Alyssa Lynes is predominantly a dancer and teacher interested in how communication and creative expression play out in partner dance forms. Alyssa grew up in MA, dancing many performative dance styles (Jazz, musical theater dance, Horton, Limon, Ballet). She received a BA in Contemporary dance and a MS in education in New York City where she worked as a freelance dancer and bilingual (Eng/Span) elementary school teacher. In 2010, her Contact Improvisation training with Nancy Stark Smith catapulted her off on a CI devoted trip to Europe where she has lived ever since. She has added Salsa and Tango to her Partner dance repertoire. Alyssa explores the overlaps of movement forms through her choreography and performance work (most recently in “You Have To” (E-werk Kammertheater ) and with the koreografenkollektiv (Freiburg, DE), in her co-directing film collaboration (“5 Ways In”: a documentary based in the Freiburg CI festival 2012), and in her CI teaching. In Freiburg, (DE), she is a founding member of the CI Freiburg Collective, a member of the CI Jam Team, a guest teacher at Bewegungs-art TIP School for Improvisation and Performance, and a teacher of the Fortbildung CI Kompakt Training Intensive. She recently has taught at CI festivals such as Contact Meets Contemporary (DE), Earthdance New Years Jam (US), The Isreal CI festivals, Touch & Play (SP), and Bread & Jam (UK). She looks forward to sharing in the discovery that Contact Improvisation brings out in each of us during the Italy CI festival.

Curling in and Opening Out: Developing an Awareness to Invitations

How do our physical pathways of closing and opening connect us to ourselves and to others in communication? How de we notice opportunities or invitations to enter into spaces created by our parter/s? When do we wrap around them, fill them, respond to or invite them? When de we replicate or acknowledge these shapes or energies communicated with distance between us? This class is intended as an exploration for developing our awareness of shape, stability, and the invitations for new pathways to curl and open ourselves for and around the others in the space.