Robert Anderson (UK)

Robert Anderson is an independent dance artist based in London. He teaches improvisation and contact improvisation in Higher Education and in a variety of settings in the UK and abroad. Robert has been passionately involved with contact improvisation since 1996 studying with leading teachers from the US and Europe (including Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, Martin Keogh, KJ Holmes, Andrew Harwood and Ray Chung). Robert has taught at international contact festivals in Germany, Israel, Poland, Russia, Spain and Italy and participated in co-teaching gatherings in Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Scotland, England and Austria. He was part of the organising team for CI36 in Pennsylvania (2008) and the European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange in Ormskirk, England (2009). He performs with Touchdown Dance and improvisation ensemble SoFt. In teaching dance improvisation Robert seeks to help students find deeper connections through our senses, inviting pleasure, play and poetry for the dancing body.

Contact Improvisation - Start where you are...

Arriving into ‘body time’...dropping into sensation..meeting the floor...meeting self...meeting other...tuning-in to the sharing of weight, direction and intention.
We’ll explore how we maintain a solid sense of meeting another in a contact improvisation dance by extending from our centre to our partner’s centre. Channelling the required energy through the body we’ll uncover pathways to glide, fly and fall together.  The intention is to develop our abilities to be both soft and strong, supported and supportive, receptive and responsive.

other Current interests and inspirations

I am interested in delving ever-deeper into the physics and fundamentals of the CI form. Recently, I’ve been working with the Aikido principle of ‘Ki extension’ to find clarity of connection (with centre) and soft strength in my dancing. I’m also interested in how we can extend our energy into spherical space, play with multiple connections, with orbits and the forces of attraction/repulsion within a galaxy of moving bodies. In other words, taking the grounded-centred-sensitised ‘contact body’ into the open score of group improvisation. This is partly influenced by ongoing study of Nancy Stark Smith’s Underscore.

Ulla Mäkinen (Finland)

Ulla Mäkinen is a dancer and dance teacher who has practiced CI since nine years. She lives in Finland but travels a lot working with contemporary dance. She loves to teach dance and research information from different somatic fields as well as dance as a performing art. In her work she emphasizes gentle discipline and curiosity, and diving into the unknown.. Read more about her in www.ullamakinen.com or www.bide.be .

BTTB - Back To The Basics

Focusing on the basics of contact improvisation to find groundedness, listening, following and improvising skills to enjoy and enrich the dancing.  We'll look at technical fundamentals as a way to establish and deepen a good (and safe) practice of improvisation. The class is perfect for beginners as well as people who want to visit some basic elements of CI for the start of the festival.  If you have questions considering CI, jamming and improvising, bring them with you! You might find answers, or a bunch of fresh, inspiring new questions...

Tímea Györke (Hungary) & Eniko Szilágyi  (Hungary)

Tímea Györke

Eniko Szilágyi

Performer, teacher and organizer. Starting out with a university degree at the Hungarian University of Physical Education as a teacher of physical education; teacher of APA (Adapted Physical Activity) and physiotherapist .
She studied contemporary dance techniques, contact improvisation, acrobatics at Contemporary DanceLab School in Budapest.
As a perfomer, she has participated in various research projects on improvisation and performance. She worked, among others, with Caroline Waters, Luke Johnson, Risa Takita, Tibor Molnár, CandoCo Dance Company and Toshi Makihara. Currently she dances for the Hungarian Tánceánia Company (an integrated dance company in Budapest) and TetraEther Group. Eniko is one of the founding members of ArtMan Movement Therapy and Art Association (founded in 2005).
Apart from dancing, she teaches contact improvisation, in which she has been involved for more than 19 years, and her own improvisation system what called ’SPHERE’. Besides, she works as a guest instructor at the Hungarian University of Physical Education where she teaches "development of body awareness".  Eniko is one of the organizers of the Hungarian Kontakt Budapest Festival, several workshops and other improvisation events.

'Head-tail connection'

(A possible class) how to pour the weight through our spine till the head or till the tail and what happens if we do so = the easy and “economy” way of dancing.

Other curiosities for the festival

Tímea Györke

Eniko Szilágyi

Juha Viitamaki (Finland)

Juha Viitamäki is a contact improviser from the fabled CI community of Helsinki. His current passion in contact is finding new ways of giving sensitive impulses with hands, body and feet.

Pre-thoughts about CI and Contemporary dance

There exist loads of challenges in weaving contemporary pathways with CI touching dancing. The differences between two forms could be exaggerated all the way to absurdity:  contemporary might be seen as insanely independent I-carry-my-own-weight-totally-and-I-do-not-depend-on-anyone soloing on an iceberg; and CI might be visualized as a swamp of sea-sick symbiotic fusions in messy I-love-you-all-we-are-all-one hippie love pizzas.

It is not user-friendly to try to swallow the whole CI+contemporary cake at once, e.g. trying to integrate into one´s dancing everything from heavy weight transfers to cool contemporary dance moves in one showy heroic attack… this simply causes indigestion.

It is more constructive and also gentle towards oneself to allow in-between steps into the touching world of CI: allowing major slowing downs… allowing nibbling on light weight transfers, tasting easy leanings, softening the touching at contact.

Clarity and tenderness (a possible class)

This class is focused on bridging the gap into CI sensitivity, yet retaining the individuality and clarity of more spacial dancing. The bridge will be through becoming influenced a the kind of sensitivity and tender holding that is for example present in good couple dancing, for example waltz, tango, etc.

This kind of couple-dancing ambience will be researched without going into the couple dancing field itself. It will just simply serve as an in-between stage for helping us become aware of one way how we could start weaving beautiful independent movement with touching, co-creating a spacious in-and-out-of-contact dance with our partner.

Sensitivity in touching can be extremely spacious, a lightness and beauty within the held intensity of the meeting. Everything blurry in it, in the messily dense potential of touching, can be smoothly channeled back into the liberating freedom of moving alone, while enjoying the full choice of adjusting the distance and the intensity of the contact at any moment.

Letting go of the idea of performing pathways helps in softening and becoming tender and clear with the listening. There is no need to contract defensively at the moment of touching; nor is there any need to rip off from touching into showy cuts and slashes into the space.

In-between steps can be taken to establish connection with sufficient slow-downs. The trust between the dance-partners comes through tender clarity: here we are sharing the dance, and yet here we remain two beautifully independent movers.

Vera Lapitskaya (Russia/ Finland)

Contemporary dance technique

(A possible class) Pushing, rolling, sliding as an initial point of the floor work.

other teaching interests

Thanks to Nataila Nikolaeva and Maria Baranova for the pictures.

Katri Luukkonen & Iiris Raipala(Finland)

Katri Luukonen

is a dancer and danceteacher from Helsinki, Finland. She graduated from Theatre Academy of Finland 2008 (MA). She has been teaching at various contact- and dancefestivals all over Europe, Russia, India and Finland. As well as “SkiingOnSkin”, she is also one of the organizers of GOAcontactfestival in India. Besides contactimprovisation, contemporary dance and theatre, she has been practicing OSHO's active meditations, authentic movement, yoga and aikido. 
“I love dancing, contactimprovisation and life-improvisation, sounding, singing and playing with my voice. I am attracted to live and love fully. I enjoy travelling, adventures, discussions, friends, fleemarkets, kissing, communitys, surrendering to surprises, meeting and melting, provoking, letting the flow take me, beautiful journeys travelling in unknown universes… ”

Iiris Raipala

is a dance artist; performer and teacher living in Helsinki. She graduated in 2004 as Master of Arts in dance from the Theatre Academy of Finland. She has also studied dance in School for New Dance Developement(S.N.D.O.) in Amsterdam and in many workshops around the world. She's been working closely with improvisation and contact improvisation in several performing groups. She is one of the organizers of Goa contact festival and Skiing on Skin -festival in Finland. At the moment she continues her studies as Iyengar yoga teacher. Besides dance and yoga her interests are raw food, osho-meditations and learning spanish.

Freedom inside the composition - Working with coreographed duet & partnering

In this class we will start with solowork, developping fixed material to play with, and continuing that into contact and partnering. How we can stay in fixed composition, but still maintain the freedom and easiness in our dance?

We will work with basic principles of releasing the body and the joints, and different qualities and volumes in our bodytone. Starting from the floor and playing with the gravity - rolling, sliding, finding the connection with our center and the limbs. We will also warm up the "contact-body", establishing the basic principles of contact - sharing the weight, spiralling, supporting, pushing and pulling... Finding delicate way to listen our partner, so that in composed material we would be still able to maintain the soft and detailed quality in the dance while entering into contact and out of it.

In this class we will be working mainly with coreographed material including contact/partnering in duet form.

Sensual spine in Contact Improvisation

By releasing the energy flow in your spine and by aligning and lenghening the spine we will dive into three-dimensional spacious dancing. We will use elements of yoga, bodywork and simple leaning and moving support exercises. By waking up the vitality and strengh in our spines we can access into animal-like state of alertness and exploding energy as well as sensuality and sensitivity.

Roland Nordeck (Germany)

After many years of CI practice I did half a year of fulltime dance training with Keriac in San Francisco and Stuttgart (2003/2004). After that I started teaching CI in Kassel. In 2005 I got into the dance department of North Carelian Kollege, Outokumpu, Finnland, where I studied contemporary dance for three years. The core part of that education was contemporary dance technique. It also included a wide range of different other approaches to movement training, like for example Feldenkrais, BMC, Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Ballet, Improvisation and Butoh.

In 2008 I moved back to Germany. I am currently located in Göttingen, where I teach CI.

I enjoy to use elements of Contemporary Dance - especially well grounded and smooth floor technique - as well as elements of Aikido to enrich my CI practice and teaching.

When teaching movement, it is especially important for me to create a non-competitive learning atmosphere, where individual needs and learning speeds are respected.

Floor surfing & body surfing

This class is about getting in touch with the floor and experiencing its friendly, solid and supportive character.

We are going to approach the theme of support surfaces (on the floor, on our own body and on our partners body) both in a sensual and in a technical way.

The aim of this class is to allow an experience, that combines deep grounding, activity and communication in movement. You'll get an opportunity to practice some basics of contemporary floor technique. It is about searching for effective and organic pathways (in agreement with how our bodies are designed) onto the floor, over the floor and up from the floor. An important principle, that we are focussing on, is how to balance relaxation and activity so that we can roll and slide on the floor in a smooth, efficient and comfortable way. Which of our own body surfaces can touch the floor and where do we find soft but solid support? What is the optimal timing in terms of muscle activity? In other words, which are the moments to invest energy and which are the moments to relax and allow kinetic energy to flow on?

We are also going to practice how to touch a partner in a respectful way and at the same time in a simple and practical way - using the partners body as a support surface. By carefully giving quite a lot of weight we are going to check out how we can sense the support of the floor through the partner. We are going to focus on a bodysurfing situation and find answers to (at least) two questions:

How can we recognize and enjoy the moments when we can let go and simply allow to be transported by our partner?

What helps us to communicate through touch?

The workshop is open for all levels of experience.

Paul Singh (USA)

Paul Singh is a dancing fool that lives and works in New York City, USA. He earned his BFA degree in Dance from the University of Illinois, USA, where he focused on a variety of dance techniques including Alexander Technique, Ballet, Modern and Contact Improvisation. He began his studies in CI with Chris Aiken and since then has had the pleasure of studying with Angela Dony, Yaniv Mintzer, Ray Chung and others. While recently visiting CI festivals in Israel, Russia and Germany, Paul spent time participating in intensives as well as assisting or teaching fundamentals in falling, flying, failing and laughing. As a student and teacher, he uses his understanding of Bartenieff Fundamentals as well as his innate sense of spatial awareness to explore more deeply the ideas of being grounded, becoming softer, and forgetting the difference between up and down.

The grounded animal - contemporary technique

What do we want to know? We want to draw from the floor to move up, from each other to move out, from outside knowledge to move in. We want a class steeped in technical rigor, but doesn't forget the reasons why we do this in the first place. We want pedagogy as progression - to demystify the idea of being "grounded," to be able to safely and quickly, to oscillate between dynamically different qualities of movement, to walk away from class with more than just a heightened heart rate. We want an intense investigation into clarity - knowing when we're rotated or relaxed, jumping or landing, high, low, wide, small and when we're dancing in a room with other bodies trying to speak to each other. This is asking a lot, but we are in a place where we have to demand more from ourselves in what and how we learn. This is an investigation into combining the thinking body with the moving body. We will draw from all the fundamentals we each bring into the room. We will use the methods of: developmental sequencing from the floor, crafting the natural forces in the power of the 'X' and re-educating the wonderful structures of our feet in order to re-connect to our instinctual, honest animal selves. We will think. We will sweat. We will DANCE

Trinidad Martinez

Trinidad Martínez (choreographer and dancer) is cofounder of the Magpai Production Group. This company has shown various productions at Kampnagel, and produced numerous pieces for site specific and unconventional spaces, which have been shown internationally. Their work is subtle, avant-garde and not easy to categorize; it stems from and works with improvisation. They produce shows in collaboration with other artists, believing as they do that stage-art develops in a deeper, more complex and multi-dimensional manner that way

Trinidad Martínez works at the moment with Yolanda Gutiérrez & Projects in Hamburg and Pat Graney Company, Degenerate Art Ensemble and Etzuko Ichikawa in Seattle, USA.

In 2007-08 she obtained a Fulbright scholarship which allowed her to travel in the USA and expand her knowledge in dance and performance.

Increasingly, her artistic direction develops interdisciplinary, mainly working with musicians; intercultural, she is constantly travelling and socially, by teaching and producing with people of different ages and social backgrounds.
Trinidad Martínez combines her dance career with an exhaustive study of Contact Improvisation, Aikido, Yoga and Meditation.

Set or not set, Whatever you choose…

This class will be an exploration based in the contrast of set material versus improvisation.

In a creative process it is fascinating and useful to play with the range of possibilities between precise movements and improvisational scores. It feels and looks different to improvise than to dance choreographed phrases, what is it? What are those contrapositions, oppositions, similarities? We experiment with variations on how to arrange them together. Dramatic contrasts are one way but also to melt both in a more organic manner is possible.

We will learn phrases, based in contemporary dance techniques but also integrating other registers. The focus is going to be:

• Symmetry and asymmetry.

• Clarity in our own space, shapes and energy.

• Rhythm, dancing with the music.

• Sense of synchronization in a group.

• Jumps, variations and possibilities.

Once we have practiced these “choreographed structures” we modify them; within themselves, but also through improvised scores around it. It will be possible to reflect on it by changing from an inside focus and practice, to become the spectator and watch the others dance.

trinidadmartinezcutillasenglish.blogspot.com

www.magpai.net

Mokshia Roland Frenzel

 * 1967, lives in La Palma,He loves to research and to teach the synthesis of
Dance and contact improvisation, music, bodywork and meditation since
The early nineties. www.body-mind-presence.de
MokshiaBodywork has her home in the emptiness and silence. It is
inspired by 20 years of study and practice of various
therapeutic methods and the natural release
all of these concepts.
Specials its therapeutic work are Inversiontheraphie
(www.hangab.de) and in a free-hanging cloth OmgymBodyWork
(www.omgym.eu). also inbetween the festival
He is also a father of five children, musicians,
 festival founder and organizer of way on this planet.

EASY FLOW - fascinating fascia

Fascial tissue is connecting and differentiating body structures. It is essential for feeling connected and integrated and for elasticity and flexibility in movement.
If you look at the human body as an instrument, the fasciae are like the strings. In this course we will use deep osteopathic techniques and voice work to tune our instruments, and support the process of bringing more freedom, ease and joy into breathing, moving and sounding.

other interests

Voice plays and singing
...simple way to connect to your source and to share your heart
Fly fly high---let the earth toiuch the sky....

Monika Gallardo Rosell (Ibiza)

I started dancing at the age of 4. I studied ballet, flamenco and contemporary, graduating in the dance school of the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona in 2003, specializing in contemporary.

After various experiences of dancing in companies, I had a moment of confusion in which I was no longer motivated to continue repeating the movements that others proposed me. For a while I left dance and I got into the practice of yoga and meditation. Nearly a year later after leaving a Vipassana retreat I came across the Contact Improvisation in Barcelona in 2007.

Since then I have not stopped dancing, studing, sharing and organizing CI events, traveling to Argentina, Germany, USA, Finland, France and Israel to expand my knowledge. Since 2008 I have formed a part of the organization of Ibiza Contact Festival.

As a dancer I'm still interested in techniques, Release has been a great help to my movement in Contact Improvisation and has helped me to easily learn the principles of CI.

BREATHING CENTER - contraction & expansion of the center

What is created in my body by the activation of my center? How do I need to organize my body and what do I need to activate to be able to follow this movement of going towards and away from my center? How able am I to activate and release the different parts of the body to continue moving in a soft way? Which sensations, qualities are coming up when I’m “in” and which ones when I’m “out”? How does this “breathing center” help me to move in the space?

With all these questions I would like to propose an exploration of some of the patterns that contemporary danse uses (flying-low_floor technique_release) and how we can use them to help us to organize our body in solo and in contact using the contraction and expansion of the center as the main focus.

Some idea about basics of CI will be helpful.

Nina Wehnert (Germany)

Nina Wehnert is a dancer and performer. She has studied Contemporary Dance and Improvisation at bewegungs-art in Freiburg and at SEAD in Salzburg. In dance and movement her ongoing interest is improvisation and in live it's the breath, the mind and the interplay of it.
Nina lives in Berlin. Currently she teaches a lot of yoga and is performing in dance productions. Here and there she is organizing CI gatherings in different formats in Berlin. Since 2008 she has been co-hosting with Christine Mauch the CI festival "satellites' return" at Ponderosa/Stolzenhagen.

Fanny Tanous (France)

After studying the Art of Performance and performing as an actress in several theatrical productions, her curiosity and research relating to the body, movement and human relationships led her towards an engaged practice of contact improvisation.

Following regular classes with Sylvie Robert’s in Paris, and Isabelle Uski in Grenoble, many other teachers have nurtured her learning: Kirstie Simson, Steve Paxton, Ray Chung, Lisa Nelson and numerous others, including regular dance partners by her side…

Her work has deepened around instant composition, and has been influenced by other practices such as BMC® and Authentic Movement. Her long-standing interest in transmission has led to teach various subjects: foreign languages, music and movement expression.

For the past two years she has been responsible for the artistic and pedagogic direction of Chorescence, supporting projects with conviction and enthusiasm, while teaching contact improvisation and offering regular classes with this association

Tanja Striezel (Germany)

I am a teacher of Dance, Contact Improvisation, experiential anatomy and movement exploration and work as a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique in Cologne and Bonn, Germany.

Coming from a background in ballet, gymnastics and jazz dance, I found my way to contact improvisaion in 1994. Since then I have been passionately practising and studying CI continuously with different teachers, in workgroups, festivals and jams. I completed a full-time dance training at bewegungs-art Freiburg. I have studied with Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, Dani Lepkoff, Scott Wells, Eva Karczag, Renate Wehner and others.

In my teaching I focus on the relationship with the floor, good connections to centre, periphery and gravity. I also work with the breath and inner space as a good base for self-groundedness. Often I use anatomical well-grounded bodywork to open awareness and presence and to allow softness and depth in the dance.

My practice of Authentic Movement and the principles of the Alexander-Technique support qualities like ease, flow and a state of non-doing.

Through my ongoing studies and interest in Nancy Stark-Smith's Underscore, I am working with subjects like warm up, solo into group improvisation and searching for fulfilling dances.

Marta Bonet Codina (Ibiza)