During the festival there will be intensives, workshops, jams, performances, underscore, morning practice and time for rest, walk, bodywork, sauna, discussions and conversations, etc.
There will be three intensives led by Sabine Parzer (A), Urs Stauffer (CH) and Matan Levkowich (A) The offer is to choose one. The workshops will be held by Juli Gábor, Nina Radovanovic, Jori Snell, Mélanie Jolly and Angela-Mara Florant.
- Radically Intimate
Intensive with Sabine Parzer
For dancers with contact experience
An exploration through dance, movement and touch focusing on internal and external factors that allow for intimacy to arise, stay and show in our dances and daily life. What conditions can we create as dancers for ourselves and others to open the doors of honesty, courage and expressivity? What is needed in order to create safe and explorative containers? How can my dance, my artistry, my resourcefulness, my style, my candor, my performance quality be influenced by this quality of intimacy?
The ability to connect with Self, Place and Others translates to the quality of connection and invites a more direct experience both for myself and my partner. We will work with and deepen research material from Holistic Dance which includes: Integrative Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement Plus, Somatics & Applied Anatomy,Contemporary Dance Improvisation, composition, and creative writing.
- Intimacy with self, place, and other
- Clearly setting and relinquishing boundaries
- The relationship between sensuality and sexuality in the dance context
- Performance as act of radical Intimacy
- The intimacy of acrobatics
- Riding the tiger – surrendering to the ecstatic dance
- Remembering Basic Functionality
Intensive with Urs Stauffer
In my class, I wish to share my definition of the field of research in CI which is physical, not emotional, nor social and not esthetic in the sense of artistic standards. I understand CI not as a practice, but as a TECHNIQUE which NEEDS practice. This is where we start.
Our body is shaped in order to be functional in movement, as well within ourselves as in relationship with others and our environment. Finding ways to access this natural and long lost functionality is very fundamental in CI. To understand and INCORPORATE it, we need the courage to spend time with basic principles which go way underneath (or beyond?) the acrobatic dances CI seems to be famous for. The study of some tools of Body-Mind Centering® can be very helpful to allow our body to remember its ancient knowledge of moving with ease and precision. In my work BMC® and CI keep informing each other constantly as two distinct techniques.
Feeling more comfortable and adequate in our bodies as well as more at ease in relation to our environment, we will open up new possibilities to improvise our dances with skill and pleasure. - Movement Intelligence (MI)
Intensive with Matan Levkowich
The objective of the MI open workshop is to offer perspectives on the following question: What does it mean to have a meaningful physical relationship with your body? In order to answer the question, we will examine how our body functions, expand our physical capacity and explore different ‘movement territories’. We will dive into a movement discourse and examine the connections between the time we spend in practice, to our day to day activities.
Workshop format:
Solo practice From warmups and ‘skills chasing’ to expressive explorations and non-functional improvisations. We will try to shed light on how and to build a self practice and why it might be needed.
Partner practice Collaborative and competitive games. Fixed movement materials and task driven scores. Different touch qualities, social dynamics and interpersonal movement skills.
Communication Practice Movement as a language. Learn how to converse with one or more partners. A space to reflect on our personal, cultural and habitual patterns. Time for integration and expansion in a non-goal oriented fashion.IMPORTANT INFO
As most of you know, because of a huge request of participation we decided to expand the festival with a third intensive which will be held by Matan Levkowich. Since we have only two indoor space, this intensive will always be outdoor including sun shine and rainy time. Matan is aware and prepared for that. We did post the info when we announced it but we would like to remind those who come to Matan’s intensive to be prepared with clothing and sun cream in case of extreme weather. this is the adventurous intensive of the festival. Welcome! - Solo consciousness, collective body
Workshop with Juli Gábor
What are my needs and how can I fulfil them? Is this important for the collective? How can I connect to my own core and at the same time be aware of the others and their actions? How can I be an important part of a team and create something significant together? What is the relevance of these experiences for me as an individual?
These questions can be looked at from a purely physical point of view and are very relevant for practicing CI, but maybe it’s also interesting to investigate them in our everyday life and behaviours… We will take time to go into the physicality by solo movement and group scores and we will also reflect on how these ideas (can) manifest in our lives. - Multi directionality – multi dimensionality
Workshop with Angela-Mara Florant
Especially in this highly digitalized age, the words of Andrea Olsen ring true to my ears: “It is easy to think of ourselves as flat; mirrors and photographs give us the illusion that we are two -dimensional. Instead, we have have sculpted fullness, and the curves and angles give force and agility to our body.”
Move through the room, following your personal body flow, dancing up and down through the different levels. Be pulled apart, pushed together. Leave a path trailing behind you, search for wide open spaces and return again to narrow, close, tight spaces.
We will use our breath and micro movements to modulate our inner spaces. Stimulating the fascia tissue, we experience tensegrity, not only inside ourselves, but also inside a group structure. We feel an inner pull in different directions and expand our attention in these directions.
We experience a network, a web, connecting us with the space and other dancers in the space. Can you be in and out at the same time? What does the space need in this moment? What do I need? How can these needs be balanced? How can you modulate between taking space and giving space? How can you be supportive by giving space?
We will work with the concept of multi-directionality in a physical and technical way. How can tensegrity and multi-dimensionality be transferred to other aspects of life, other fields?
- Inside/Outside – The touch and the skin
Workshop with Mélanie Jolly
This workshop will introduce experiences from Eutony Gerda Alexander®. Indeed, when I discovered eutony, I found it shared many principles with Contact Improvisation : gravity, the skeleton, the relationship through touch… And above all, Gerda Alexander defined a principle “Contact” ! For her, contact is different from touch. Touch gives us information about ourselves and the surrounding environment. Contact is widening the attention from the sensations towards the outside. However, Contact Improvisation explores precisely this double direction of touch : to perceive oneself and the other through the encounter.
In my workshop, we will dance a lot with closed eyes. We will mainly explore the information received through touch and skin. At first, touch will allow us to strengthen our presence to our own body. Starting from this presence to ourselves, we will be ready to widen our attention towards our partners, and develop our ability to perceive their position, tone, movement. And then, beyond the encounter through touch, explorations with closed eyes will allow us to feel the whole space of the room and further. We will widen our attention to the maximum and feel the effects on ourselves, sensation-wise. Then, we will refine the perception of our partner through looking, in order to make proposals to support them in their movement : to read the other’s body, then propose but not impose.
Gerda Alexander® Eutony is a practice aimed at accompanying everyone in a relationship with themselves and their body, through an attention to body sensations, in relation to the environment and to the others. The word eutony means the search for a balanced tone, that is flexible and available in order to live as adequately as possible to all the experiences of everyday life. It is both a therapeutic practice and a tool for developing freedom of movement and creativity.
- CI-delicious
Intensive with Jori Snell
CI-delicious dancing, with attention to space, time & composition…
How can we re-kindle and develop the experience for both the dancer and the observer in a Contact Improvisation setting? Can we have both an intimate experience while dancing ánd feel the presence and support of a witness/observer? Thus playing with CI’s potential to be a spontaneous composition in time & space; playing with CI being in a performative context, without loosing our deep connection to the dance, sensations, ourselves and our partner(s).
We will play with the role of the witness, being in and out at the same time, and how witnessing can heighten and support our dancing, rather than stifle, contract or push ourselves because we think we need to ‘show’ something. How can we enjoy again being seen and seeing others, as an ongoing flux of the dance?
We’ll play with simple scores, solo, duet, and as a group, to awaken and practice these ‘skills’ that we have inside us, (both physical, intuitive and mental), how to surrender and compose, let go and steer, fluctuating between conscious choices and chance. A truly visceral exciting opportunity to learn through being in it. Continuous present.
- Into the Wild
Intensive with Nina Radovanovic
What is still there yet to be discovered? How much I allow myself when nobody is looking? And what if I am not looking myself? How much I can allow myself to be and to discover all that lies somewhere deep in me.
I want to propose you to spend some time outside in the nature, where you will get the chance to tap into your multiple layers and uncover some interesting things about yourself. Or maybe allowing yourself to find nothing and just sense how is that to be empty and just live the experience itself.
We will play with different approaches, meditation, contact improvisation and authentic movement mixing it up with the nature and all that you bring inside yourself.
And…
…of course we will have JAMS every day. Some of them are focused and open, with live music and also silent. This year the music will be provided by Nathaniel Damon. There will be one Underscore, maybe outside. As every year we will have space-time jam, where the time will be given for inclusive performance.
We will also have time for resting and regenerating. SAUNA will work every evenings. There will be space for RESTING and BODY WORKS. And there is forest and endless landscapes to escape and find your space if needed.
In addition we will have discussions, sharings, talkings around CI, community, care and safety. And some topics which will be present during the week.
We are happy to welcome you!