact Improvisation) has always sounded like an invitation to me. An invitation to regard this form I love to practice and teach not only as an art form but also as a material to use in various contexts. Contact Improvisation is – among other things – about experiencing physical laws:

Gravity, momentum, inertia, lever, friction … we all know these words from Contact Improv classes, but originally they are terms from what scientists call “Mechanics” - which again is a discipline within Physics.

In our school system Physics is a subject taught with a lot of numbers and formulae. What happens if we emphasise the sensing part of it: How does it feel to be the apple? How can we feel forces acting upon us?

I’ve been cooperating with physics teachers for about a year now. I go to schools and teach experiential physics classes in gyms – and I’d love to share this idea with those interested....there's a lot more to be found out!

This workshop is open for participants of the festival like all the other workshops. But this one is also and especially open for physics teachers. They are invited to join the festival for this one class and possibly to stay a little longer for some feedback or even checking out the jam in the evening to see physics in physical practice. For these external people the fee is 20 € (students of Physics pay half price). They have to register with Heike Pourian: heikepourian@hotmail.com. Teaching language will be German and English.

Heike Pourian

To me Contact Improvisation is an essence of what I want to explore and embody in life: being attentive, open and soft, being connected to the earth, to each other. Playing and sensing, drawing from the power of this very moment. Being.

When I teach I thoroughly enjoy going with the learning and discovering processes of the groups and individuals, which continuously reveals new aspects to me.

I studied community dance and theatre (University of Hildesheim/Germany, Dartington College of Arts, U.K)

My teaching started in 1992 with a DanceAbility project and has touched very different aspects of the form since: weekly adult classes, community dance, kindergarten groups, pregnant women, parents and their children, deaf adolescents, girls with eating disorders as well as training units for professional ballet companies or actors. I regard teaching as one way of learning and my view on contact improvisation has widened and gained a lot from all the different people I’ve worked with. I’m looking forward to what is round the corner … and the next one …. and the next one.

Bewegungslabor „Lebendige Physik“

Die Gesetze der Mechanik können wir am eigenen Körper erleben

und mit ihnen experimentieren. Bewegungsexperimente auf der Grundlage der Contact Improvisation wollen schulische Lehrplaninhalte veranschaulichen und sinnlich erfahrbar machen.

Auf der Suche einem selbstbestimmten Lernen mit allen Sinnen

habe ich auf der Grundlage der Contact Improvisation das Bewegungslabor entwickelt, das sich mit Inhalten des Faches Physik verknüpfen lässt.

Zur Teilnahme an diesem Workshop werden auch Physiklehrer auf das Festival eingeladen.

Anmeldung für diese willkommenen Externen, sowie weitere Informationen bei Heike Pourian: heikepourian@hotmail.com

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Juha Viitamaki

Leading through friction-sliding

The class is about guiding others, and then following them, into pleasant spirals that will facilitate an ongoing dance. Hands sliding on cloth and skin invite the other dancer into a surprising yielding: into the space, or into weight transfer. We begin with listening to impulses, learning to appreciate their unknown richness and potential. How does the information we receive resonate in our skin, fascia, joints and souls…

Juha Viitamäki

is a contact improviser from Helsinki. He is interested in beauty as a felt (rather than seen) experience. This makes him seek new ways for experiencing contact.  Juha believes that what is felt to be beautiful and rich often also seems exquisite and intense. The internal and emotional flow and process of the contact dance can be relied on and trusted. Juha also wonders about which personal moments in contact he wishes to show to others, and the moments which he wishes to hide somewhere among the shadows and roots of a jam… moments which are too precious and fragile to be revealed to the questioning eye. 

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Kathryn Crick (GB)

Solo into CI – CI into Solo

I would like to offer imagery and structures to support and challenge solo dancing and invite meetings between solos as a foundation for contact duets. As we emerge from dancing in contact, how might the duet continue to resonate? What can be revealed and brought to our awareness in our solo dances?

Kathy Crick (UK) encountered CI in 1982 and for twenty years has been teaching and sharing her enjoyment of the form. Kathy currently teaches Contact Improvisation, Choreography and Performance at Laban and London Metropolitan University. She is a member of SOFt, a collective of artists with a mutual curiosity for exploring ensemble performance, Contact Improvisation and improvised music. Inspirational improvisation artists include Steve Paxton, Kirstie Simson, Miranda Tufnell and KJ Holmes. Other influences on her practice are studies in education, psychology, shiatsu and somatic movement

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Gabriel Forestieri (USA)

Shapes with presence - Contemporary Dance Technique

This class will be an exploration of forms and shapes that have become absorbed into “contemporary” dance. Using anatomical ideas within a context of efficiency we will explore set material. Of course personal style has become such a hallmark of dance, this class will attempt to give more universal tools, rather than idiosyncrasies. We will take these tools and then add presence and improvisation, so everyone can add their own artistry.

Gabriel Forestieri – (Teacher/Choreographer/Steward)

Gabriel has taught dance at Carnegie Melllon University, Hollins University, Joffrey Ballet School, and at NYU. Internationally he is taught at Dance festivals in Germany at Gottengin, Freiburg and Berlin. As the Choreographer/Director of projectLIMB he is intent on connecting communities with their landscape, resources, and each other. ProjectLIMB has performed in Hawaii, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Washington D.C., Paris, Rome, San Francisco, and New York City. ProjectLIMB’s work has been presented in NYC at DTW, Central Park, La MAMA, Solar ONE, the Tank, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, White Wave, The Puffin Room, and Symphony Space.. Gabriel is an alum of the MFA (2006) dance program at NYU. He was nominated for a total of four Isadora Duncan awards (San Francisco’s highest dance achievement) in 2004 and 2005. He has had the pleasure of working with choreographers: Risa Jaroslaw, Wili Dorner, Ted Johnson, Foofwa D’immobliite, Heather Mcardle, Keith Thompson, Bill Young, Tomi Pasoneen, Scott Wells, Erika Shuch, Christine Cali, and Kristin Heavey

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