Contact Improvisation & Instant Composition:
integrating movement technique, improvisation and skills for performance –
(or: stories coming from our hands and feet and the pelvis too)
5 day intensive workshop – with ADRIAN RUSSI
WHEN: October 11-15, 2010, 12am-6pm
WHERE: Schwelle 7, Berlin, Germany
CONTACT IMPROVISATION & INSTANT COMPOSITION
In this workshop we will explore intensively the relation between movement technique and performance, how CI-skills and knowledge about instant composition can support and enrich each other. This year there will be a focus on the use of our hands and feet and therefore also on the connection of center and periphery.
In the morning classes we will work on movement skills in solo, duet and trio. We will look for ways how to deal with gravity in a clever way, how to move upside-down and to integrate flying and falling into our dance. The key ingredients will be a distinguished body awareness in order to move and to communicate with our partner precisely, the playful interaction of technique and improvisation and the conscious use of timing and space – what in fact are also fundamentals for performing CI.
In the afternoon classes we will go beyond CI-technique and improvisational skills to see what is changing deeply when one is exposed to an audience. It’s a lot about getting more present and connecting the inner with the outer space. Having trust in your instincts and your intuition will be as much important as learning about compositional aspects and using CI-technique in order to give a clear base to the performance. The clever use of hands, feet and pelvis as intimate, expressive and skillful body parts will enable us to meet each other not only on a physical level but also more personally and to go deeper towards manipulation and sensitive touch.
For those who will feel ready the workshop will end with a public studio performance to show our work to an audience and of course to bring our practice into reality. Good to know: finally performance can be trained only while performing.
Come prepared to both move a lot and dive deep down into a subtle work with your body and to get energized from being on stage!
PERFORMANCES
The workshop will therfore culminate in an evening of Performance/showing on Friday, October 15 at 8:30 pm
ADRIAN RUSSI:
Adrian Russi is a one of the leading CI-teacher in Switzerland and travelling all over Europe to teach and perform Contact and Free Improvisation. He is deeply involved in CI since 1992 and in the meantime he is dedicating the biggest part of his life to this wonderful dance form.
After his studies of New Dance at “bewegungs-art” in Freiburg/Germany he continued his education with many different teachers, among them Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith who have started to develop CI in the early seventies with a group of other movers. Besides this his teaching is also influenced by his studies of different kinds of martial arts and Craniosacral Bodywork.
He offers his work as a free lancer to a wide range of people and also gets regularly invited to teach in schools. In his teaching he focuses on the technical aspects of CI (ease, precision and strength) as well as on matters of perception (body-sensation, connection of inner and outer space, of bottom and top, centre-periphery) and on a creativity coming from a distinct body-awareness. For him the pleasure to play, deep engagement in the dance, and respect for others are the basis for gaining the most possible in dancing CI.
As a performer he works with many different international artists and his performances are primarily based on Free Improvisation incorporating Contact Improvisation, dance, dance-theatre, voice and live music. In 2007 he initiated “Moving Men”, a men’s trio with Charlie Morrissey and Jacky Miredin touring with there performance-work all over Europe.
As an organizer of CI-events he is involved in many festivals, jams and teachers-meetings, among them the “Moscow Contact and Performance Festival” and the “International Berner Jam”.
For more information go to www.adrianrussi.com
FEE: 150 Euro
REGISTER: per email to xs4jan (at) gmx.de
UPDATES: http://www.schwelle7.de/Adrian%20Russi.html
SLEEPING:
We can host up workshop participants basic opportunities to stay overnight. The cost is 10 EUR a night per person. More options: http://www.schwelle7.de/GAESTE.html
VENUE:
Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6, backyard, 2. floor
13357 Berlin – Wedding / Germany
http://www.schwelle7.de
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=286059761953
Traffic link: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz
http://maps.google.de/maps?daddr=13357+Berlin,+Uferstr+6
