SUMMER CONTACT IMPROVISATION FESTIVAL
AUGUST 6 - 17
Join us for the 5th annual SUMMER CI FESTIVAL at the Field Center.
This year’s festival is in THREE PARTS, with two intensives, and many guest artist offerings.
Intensives and classes will be held in our brand new PIKE studio, with overflow jamming, labs, and special offerings will take place in our original studios.
PART 1 (AUGUST 6-10)
INTENSIVE WITH NURIA BOWART + RAY CHUNG (+ offerings by guest artists Ryan Yamuachi and Chris Cahoon)
PART 2 (AUGUST 10-14)
INTENSIVE WITH SHERWOOD CHEN (+ offerings by guest artists Funda Gul, Gabi Revlock, and Lilianna Kane)
PART 3 (AUGUST 14-17)
WEEKEND JAM WITH KAREN PALAFOX + CINTHIA NAVARRO (+ Morning Feldenkrais with Sakura Shimada)
Registration options include Part 1 and/or Part 2 only, Weekend Pass only, or a FULL FESTIVAL PASS with camping options available. This event is limited to 40 participants including campers.
SCHOLARSHIP | WORK TRADE | PAYMENT PLAN
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' ticket OR 'Work Trade' ticket when registering via the link below. For more information about the work trade exchange, please see Work Exchange.
CLICK HERE to register with a Payment Plan.
REFUND & CANCELLATION POLICY:
Partial refunds are available up to 10 days prior to the event.
*Please note that our registration software requires a 3% processing fee which will be deducted from your refund. Please note, no refunds will be issued within 10 days of the event. If you need to cancel, email us as soon as possible at communications@thefieldcenter.com so that we may offer the spot to wait-listed participants.
NOTE to BIPOC Scholars and Work Trade:
Please notify us within 10 days of the event if you cannot attend, so that we may offer the spot to wait-listed participants.
*Last minute cancellations with no prior notice may result in ineligibility in the future worktrade of scholarship positions.
If you have questions, please reach out to us anytime at communications@thefieldcenter.com
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS
Ray Chung is a performer, teacher, engineer, who has a passion for dancing which he likes to share with other people. His main focus is improvisation and he has worked with Contact Improvisation since 1979 as part of improvisational performance practice and integrates other movement forms into his work, including martial arts, bodywork and Authentic Movement. Ray has worked with the leading proponents of Contact Improvisation including Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Nita Little, Lisa Nelson, Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Andrew Harwood, and regularly collaborates with dancers, musicians, and other artists. His work has been featured at numerous national and international festivals and venues, and has performed in works directed by Anna Halprin, Judith Kajiwara, and George Coates Performance Works.
Nuria Bowart
After receiving a B.A. in Performance Studies, Nuria Bowart became a Rolfer, and for more than two decades has practiced the weaving of teaching movement, performing, and working one-on-one with clients. She is a contemporary dancer and international performer, a teacher of the Axis Syllabus, and a Capoeira Mestra. Her movement work is embedded in her knowledge of anatomy and basic physical principles that help us to experience grace as we move. Nuria believes that movement has meaning and that the body is a living library.
Sherwood Chen leads workshops and trainings internationally. He has worked as a performer with and / or under the direction of artists including Anna Halprin, Amara Tabor-Smith, Su-Feh Lee, Xavier Le Roy, Min Tanaka, Antonija Livingstone, Grisha Coleman, Taos Bertrand, Sara Shelton Mann, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Yuko Kaseki, inkBoat / KoMurobushi, Jess Curtis, Anne Collod, Michelle Sui, Jérôme Bel, etc. For over twenty-five years he has contributed to Body Weather research initiated by Tanaka and associates, was a member of Tanaka’s company Mai Juku and Body Weather Farm in Japan, and worked with artists from foundational generations in the U.S. and Europe including Oguri and Christine Quoiraud. He has worked dramaturgically and in movement direction with choreographers, artists, researchers and performers including Bettina Blanc-Penther, Sofia Kouloukouri, Mouvements Migrateurs, Gerald Pirner and Saba A. Le Renard, and forthcoming with choreographer Ghyslaine Gau and filmmaker Ana Elena Tejera.
Cinthia Pérez Navarro
Teacher, dance-maker and interdisciplinary artist, originally from Puebla, México based in NYC.
Her work is rooted in Contact Improvisation, Contemporary Dance and Somatic Practices. She was on faculty at the American Dance Festival NC (2025), Summer CI Festival at The Field Center VT (2024), Contact & Flow Bacalar, Mex. (2025), San Pancho CI Festival Nayarit, Mex. (2023-2025), Festival Pigmentos Puebla, Mex. (2023), Encuentro Nacional CI CDMX (2016-2018), Performática Cholula, Mex (2016-2018).
She founded Contact Improv Puebla community in 2013 and continues to work with international interdisciplinary collectives XIPE Colectivo Escénico and Chicken Bank Collective.
Her pedagogy has been profoundly inspired by training with Nancy Stark Smith, Ray Elliot Schwartz, Martín Keogh, Nita Little, Zap McConnell, Daniel Lepkoff, Alicia Grayson, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken, Nia Love, Manuel Rochette, Karen de Luna Fors, Ángel Arámbula, as well as by her students and collaborators.
She approaches dance as a practice of resilience, promoting care and agency in movement, sparking self-discovery and creative responsiveness through community-based projects.
She holds a BA in Dance from the University of the Americas Puebla, Mex. (UDLAP) and she is a Somatic Movement Educator from the Body Mind Movement México school. Currently involved as a rotating teacher with the NYC CI community.
Karen Palafox (Mexico)
Dancer, producer, and movement researcher dedicated to Somatic Education, Contact Improvisation, and Evolutionary Aquatic Movement. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Dance from UDLAP and is a Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist certified by Body-Mind Movement® (Mexico and Brazil), a certified Janzu® Aquatic Therapy facilitator, and currently in ongoing training with AquaSoma®. Her work is focused on the exploration of developmental movement patterns as portals to sensitivity, perception, and proprioception, both in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Her somatic landscape is largely grounded in the practice of improvisation and CI, through which she investigates how movement and contact open sensomotor pathways for the creation of relational ecosystems, where the soma is inhabited as a living territory, revealing more embodied forms of presence. Since 2011, she has organized and participated in numerous gatherings, workshops, and events related to dance, improvisation, Contact Improvisation, and Somatic Education in Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, New Zealand, the United States, and Ecuador.
Sakura Shimada: studied dance in NYC and presented her own work. She was a Movement Research Artist-in Residence in 2008-9. Since 2007, she lives in West Halifax VT and has been traveling and co-teaching with Daniel Lepkoff throughout Europe and South America. She studied DanceAbility with Alito Alessi in 2012 in Bogota, Columbia teacher training. She is a Feldenkrais practitioner, graduating the NYC training in 2014. Recently she has been influenced by Qigong and yoga practice.
Photo by Nicolas Aud
Carolina Marín is a Chilean dancer and transdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. an Axis Syllabus teacher and Contact Improvisation practitioner, her work explores the convergence of dance, science, and the natural environment. Through movement research and education, she integrates textiles, wearables, architecture, sound, and nature to create collective experiences that expand the boundaries of the moving body.
Funda Gul is an adventurous explorer of movement, engaging with diverse disciplines as part of an ongoing spiritual and intellectual journey. Her path began in 2005 with Aikido, where her curiosity for embodied learning first took root. Over time she immersed herself in Systema, eventually finding her voice as an instructor. Her exploration of Yoga philosophy led her to complete a 500-hour teacher training in the Krishnamacharya lineage, where she discovered the power and elegance of practices that adapt to the individual rather than asking the individual to adapt to the practice.
Since 2016, Funda has been deeply involved in Contact Improvisation as a student, teacher, and facilitator. She has collaborated with respected dancers to organize workshops and events, including two memorable workshops with Nita Little in the heart of New York City.
Her teaching is nourished by a constellation of practices, Yoga, Aikido, Qigong, and Systema, alongside her ongoing research in the Axis Syllabus, Butoh, and Tango. From these streams she weaves classes that welcome the diversity of bodies, curiosities, and lived experiences in the room, while inviting attention to counterbalancing forces in movement, the presence of the emotional body, and embracing the intelligence of nature.
Funda’s intention is to cultivate an inclusive space where movement can unfold through listening, curiosity, and play. Guided by the principle that “Function Creates the Form” she invites dancers to explore how alignment with the body, and with the forces moving through and around it, can allow the dance to arise organically.
Gabrielle Revlock is a creator, performer, improviser, collaborator, and educator. A New York City Bessie Award–winning choreographer, she has been a practitioner of Contact Improvisation for over 20 years. Her research on the therapeutic applications of Contact Improvisation—including the development of her practice Restorative Contact—is published in Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50 (Oxford University Press, 2024) and has been presented at conferences including CI@50, the Embodiment Conference, the Dance & Somatics Conference, and the Future of CI Conference. She teaches Contact Improvisation in New York City at Movement Research. Recent festival engagements include the European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange, Brinca Galicia Contact Festival, Ontario Regional Contact Improv Dance Jam, DNE Dance Camp, Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival, and Earthdance. Gabrielle is co-producer of the 2026 NYC Contact Improvisation Festival, May 29–31 on Governors Island. She holds an MFA in Dance from Smith College. www.GabrielleRevlock.com.
Ryan Yamauchi was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii where he trained in ballet, contemporary dance, aikido and improvisation. Ryan is currently a dancer/rehearsal director with Doug Varone and Dancers and a collaborator with 2nd Best Dance Company. He has also had the pleasure of performing with Gabriel Forestieri, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, Loni Landon Dance Projects, and the Santa Fe Opera. Ryan has been practicing contact improvisation since 2012.
Photo from 2nd Best Dance Company
Photo Credit: Alice Chacon
Chris Cahoon is an improviser, teacher and facilitator based in Brooklyn, New York. He embraces the “art-sport” approach to Contact Improvisation, where his movement background in team sports meets his early initiations in Authentic Movement and Skinner Releasing Technique. Chris is curious about the spherical body in space, observing reflexes, and playing with states of physicality. He is influenced by teachers Paul Singh, Bradley Teal Ellis, and Alicia Grayson. Recent teaching engagements include the Freiburg Contact Festival (Germany), La Manzana de Paxton (Mexico), and Earthdance (USA). Chris holds a BA in Rhetoric from Whitman College and was an Artist-in-Residence with the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation in 2019. Chris teaches CI classes and facilitates jams in New York City.