Fall…and fall again better: Theater of the Body: Contact Improvisation into Performance
Intensive with K.J. Holmes (US)
Paraphrasing a quote from playwright Samuel Beckett, this workshop will deepen one’s relationship to the Soma through practicing contact improvisation into performance, Soma (as in Somatics) in Latin means the body. In Sanskrit, it is the nectar of the Gods. Where we meet is in the play between the facts and the fictions. This is the location of our great imaginations. This workshop will be an entrance into physiological and poetic character/qualities of the bodymind going from practice to performance. Traveling from the physics of the body moving in relationship to earthly forces and others to actively witnessing each other, we will create a dance that will further our experience of contact improvisation into an expression of our humanity. How do we see ourselves seeing being seen?
Biography
K.J. Holmes has been practicing Improvisational forms as process and performance since 1981. These practices have deeply informed her journey as an independent dance artist as well as an actor, vocalist, writer and teacher. An avid improviser and creator of solo/duo and ensemble work, she has studied with the early pioneers of contact improvisation including Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Daniel Lepkoff, has collaborated and led work with and of Simone Forti and Troupe, and was a member of Image Lab performing the Tuning Score of Lisa Nelson. Other collaborators include poets Julie Carr and Edwin Torres, dancer Karen Nelson, drummer Jeremy Carlstedt, trumpeter Roy Campbell, Jr., actor Keith Biesack, and the Feel Trio (violinist Ramsey Ameen and poet/writer Fred Moten). Her influences include Body Mind Centering ® and the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Ideokinesis with Andre Bernard, Meisner acting work with Terry Knickerbocker, voice and singing with Richard Armstrong, Barbara Maier Gustern and Samita Singha, among others. K.J. is a certified Yoga teacher through her studies with Sondra Loring, and a certified Ayurvedic Holistic Health Counselor through her studies with Dr. Naina Marballi. She teaches at NYU/Experimental Theatre Wing and Movement Research in NYC, as well as traveling nationally and internationally teaching, performing and creating, most recently at the Italy Contact Festival and at TicTac Art Center in Brussels. K.J. has performed in the work of filmmaker/artist Matthew Barney, dancer/writer Karinne Keithley Seyers, music video of Mitski, Miguel Gutierrez, Xavier Le Roy, among others, as well as developing her own solo and group work. She is currently conducting a new ensemble piece, Blu/print, that began Fall 2023 with a grantfrom the New York State Choreographers Initiative through the New York State Dance Force and with the mentorships of composer/instrumentalist Henry Threadgill.
I began studying with Steve in 1982 at Naropa Institute’s summer program in Boulder Colorado. I continued to study with him whenever he was in New York City, where I live, and also would travel to be around his teachings.
I started spending more time around him when I worked with Simone Forti and Lisa Nelson who also lived on Madbrook where Steve lived. He invited me to work on a choreography project of his with four other dancers in 1995. We were often at the Breitenbush Contact Jam that was held in Oregon every year, as well as at performance festivals in Europe.
In 2014, Steve invited me to dance in a piece he made in 1964, Flat, that was part of a retrospective of his work at Dia:Beacon, New York. I spent many summers at Madbrook dancing and also being with my dance family of Lisa and Steve and a few others.
Steve was my teacher, my mentor, my friend. I am honored to share his work. I continue to learn from him as I enter his ideas and his dances and his writings. I miss him, and always feel he is with me in my dancing.
