A workshop in dance improvisations and somatic tunings

This 5 day workshop is a laboratory in dance improvisation as practice and performance. The mornings will combine applications of Body-Mind Centering ®, skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, and tunings of improvisational approaches in solo, duet and ensemble dancing. This practice will bring forth skills, tools and practical experience of improvising to become more tuned to center and subtleties of touch, direction and intention. We explore musicality and phrasing, the learning of specific rolls and lifts as well as how we craft time and space in spontaneous choreographies of solo, duet and ensembles. This practice will bring forth skills, tools and practical experience of improvising to become more tuned to center and subtleties of touch, direction and intention. We explore musicality and phrasing, the learning of specific rolls and lifts as well as how we craft time and space in spontaneous choreographies of solo, duet and ensembles. The afternoons will be a practice in seeing and being seen. We will make the invisible visible, learning more about the interior of the body and our ideas and find pathways to exterior space, time and place. We will play with structures for improvising where we can witness and participate. Skills will include release techniques and experiential anatomy to better understand the mechanics of the body, and patterns, body puzzles and forms that shape the body and space with odd timings and unusual perspectives, to create dances that are dynamic and alive in the moment. We will cultivate 3 dimensionality and depth, stretch our perceptual tools as well as cultivate presence and readiness. The use of the voice (sounding into vocalizing) and writing (documenting, describing, poeticizing) will be a part of this week as well. Related articles will be handed out to support and enhance our studies.