10-13 April, Koh-Phangan
A course for all levels.
This course is centered around cultivating a gentle attitude toward yourself and your partner.
The technical aspect of the course will involve studying lifts and supports at various levels, from the floor to standing positions with a partner. This is enough to create a technically rich dance. If we're fortunate, we may explore shoulder rolls. The material I work with allows us to approach these movements with great gentleness. But above all, I prioritize quality. If we can maintain the right soft quality, we may rise higher and move forward. The goal is not height, but soft/smooth and light, flowing quality.
Dance is not solely about lifts. We will explore the interconnectedness and flow of movement in shared dance.
We will also learn to observe our own dancing, as well as that of others, which will help us appreciate the beauty of the present moment. This is composition in dance.
Through more detailed and precise differentiation in the body, we discover new interconnections—and sometimes even new, previously unrecognized parts of the body. This leads to better articulation and movement flow. We will spend time experiencing and rethinking bodily processes to connect with the intelligence of the body. From a place of resource and pleasure, we will step into contact dance. I will incorporate elements from somatic practices like BMC and the Feldenkrais method.
For those who don’t know me or are attending a Contact Improvisation class for the first time, I want to clarify that contact improvisation is not limited to what I teach in class—it’s a much broader practice. However, in my classes, you will discover a particular teaching style. I invite you to generously share in what I have learned and danced over many years.
Our guides will be:
- REACH (stretching with different limbs),
- Rolls from REACH (shifting weight),
- Lightening weight when lifting up (changing levels beyond the eyebrows),
- Pelvic rolling (legs are not the first to move),
- TOR.
We will spend a lot of time on the floor, so bring your blankets and layered hoodies. I’m finally ready for this kind of course!
In this course, I want to teach how to move from a sense of weight—how to distribute it, maintain it, and not collapse it. How to avoid overwhelming a partner in rolls—too much weight can press down. How to understand and use your weight so that mastering it brings mutual pleasure in dance. Many people love hammocks, weighted blankets—weight can soothe the nervous system. I want to teach you how to be that comforting weight.
For the kind of dance I propose in this course, we can take inspiration from any pre-vertebrate sea creatures: octopuses, jellyfish, sea stars. The goal of this course is to learn how to engage the entire body for movement in space, without pressing down with isolated parts. To avoid creating strong contrasts between hyper-tonus and hypo-tonus in different areas of the body.
Come, learn, and absorb the dance!
