CONTACT IMPROVISATION: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
CHRIS AIKEN + ANDREW HARWOOD
JANUARY 15 - 17
In this workshop, dancers will investigate how foundational principles of contact improvisation, including the dynamics of touch, moving support, yielding and reaching towards, collaborative improvisation, and perceptual tuning, can support inspired dancing. Through guided practice, we will develop our capacities for movement, creativity, and heightened awareness. Our practice will center around communal and individual respect for ourselves and one another.
Open to all levels, some experience preferred.
SCHOLARSHIP + WORK TRADE
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We offer 3 full scholarships for Black, Indigenous and People of Color [BIPOC] folks in each session. As well as 3 Work Trade spots in each session. If interested please select 'BIPOC Scholarship' OR 'Work Trade' when registering via the link below. For more information about the work trade exchange, go to the Work Exchange page.
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS
Chris Aiken is an internationally recognized performer and teacher of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. His approach has been guided by the effort to link one’s poetic sensibilities with the capacity to engage ecologically through perception, action, and imagination. In this sense, ecology includes the self and others, non-human beings, and the world. It also includes culture and human artifacts. Chris has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Angie Hauser, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung, Patrick Scully, Olivier Besson, and Steve Paxton. His work has been shaped by years of practice in the Alexander Technique, Gyrokinesis, ideokinesis, yoga, and fascial bodywork and movement training. He is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Dance at Smith College.
Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is renowned as a leading light in the field of dance improvisation. He is an internationally recognized pioneer of contact improvisation (CI) and a master teacher/performer in both real-time composition and CI. He first studied and then performed with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Nita Little, the instigators of Contact Improvisation. He has also danced for the companies of Marie Chouinard, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Jo Lechay, Joint Forces and Fulcrum, as well as the improvisational dance collectives Discovery Bal, The Echo Case and The Improvisational Movement Fund. His journey has continued to evolve through the development of consciousness, various investigations of perceptual awareness, an in-depth interest in design in composition as well as an abundance of collaborative performances around the globe with distinguished dance artists Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Ray Chung, Daniel Lepkoff, Kirstie Simpson, Alito Alessi, Karen Nelson, K.J. Holmes, Lisa Nelson, Julyen Hamilton, Benno Voorham and Benoit Lachambre, to name a few.
