Kiev Festival of Contact Improvisation

Releasing & power

We will play with the basics of CI and explore finding the wonder of our partners form, touch, imagination, force and structure. We will work with releasing work, (letting go, economy, image work), studying listening and giving in to gravity and observing the reflexes at work by following the natural laws of movements. Naming the senses and the intelligence of the body, forming elaborate worlds within our improvisational minds, enhancing the tuning of catching, falling, rolling at the appropriate times will enrich our duet and trio dancing. Listening to our limitations as a physical and changing body will allow us to find our power and range.

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Gal Eszter (Hungarian) She is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and organizer. She graduated at the Hungarian University of Physical Education in Budapest in 1989 as a physical education teacher and a physiotherapist. She studied at EDDC (European Dance Development Center) - Arnhem, The Netherlands for 3 years. During her studies she had worked with Yoshiko Chuma (New York), Mark Tompkins (France) and Stephanie Skura (Seattle). She is a certified Skinner Releasing Teacher (SRT). Currently she is a Ph.D. student at the Budapest Semmelwies University faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences.

Since 1993 she has been presenting her works throughout Europe, Russia and in the US as well as performing solo, duet and group improvisations. She was a member of L1 Independent Dancers' Partnership between 2001 and 2007. She founded her group called Company ST in 2003. She has been working with T?nce?nia (a mixed ability company) since 2003 and was the founding member of ArtMan Movement Therapy and Art Workshop in 2005.

At present she is a teacher at the Hungarian Dance Academy where she teaches Contact Improvisation, Improvisation and movement technique. She has been teaching master classes on a regular basis in Slovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Russia, and has been invited to several International Festivals in Europe. She organized the 15th ECITE (European Contact Improvisation Teacher's Exchange) in Budapest, 2000 July, and she is the artistic director of the Kontakt Budapest International Improvisation Festival since 2002.

Look!

During this classes i am curious to find tools how to use eyes in Contact improvisation. What do i see when i dance? Can i create alive dancing dialogue by using eyes as initiator for movement? What kind of details we can find from dance by closing our eyes? . What if I have in every moment many possibilities to see world around me. How do i touch when i don?t see? From light contact and softness we move towards more weight and intensity � working with skin, muscle and bones and using this knowledge as a structure to build the dance but also to build a connection to the other person. So this classes will be lot about what kind of choices we make through our eyes in dance and also about juicy details and basic principles of Contact Improvisation

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Mirva Makinen (Finland) I am a 35-year old dancer. I graduated (MA) from the Dance Department of the Theatre Academy of Finland in 2000. After studies I have worked widely in Finland as a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. From 2000 onwards I have acted as dance teacher and lecturer for dance at the Kallio highschool of Performing Arts. I have also taught at domestic and international dance, contact improvisation festivals. Beside that I work as a freelance dancer and choreographer. Lately i have been working in dance company Karttunen Kollektiv and in Circo Aereo, company for new circus.

In dance I am interested in the feeling of flow and soft movement. I love to investigate movement, its rhythm and different ways of inhabiting the body. A feeling of dancing is created by being able to switch the body from total relaxation to extreme intensity and �tension�. I call this the body�s ability to breathe and create movement. My ideal is curiosity and presence, which makes every moment true and meaningful.

INTUITIVE SYSTEMS FOR CONTACT IMPROVISATION

In the six years of their collaboration, co-teaching CI to beginners as well as to professional dancers all over Europe and America, Daniela and Eckhard have been developing a system of basic tools to access and deepen into the form Contact Improvisation.

In this workshop we will explore the center-periphery connection as a key principle to separate and reconnect the limbs to the center in different ways. Through the action of releasing and activating, reaching and folding, spiraling, etc, we will develop different movement patterns, that will help us to let go from old and inefficient ones to find ease and flow in our own pathways along the floor and through the different levels listening to gravity and momentum.
With more awareness for our own body in motion, we will be ready to connect to our partner's body and fully commit to the dance, while we stay centered and grounded, as we enter our spherical space.
We will explore the full range of giving and receiving, from light touch (you are responsible for your own weight) to full weight sharing. Through respectful listening and body actions like scanning, sensing, reading, leaning, proposing, following, accepting, resisting, balancing, counter-balancing, etc, we will engage ourselves in an open physical dialog.
Understanding and integrating some of the principles, we will find more trust and freedom in our own body, own movements and in the communication with our partner.

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Eckhard Mueller (Germany/France) Falling in love with Contact Improvisation in 1988, Eckhard M?ller started studying contemporary dance, including improvisation and CI at bewegungs-art Freiburg (diploma 93) and with Alito Alessi, David Zambrano, Mark Tompkins, Julyen Hamilton, Martin Keogh, Nancy Stark-Smith among many other masters.
Since then, he has been collaborating with various improvisers in research and performance groups to develop his own understanding of �instant composition� as an art form. As a dancer he has worked for choreographers such as Iztok Kovac, Mark Tompkins, David Zambrano. He has been teaching CI since 1994 to professionals of theatres/companies, dance students in academies and non-professionals in dance centres all over the world. He is co-founder of the dance theatre Company D?gad?zo in Strasbourg, using improvisation to create set pieces. For more than 20 years Eckhard has been tremendously active to build up �contact communities� in his home city Freiburg as well as in his new home Strasbourg and supporting others all over the world. He is co-founder of the contactfestival freiburg, a major CI event in Europe. In 2006 he developed SKIN, an interactive performance concept with elements of Contact Improvisation and instant composition. He realized this concept in collaboration with Daniela Schwartz in different cities worldwide, each time with a new group of professional dancers, musicians and videasts.

Daniela Schwartz (Argentina/France) Dancer, Performer, Improviser and Teacher of Contact Improvisation and Instant Composition since 1998. Graduated in Fine Arts at ESAD, Ecole Sup?rieure des Arts D?coratifs de Strasbourg. She has participated in different projects, labs and performances in Cuba, Mexico, USA, Europe and South America. Influenced by Martin Keogh, Danny Lepkoff, Nancy Stark Smith, Mark Tompkins, Andrew Harwood, Julyen Hamilton... As a member of the dance theater Cie D?gad?zo, she co-created �Cabine d�essayage� , �Parlez moi d�amour� and has been teaching at Theater P?le Sud, EMDS Ecole Municipale de Danse, TNS Teatre National, and CIRA, in Strasbourg. Years of jewelery making, objects, textile and fashion studies, video creation, installations, performances, and the different artistic aspects of �the body� informed her physical practice and her intellectual research, questioning the idea of �the human being separated form the world�. Lately she assisted Eckhard Mueller to develop SKIN, an interdisciplinary and interactive performance project and realized in many cities worldwide.

Breakpoint

My dancing is based on sensations
I perceive
I look for the earth since earth gives me everything
without it I'm weak and lost
without it, I am not.
How do I perceive earth, weight and support?
What is the sensation?

Weight falls through me, so does support.
How to guide these falls.
Are we looking for result, or the happening?
What if happening/sensation is the result and result is sensation?

At some point I break.
At some point I break.
At some point
Title taken from a song by Nadja

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Otto Akkanen (Finland) I dance in the world of abundance, where nothing is, and nothing is denied.
I dance in the world beyond good and evil, good and bad, ethics or morals.
I dance in the world of freedom.
I dance in physicality, bounded by forces I feel/sense.
I dance in the world of banality, where nothing is holy.
I dance in the world of flesh and blood and bones.
I dance on the earth, where everything comes from, where everything goes to.
I dance in the world of time, measured by perception, sensations, not by the hours of the clock.
I dance in me, moments flowing to moments, sensations to sensations, thoughts to thoughts and into the earth again.
I dance not.
Dance is me, me is dance. I do not exist out from the dance, dance does not exist out from me.
Who is dancing?

The Hungry Space

The hungry space arises in and around a soft, supple body connected into the earth, whose lines of force give it stability, and the power to spring effortlessly into action. There is the space that roves through the inside of the body, shaping its container and providing the medium through which impulses can be heard and followed. Then there is the space outside. When I absorb you into the kinesphere of my sensation, we are dancing in contact. This space between us, etched by vision, ruptured and reformed with imagination, tells us about our relationship. I give you my space to see where you take us. And what is at the interface between inner and outer? At this boundary skin is the performative state, the place of choice, the generation of scores. When attention rests here, holding the two worlds simultaneously, awareness rises to a new level, and the whole is suddenly moving in synchrony with itself.

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Brenton Cheng (USA) is a teacher, director, and performer of improvised and choreographed work, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to directing his own work, he has performed with internationally-acclaimed Contraband, Zaccho Dance Theater, Angus Balbernie, Kim Epifano, Jo Kreiter & Flyaway Productions, and many others, at such places as Jacob's Pillow, Bates Dance Festival, and the Festival d'Avignon, France. Since 1995, he has taught improvisation for performance, contact improvisation, and movement re-patterning to both professional and non-professional movers in classes and workshops around the world. As a teacher, he empowers students to become sophisticated movers through a cultivation of somatic and poetic awarenesses, and an engaged relationship to the unknown. He is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst and is on the faculty at University of San Francisco and the Integrated Movement Studies Laban/ Bartenieff certification program in Berkeley, California

The Challenge of Falling and Flying

This workshop will focus on developing proficiency with the skills and approaches necessary for leaving the ground, moving through the air, and landing safely, in the context of Contact Improvisation. Starting with the essentials of grounding, centering, intention, and moving support, we'll move onto weight modulation, creating levity, precision in locating centers, and related topics. We will play on the edge of what is possible for each participant to challenge one's self to really "go for it" in aerial movement and landing/catching strategies and techniques. Integration of these practices into dancing will be a major focus of the workshop. A working facility with Contact Improvisation is required. For intermediate to advanced and experienced participants.

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Ray Chung (USA) is a performer, teacher, engineer, and artist 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 and regularly collaborates with dancers, musicians, and other artists. His work has been featured at numerous national and international festivals and venues. Currently based in San Francisco, Ray regularly teaches abroad.

The Mystery of Falling

Every day we are falling. When we stand, when we walk, when we lie-down, when we fall asleep... Still, and especially in contact improvisation, falling is a big mystery. Only rarely we can really let go and fall � in the space, to the floor, to our partner � effortless and free, but awake.
In this workshop we will experience and play with the physical forces that act upon us � alone and together - and especially gravity which leads to falling and the momentum that is created.
We will explore the emotional and physical states and possibilities that these forces open for us, and the dance that arises from them and from us...
Each day will start with soft close-to-the-floor fine-tuning of the body/mind. We will then take the quality we create as well as using some detailed exercises, into contact improvisation - dancing and jamming.

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Lior Ophir (Israel) is a Dancer, Improviser, Shiatsu therapist, Engineer, Teacher, Student.
Lior practices and explores various forms of movement, dance, body/mind and awareness, including: Improvisation, Contact Improvisation, Butoh, Shiatsu Therapy, Yoga, Vipassana Meditation, Tai-Qi, Qi-Kong.
Some influential teachers include Arye Burstein, Nancy Starks-Smith, Yoshito Ohno, Frey Faust, Juan Cruz Diaz, Julian Hamilton, and many others, and especially everyone I have a chance to share a dance with.
Lior has been performing in solo works as well as in collaborations with various artists, in theaters, galleries and in the public space, in Israel and abroad.
Lior has been invited to teach and perform in numerous festivals and projects in Israel, Japan, throughout Europe, and America, and has been extensively teaching workshops and classes worldwide.
Lior has co-founded and is a member of several ensembles and dance collectives including �present moment dance� and �Impulse� (Israel) and co-organized the 7th ICF (Israeli CI festival) and the 1st Impulse festival (for Improvisation in word, movement, music) in Israel.
Lior is currently a traveling artist, teaching and performing throughout Europe, Japan, America. �In the last year and a half, I have been exploring �falling� � as a dancer, as a teacher, as a human being. Giving numerous workshops on this subject, and always learning how little I know, and how vast and deep this subject is, how much there is still to discover�.

Timing of the weight, Direction of the flow

This is an invitation to a journey through the body�s intelligence. The body has the great capacity to respond, adapt and graduate its movement in relation to the environment and to the situation the body is in. We will work from anatomical, skeletal and senso-perception concepts to dance; from body awareness to exploration, from the listening to the making decisions, from slow movement to quick one.

�Like a rooted tree which irradiates out its braches trough the space, our body has the capacity to use the earth and the gravity to move.�

�Like a drop of water sliding down de glass of the window, the body has the ability to guide itself towards the flowing direction.�

Ester Momblant Ribas (Spain)

Ester Momblant Ribas is Mediterranean. �For me CI is a constant study of both, body and mind, in motion.� Graduated in Dance and Related Arts in England, and studied in S.N.D.O. Amsterdam, Ester has been involved in dancing, teaching and performing CI since 1997. Since then she has taught around Europe, Russia, Brazil, and Israel. She is constantly involved in movement research connecting it with nature, pedagogy and personal development. Since 2004 she is a Body-Awareness teacher at ESMUC, University of Music in Barcelona.

upside down

..and the world will stands on its head..

In this workshop we will turn the world 1800 and experience how it feels like to dance upside down. That means very simply to move, role and flow through positions where your pelvis is moving above your head. We will find ways to stay light and mobile in very different places and to give weight into our hands without effort. By that new spheres and unexpected possibilities will arise in your dance. While dancing solo or with a partner we will float down into the floor, fall back up and experience the lightness of our body moving through the space with all its dimensions.
During our explorations we will also have a deeper look at the spine in order to get a better understanding and a distinct sensation for this connection of up and down.
There will be space for free dancing too, verbal exchange and for silence to get the full taste of this dance form and to integrate the new material into your own dancing.

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Adrian Russi (Switherland) 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.
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 (sensation, connection of inner and outer space, of bottom and top) 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�

For more information go to www.adrianrussi.com

Contact Improvisation and the Art of Presence

"Being in the moment" will be our motto during this intensive workshop. We will spend time to tune in into our sensory awareness to start dancing with others. Contact Improvisation will be our common ground to come into a physical and playful dialogue with others. Through the touch based work of C.I. we will develop a greater understanding of what it could mean to "be in the moment", to navigate our bodies in dancing through time and space.

We will spend time to further our skills in C.I. and to use these skills in different scores for improvisation.

This workshop is meant for those who have an understanding of the basics of Contact Improvisation.

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Benno Voorham (Holland) is a dance improviser, choreographer and teacher from Holland, living in Stockholm since 1995. Since his graduation in 1986 from the /School for New Dance Development/ in Amsterdam he has worked internationally as an independent dance-artist, directing his own work as well as collaborating with others in both set and improvised pieces. He was a member of the Greek dance-theatre company �Wrong Movement� (1993-2007) and has worked as a dancer/actor at the City Theatre of Stockholm (2005�2007).

In both his teaching and performance work, he is interested in exploring the creative, narrative potentials of the human body through movement. In recent years he has choreographed several pieces for children and youth.

He has won a distinctive reputation for his original brand of teaching and performing. His teaching is primarily focussed on Improvisation and Contact Improvisation. He is teaching extensively internationally since 1986. Benno has been a major force in introducing CI to many of the Eastern European countries. In both 1998 and 2002 he organized the ECITE conference (European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange) in Sweden together with Sybrig Dokter, with whom he founded /LAVA- Dansproduktion /in 1997.

�Eye of the storm� or how to keep awareness in dynamics

At the moment my focus of exploration in CI is a search of possibilities which would help to keep awareness, attentiveness and clarity in the dynamics of a contact dance.

How to let our skills and qualities which have been worked out at technical classes, appear in our improvised dance? Where is our attentiveness, while we dance? Where is it directed to? How does it arise and disappear? How does it influence our dance?

We will practice different types of support, falling and shifting on the physical level. We will explore them through changing the speed, levels, dynamics and stillness. We will bring the attention to ourselves in motion, in interaction with another partner, in space.

We will explore the ways of seeing and noticing variety of possibilities and flows appearing in a moment. And maybe this attention will bring freedom into our dance � a freedom of conscious choice in the moment.

Here are some key-topics which we will explore:

• What is dynamics of a shared weight
• How to keep stability in dynamics of movements and support
• How to take weight without loosing the flow and to keep moving with it
• How to make a support in dynamics safe and harmless
• How to be clear in offering and attentive in following
• How to keep being �yourself� (centering, readiness, awareness, integrity) in a flow of interrelationships and changing conditions?

For participants familiar with basic CI principles and techniques. The workshop will be also useful for beginners, as any technique can be exercised on a more simple level. You just have to be honest and attentive)

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Katia Basalaeva (Novosibirsk, Russia) � dancer, performer, teacher, project manager

For the last 20 years she has been exploring the movement, playing with different forms and content. As a freelance dancer and choreographer she has been involved in modern projects and has created her own works during this time. Her reach experience in different trends of modern dance including contemporary, release, dance theatre combined with other techniques not related to dance like Aikido, Yoga, Taiji, Thai massage, somatic, helped to develop a unique system for work with body and mind.

Since 2009 � organizer of International CI and Performance Festival in Altai.

Since 2006 � creator of �System of Units� project (performance, video-dance, multimedia projects)

Since 2002 � director of a dance school �PRO-movement� (modern dance, contact improvisation, performance)

1998-2006 � co-organizer and member of a group in a dance theatre �Vampiter�. Besides projects on stage, Theatre members were interested in work out of traditional spaces, organizing street events and performances, creating different photo and video projects. The Theatre group was actively involved in different dance and theatre festivals, artistic labs in Russia and abroad.

I have been dancing and teaching contact improvisation for 10 years and I constantly keep learning. I studied CI at different workshops in Russia and abroad attending classes of wonderful teachers. I also consider my students as my permanent teachers and I am grateful for their questions and their interest which feed my explorations.

I love contact Improvisation for its rich variety of possibilities hided and revealed by CI. When I dance I feel myself alive, and I learn to live in a way I dance. CI is not only a dance, a joy of being and meeting for me, it is also a permanent and deep practice of presence. Here I learn to be free and to share this freedom.

I've accepted the invitation to CI Festival, because I see a positive influence of Thai massage on human body and health, how it helps to remove the limits in terms of movement, being done in a right way it also looks like a dance. In order to learn basic things and to start using some techniques of Thai massage you don't need a lot of time, as people involved in work with their body will quickly find a pleasure of using their hands, feet, knees in order to help their friends get relaxed after classes, to warm them up at the beginning or help family members and friends to let the pain go. At these classes we will learn basic information which will anyway let you to develop your skills further if you attentively keep on following it. Another important thing for me will be to show you how the body works in terms of bio mechanics - we will focus on it while working with the joints.

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Pawel Yanishevski (Poland) Pawel Yanishevski was born in Warsaw in 1964. He studied physical rehabilitation in the University of Physical Education in Warsaw. After graduating in 1991 he started to learn Yumeiho massage, combining the two subjects together. During 1994-1998 Pawel lived and worked in the USA. A meeting with Karola Schneider in 2004 inspires him to travel to Thailand and to start learning Thai massage. In January-April 2005 he studied in the Thai Massage Center taking lessons from a blind teacher Sin Ciaj (10 weeks) and later went to Chiang Mai for a 1 month course from Mama Nit, a famous old lady with 60 years experience. In November 2005 he continued studies in TMC and in February 2006 became TMC instructor and certified teacher for levels 1-3 including foot massage, massage on table and on chair. His next course was a 3 weeks training from a famous master Pichest. And in spring 2006 he taught for the first time Thai massage to his friends in St.-Petersburg. Since then he const antly comes to Russia and Ukraine with Thai massage classes. In summer 2007 he went again to Pichest's 2 months course. At the moment he is going for a 2 months upgrade course in Chiang Mai.

we search for the secrets of how to make our dance light, joyful and pleasant

We get rid of everything unimportant and keep only the required.
We study simple things, but understand complicated ones.
We concentrate on something specific, and see everything.
We relax and thus speed up.
We slow down and start seeing possibilities.
We do not invent, and everything occurs.
We do not plan, but meet.
We react, and thus improvise all the time.
We observe, and new ideas come to us.
We do not judge, and start feeling free.

Ruslan Baranov (Santah)

The first CI teacher in Ukraine, and
the organizer of our festival