Description
All workshops are 12-3pm on a Saturday at the Haw Creek Commons Sanctuary (directions). This gives a 1hr 15min break before the regular Saturday CI Jam, so you can eat and continue to explore the content from the workshop in the jam.
Quarter 1: Pathways from the Ground up
In the first quarter, we will be focusing on creating a strong foundation from which to explore the practice of contact improvisation (CI). We’ll develop a sense of trust in our own bodies, and understanding of its edges and potential and develop basic skills for moving with ourselves and others. This module aims to provide building blocks for movers to feel capable in their bodies and in the space, creating a strong foundation for coming into contact with other bodies. We will focus on: connection to self and somatic exploration, connecting to the floor as a primary partner, falling, movement pathways to support improvisation, elements of coming into contact, pouring weight, non-verbal communication, and entering into flight with a partner.
- June 10th – From the Ground Up – early bird registration by March 5th
- June 17th – Falling into Contact
Quarter 2: Exploring Kinnection
In the second quarter, we will expand on the foundation we developed in the first quarter through the concepts of the Skinosophere and Kinosphere from Nancy Stark Smith’s Underscore. We’ll deepen our capacities to be with and understand our own body and movement, and telescope our awareness and movement out into exploring moving in space. We will focus on the meditation of self-connection and presence, telescoping awareness to expand and focus our attention, proprioception and other senses beyond sight, tracking bodies in space, and modulating tone, speed, and other aspects of movement among each other.
Quarter 3: Developing Our Adaptability
In the third quarter, we’ll play with the foundations we developed in the first and second quarters through the exploration of improvisational scores to challenge and develop our skills and adaptability as well as practice common contact improvisation vocabulary including more fully developing weight-sharing with rolling point of contact and lift invitations. We’ll develop an understanding of improvisational scores and hone common contact improvisation vocabularies, and then expand and break out of those boxes to keep our dance fresh and truly improvisational.
Quarter 4: Dancing Beyond Ourselves
In the fourth quarter, we’ll continue practicing the individual skills we have developed over the first three quarters, but now more explicitly in the greater context of the group, and with more fluidity within the group. We’ll explore and play with elements of improvisational forms of Viewpoints and Emergent Improvisation as well as the CI Underscore to strengthen our sense of group ensemble and improvisational awareness of the group while continuing to practice and apply our fundamental CI skills.
