Embryology of central axis

In contact improvisation, we are accustomed to playing with the fall of the central axis, which is called the small dance. The fall of the vertical axis is one of the main tools that initiates movement in space.

In somatic approaches based on BMC (Body-Mind Centering), we utilize the material of human embryonic development to see how new forms and new possibilities of movement are nurtured within us. In these sessions, we will explore how regressive body techniques can expand our potential for movement in contact duets.

Form and movement are inseparable containers. But what if the vertical axis is not the first body-organizing structure to appear in the body? We will play with different axes and directions of movement.

Additionally, we will learn to recognize movement direction, the vector of movement. In a way, this direction can also be called an axis. Can we allow movement to flow through our entire body and surf on the waves of movement? Yes, we will try to engage in that.

Sensing into the emerging of new dancing – (Feldenkrais & Contact Improvisation)

I’m interested in sharing my ongoing research into the influence of the Feldenkrais

Method on the practice of Contact Improvisation, focusing on aspects such as ease, balance, instability, gravity, confidence, freedom, creativity and ownership

With the Feldenkrais Method, we direct our attention to internal sensations, without judgment. Acknowledging the intelligence of the body and curious about new possibilities, we identify habits and clarify choices to promote efficiency, freedom and a sense of ease that involve our whole selves. This specific way of tuning in to what we are experiencing brings us to the present moment, finding a felt sense of self that aims to relate to the environment and to others. Working with a partner further enhances this process; while engaging with touch and weight, we will find more sophistication in sensing, reading and communicating with our partner.

We will also experiment with specific movement patterns from Feldenkrais to underpin principles of Contact Improvisation, specifically: counterbalance, falling in spirals, centre to centre connection, catching and flying. We will question our habits and habitual patterns in Contact Improvisation. This can emerge because of being fully in the present moment, or due to the re-patterned movement which normally happens with Feldenkrais.

The sense of ease and efficiency, nourished by curiosity, will enable us to see Contact vocabulary from another perspective, one that will bring more enjoyment, rejuvenation and authenticity to the emerging of new dancing.

Qi Gong / Taijiquan

Classes will be an opportunity to approach the Traditional principles of the Chinese internal martial arts. Through static and dynamic practices we will come into contact with our breath, Qi, the vital breath, to increase and make our vital energy flow freely in the energy channels of the whole body.

Qi Gong, formerly called Yang Sheng Fa, a method for nourishing life, is a body practice based on the integration of movement, meditation, breathing and feeling. Its main purpose is the maintenance of health and achievement of longevity. But, Qi Gong is also the basis of all Chinese internal martial arts since it improves coordination, grounding, endurance and it has a calming effect on the nervous system. We will also investigate the fundamentals of Taijiquan through sequences in the space, contact work in pairs and the study of martial traditional forms to improve proprioception, the quality of touch and the mental attention/intention.

Aikido

The word AIKIDO can be translated as “the way of unifying all our inner energy”, and also “the path of harmony with the forces and principles of nature.”

Aikido is a japanese martial art that uses the momentum and force of an attack to unbalance that person and lead them to a projection in space or immobilization in a harmonious way.

In these morning practices we will perform breathing exercises, work with energy and the center as a meeting place with our inner self, ground and sky.We will focus on awakening a vibrant and peaceful body, opening the heart and feeding the spirit.Through dynamics in pairs, we will practice movements and gestures from a whole body that seeks the appropriate intention for the situation, with sincerity and the exercise of detachment from the ego in each encounter or fall.

Curious Listening

Making contact without intention, listening to what is there, awakening curiosity about the world beneath the skin, using our imagination, trusting the information that the other body tells us, letting ourselves be carried by the tides, until we reach the kneading , use our weight, let the tides guide us, take pauses where the pleasure of touch is present.

Respect my limits, my partner’s limits. deepen From the most superficial layer to the deepest, be aware of breathing, gradually cover the entire body, stop at the different diaphragms of the body, imagine how they relate to each other, to travel through the entire spine, vertebra by vertebra , from the atlas to the tailbone, visualize the most important organs, how the entire nervous (electrical) system connects with them from the skull.

This is an invitation to awaken all the tools we innately have.

Know what is good for me so I can deliver it.

Curious Listening

What would happen if I listened in stillness to everything that moves within me and allowed this to become a dance? How can I put all my weight on the ground without putting up resistance? Can I feel how a small movement affects the rest of my body? Can I communicate with the ground through dance with another, with others? With these and other physical questions we will awaken a curious listening in our individual and collective dance, being aware that everything that happens in space counts, contributes, influences, as if that space were a body, my body and each movement that happens in it. , moves another part and I observe it, I allow it to influence me, I take advantage of it, I incorporated it into my dance. With these focuses and ways of seeing we will go from an individual dance to a more collective and open dance.

Continuum

Fascia is the substance that connects every part of our bodies to every other part, an integrated mega-system that provides continuity and proposes collaborative relationships.

I propose to observe some essential characteristics of fascia to generate an image that will accompany us to direct our attention towards listening to our connective tissue. We will talk about ways to touch and use touch, a hand that connects with a body and the space to listen and support listening. Different touches stimulate different aspects of fascia and therefore different qualities of movement. The dance and the entry into the language of Contact Improvisation will be from connecting with slower rhythms of existence, inviting us to open up the perception towards the infinite that we are skin inwards. I invite us to enter a state where the form of the language we share (CI) emerges, from a deep internal listening and that this one lets itself be surprised and deformed by the chaotic and elastic quality of the fascia and the relationship with other bodies.

Material for the Spine into Contact Improvisation

“With Material For the Spine, I was interested in alloying a technical approach to improvisational results. It is a system for exploring the interior and exterior muscles of the back. It aims to bring the light of consciousness to the dark side of the body, that is, the sides not much self-seen, and to submit sensations to the mind for consideration.” Steve Paxton

Material For the Spine concentrates accumulated knowledges from Paxton’s study of walking, Contact Improvisation and Aikido practice to explore the movement possibilities in the spine and the connections between the head, pelvis, and vertebrae. This solo practice is a meditative study of a series of exercises, body puzzles and ideokinetic imagery. These sensations can also be used as a palette for improvisation. What happens when we put this material from contact back into contact?

The sense of Unity

In these sessions there will be time to immerse ourselves in and out. We will bring attention to the meeting of bodies at the borders of the skin, in the permeability of internal tissues, cellular migrations and micro resistances. Being in contact as an invitation to modulate tone, moving weight and being engage with the globality that we are.

By sharing weight, we will put into practice the action of resisting as a yielding in time and a continuous expansion that can happen simultaneously, opening paths for dance to emerge in duets, trios and broader conformations.

We will study the opposing forces to question the nuances of rejection or sense of separation in the practice of resistance, giving the body the opportunity to go through different layers of understanding and reverberations.

We will dilate time to listen to the possible directions at play, from the subtle to the most obvious, to appreciate the elasticity of resistance in the tissues, in the structure and in the conduction of energy.

The invitation will be to accept a route, or several, curve the tensions, cushion them, support and shape the changing and unexpected paths.

In these explorations we will embody bones, spirals, condensing, expanding and moving space. Simple connection and relationship exercises to bring our parts together and experience integrity. Can we return to the sense of unity?

The Tuning Effect

Our aim in this workshop is to develop the focused, playful attention that leads to inspired dancing.  We will begin with the idea that physical learning and intelligence are available to anyone willing to engage in mindful practice.  Contact improvisation creates many opportunities for developing sensitivity and movement skill through the language of touch, movement, and shared support.  Participants will be presented with specific exercises designed to develop the skills of mobile support, changing levels, functional pathways, and alignment.  We will develop the syntax of touch, tone, and physical resistance as a vehicle for becoming ready to move, creating safe boundaries, and developing creative movement possibilities.  We will consider how the dancing unfolds when our emphasis is on following one another, causing it only a little.

A throughline of our practice will include subtle questioning of the assumptions we hold about CI.  We will consider how we can grow ourselves and the form to discover new possibilities for being together that are playful, respectful, and inclusive.

E.C.H.O.E.S.

An invitation to immerse ourselves in that [space-time] of moving together.

Starting from the idea of ​​transferring weight we will provoke mobilities that will allow us to deal with the irremediable loss of a body and its fall. We will approach certain physical phenomena to think about and expand the question of touch, contact and the reverberations that affect the skin in those encounters and the imaginaries that provoke us to move them. From spherical notions we will activate the back as a joyful fall and its curved power in movement, navigating around the systems that regulate our balance, with the desire to stimulate the sensory skills that allow us to improvise… working in duets – trios and  collective to shake unexpected, playful and agile dances. Feel the collision; between echo, coincidence and impact. The suspension and flight from the casual conjunction of time, the uncertain and the present as the reality of what happens.

-Perceive-move-displace will be actions to organize the materials that emerge from the bodies, amplifying the systems of sensation and action, inertia and flow, repetition and difference, imitation and creation, automatism and variation.

We will think of the body with that mutant capacity, to stimulate the images that reveal themselves, its morphology, its wild imagination in order to make creative play possible and awaken the living state of composing-moving-risking together with others.

Not a Dance Form

“If Contact Improvisation is the physical act of posing a question about ones own present circumstance, then the work is ever expansive and has applications to dance well beyond the manifestation of the duet interaction.” – Daniel Lepkoff –

During the classes we will focus on our kinaesthetic experience of the essential principles of movement. We will explore the tools that allow our bodies to access a state of perceptual openness. We will practice gently and gradually ‘undoing’ kinaesthetic patterns that prevent us from letting the weight pour across the surface that is supporting our structures. We will invite a kinaesthetic attitude of respect and readiness that allow us to be open to emergence, capable of surprise and free to respond in new and familiar ways. We will try to look at Contact Improvisation as a somatic transformative practice; a practice that enables the development of a kinaesthetic awareness of body reality; a daily working practice that addresses the quality of our lived engagement, with ourselves, with the world and with others.

Don’t jump to conclusions. Dance!

I’m interested in ways of refining attention, of becoming more precise in reading nuances, and focused on what is actually happening moment by moment, in the dance; trying to lose the plans and the “known” pathways while we dance, in order spark creativity and invite our minds to function more as a curious researcher. So I invite you to join me in exploring ways to refine the “resolution” and level of details that we perceive in movement, and in stillness.

Starting from the small dance we’ll observe the tiniest reflexes of the body to maintain it’s vertical position. Then, by allowing and agreeing to these reflexes, we will witness our body starting to almost move by itself, without too much ambition and fixed expectations. We will turn this into an exploration on how to generate movement and how we can balance between doing and allowing.

Sometimes it is useful to train inside a fixed form, let’s say a lift, or a body-surf exercise, only to keep the mind relaxed, because it “knows” what is happening, giving it at the same time, the opportunity to become curious about trying other possibilities and depths. The downside of this learning “strategy” is that it can drag us into creating parasitic habits and later lead us to boredom and/or anticipating the next movement without paying much attention. So after training in this way we may need to leave patterns aside, and let the principle behind them to guide us. For this we need our full attention awake and in the present moment as much as possible, and not forget that it’s about listening and focusing on the dance.

So let’s try different patterns, dance and discover together where this journey will take us!

Causing it Only a Little: An Approach to CI and Performance

In this workshop we will explore the potential of contact improvisation to be practiced within a performance context. We will consider strategies for expanding our awareness to enjoy the possibilities of tuning to the kinetic melody of weight, flow, suspension and image. We will seek dances that invite the relational potential of allowing ourselves to be witnessed and engaged with by others and the space itself. We will explore how to weave together resonance and action as we explore and shape our experience. We will consider how to allow the dance to happen, causing it only a little.

Ecosomatic practice / BodyCartography

In this workshop we will engage with ecosomatic practices for living and dying together on a damaged earth. Together we will practice living, breathing, moving, sensing, perceiving, digesting, dying, and decomposing to help us perceive more of the whole scale of the sensitivities and intelligences within us, the human and non-human, the transforming spaces, the before and after. These somatic experiments will be the catalyst for creating new formats for performance experiences for an audience grounded in participation together in the natural environment.