Contact improvisation workshop for all levels
June 4-7, 2009, Vilnius, Lithuania
With Julija Melnik (Lithuania) and Maria Grudskaya (Russia)
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In the workshop we will use the floor and its energy to move and support ourselves and each other. We will travel through levels, find easy and safe ways to fall down and to get up. Our hands can be strong as legs and our legs can be light and sensitive as hands, enriching the movement.
We will practice listening and following the partner, reading his or her movements with our hands and the whole body. We will dance in the dialogue, when both partners are mobile and ready to follow each other.
In the dance we share weight with the partner, offer support, and let spontaneous liftings to happen. We will search ways to support the partner with minimal effort. How to sense the moments to get support or a lift? And how to be light there?
This workshop is open for any experience level. You can be an intermediate dancer, or it can be your first meeting with contact, it doesn’t matter! All together we can get into an unexpected and inspiring exploration!
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Teachers:
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Julija Melnik
“I love to create a space for awareness, openness, spontaneity, love and joy to happen.
I am happy to share my curiosity and engagement with dance and life and I am glad to encourage people on their way to meet and discover themselves and people around them. When I teach I try to create a safe container for individual exploration of this dance form (CI) and allow the freedom of searching, questioning and enjoying.”
Julija is teaching regular CI classes, jams and workshops in Vilnius and other cities in Lithuania, and abroad. She is also organizing CI events in Lithuania: workshops, annual November minifestival, International CI and Performance festival in August 2009.
Julija has studied contact improvisation with CI pioneers – Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith, and also with Nina Martin, Andrew Harwood, Angela Donii, Joerg Hassman, Charlie Morrissey, Adrian Russi, and many others.
Besides CI Julija is also dancing salsa, Argentinean tango and contemporary dance, she is teaching street dance and is exploring other improvisational forms and performance.
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Maria Grudskaya
Masha is a dancer, teacher and organizer from Moscow, Russia. She teaches CI in Moscow, in other cities of Russia and abroad.
Masha has studied contact improvisation with Steve Batts (Ireland), Joerg Hassman (Germany), Ezter Gal (Hungary), Angela Doni (Russia), Martin Keogh (USA), Karl Frost (USA), Peter Bingham (GB) and many others. She is a participant of ECITE (European CI teacher exchange 2006, 2007).
She performs regularly with a contemporary dance theatre and takes part in different projects as an independent artist. Since 2007 she has been experimenting with teaching CI to children.
“When I dance and teach, it feels like I am constantly opening new doors, finding new details and meanings. I love to see myself and other people enjoying the taste of movement. I am happy to have a group of friends with whom we dance, perform, teach and learn together and make the big contact festival every year!”