psychology in movement
Dance in the City
Contact Improvisation Festival
Slovenia
“Dance in the City is Contact Improvisation festival that is happening in Ljubljana during the International Summer Dance School in July.
The event is co-funded and organised in collaboration and with the support of JKSD (public funds of the Republic of Slovenia for cultural activities).
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2022 program
“Dance in the City 3” is the third edition of a mini Contact Improvisation festival that is going to happen in Ljubljana during the International Summer Dance School at the end of June 2022.
We invite you to join us for 5-day long journey with:
- 1 intensive class in the morning
- 1 class in the afternoon
- everyday jam in the evening
- intro evening with a video projection of An intimate dance
- Contact quarterly collection on display.
TEACHERS AND CLASSES
- MORNING INTENSIVE with Angela-Mara Florant (3h/day) -
* Previous experience in CI needed
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FLOOR INTO THE UNKNOWN
In Contact Improvisation we spend a lot of time close to the floor. What possibilities open up when we carefully listen to what the floor has to say to us? If we get really gentle and cosy with the floor it will open up to us its warm, soft and supporting self. Can we experience the floor as a partner moving us? When we get in touch with a human partner, how can we retain our awareness of the floor?
In a second phase, we will discover the pelvis as a central, intimate, strong, stable and flexible body part. It holds and protects organs, is directly connected to the spine and is the link between the torso and the legs.
We will experiment with the special roll the pelvis plays in Contact Improvisation. As an over-dancer and as an under-dancer we constantly rely on our pelvis. It helps us to create supporting surfaces for lifts, allows us to change levels, helps us to hold our balance, lets us fall... and can be smoothly led. A minimal pivot of the pelvis can send the dance in a completely new direction – over and over again surprising and leading us through space.
From there we will go into the unknown. Leaving your comfort zone, discovering something new. The unknown is often that which we cannot see, that which is not in our field of vision. Sometimes it is the space behind us, or the "backspace". In this class we will explore the backspace. Going backwards. Activating and bringing attention to our back side, letting our backs lead us into movement.
Following the back side, losing our sense of orientation, getting lost, letting go of the need to control. Finding comfort in discomfort. Trusting ourselves, trusting our partner/s.
Relaxing into backspace! Opening up for our performance mind!
- AFTERNOON CLASS -
- AFTERNOON CLASS with Nina Radovanović & Vladimira Šančić (1,5h/day) -
* for all levels, beginners welcome
ALL THAT SPACE
During this workshop, we will try to find the focus travelling from the spaces inside of our skin through the space surrounding our physical body all the way to the space that we are creating while we are dancing. With this awareness, we will taste the basic principles of contact improvisation, sharing the weight, listening, softness, responsibility, and acting with a mind free from intention.
With the idea that everything is constantly moving, inside of us and around us, we will play with contact improvisation principles mostly moving through the space, allowing the movement to emerge naturally. How can we move through the space and can we move the space itself? We will explore the idea of the space being spherical. Can we forget what is up and what is down? Can we imagine that gravity works in every direction?
We will offer some technical tools for dancing in couples and open the space and time for researching the idea of constant movement believing that our body will find the most efficient way to continue. We will explore the movement that will emerge out of it. We will put the intention on the uniqueness of each dance and the connections that different bodies create together in space.
- TEACHERS BIO -
Angela-Mara Florant, Germany
Angela-Mara Florant had her first experience with CI during her performance arts studies in Besançon, France. In 2005 she moved to Hamburg. She teaches several regular contact classes, gives workshops and organizes jams and festivals (NORDTANZ Festival). Since 2015, she is co-director of the dance studio “Triade” in Hamburg. When Angela-Mara is not dancing or teaching contact she is teaching Pilates, directing independent theater productions, choreographing dance pieces (mostly based on CI). Recently, with eight other dancers and one musician, she created the Contact CompanI, a dance company dedicated to pure Contact dance.
‘For me CI is an art form. I love allowing my dance to be inspired by the composition of the room.
CI opens up space, Space within me and outside of me, Creative space unfolding.
I enjoy looking at movement from an anatomical perspective and at the same time love the playful unfolding of stories that can occur while dancing CI. Over and over again finding and reinventing myself while continuously rediscovering and uncovering new aspects of the form are my favorite subjects of my ongoing research.
Teachers who inspired me or played an important role for me: Anjelika Doniy, Heike Pourian, Jörg Hassmann, Martin Keogh, Mirva Mäkinen, Nancy Stark Smith, Nita Little.’
www.angelamaraflorant.de
Vladimira Šančić, Croatia
Continuously participates in various educational platforms and performances related to contemporary dance since 2008. After an introduction to contact improvisation in 2015, discovers more about herself and her surroundings.
Considers contact improvisation as the core of her work and continuously educates herself through various workshops, festivals, and events. In 2018 starts working as a teacher and organizer of CI-related events with an intention to spread interest and further expand the CI community in Croatia.
Nina Radovanović, Serbia
I have been practising various forms of movement throughout my life, but contact improvisation has allowed me to observe my mind-body connection in a totally new way. My path goes and also flows back from the internal practices of yoga and meditation to diverse bodywork techniques from Asia to Europe to finally rediscover my essence in water. I am also an Aguahara practitioner and water dancer.
When I discovered CI I fell in love with it at first touch. Soon after, I was running all over Europe in order to attend classes, workshops, and festivals, and meet important teachers.
I am also very much involved in organizations of various events, such as jams, workshops, CI camps in Serbia and Croatia.
Vladi and Nina met three years ago and since then haven’t stopped dancing together and collaborating on different projects. They organize together a summer CI Camp in Istria, Croatia and they work on strengthening connections between Serbian and Croatian CI Communities.
- EVENING CONTACT JAMS -
Every evening are planned open contact improvisation jams for everybody that is willing to participate.
You can support the jams with a free donation.
Mon-Fri: 19.30 - 22.00
FEES
The classes are part of the Summer Dance School 2022 program.
- 1 intensive class/day (5 days x 180 min) 80 EUR (before May 25th) or 100 EUR (after May 25th)
- 1 class/day (5 days x 90 min) 60 EUR (before May 25th) or 80 EUR (after May 25th)
Applying to both class and intensive you get 5% of discount so the price for the combination is 133 EUR (before May 25th) or 171 EUR (after May 25th)
* the price does not include accommodation and food
More info about Summer Dance School FEES:
Summer dance school fees >
https://www.jskd.si/.../poletna_plesna_22/sds_22_fees.htm
TO APPLY
Application form > https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSeJMtxU20UOVA.../viewform
ACCOMODATION
For accommodation in Hostel Tabor in the immediate vicinity of the dance studios you have to apply here until 25 May 2022. After this date you have to arrange the accommodation by yourself.
Info about accommodation and prices >
https://www.jskd.si/.../poletna.../sds_22_accommodation.htm
OPENING EVENT: MOVIE EVENING AND CONTACT QUARTERLY COLLECTION
On Sunday 26th June, as an opening event to the Dance in the City 3, we will gather for an evening of video projection of the movie An intimate dance in the MSUM (Muzej sodobne umetnosti Metelkova).
Apart from the video screening, there will also be a collection of Contact quarterly magazines from the Slovenian Dance Archive available to the public viewing throughout the duration of the Summer Dance School.
2019 program
Dance and Exhibition of Ci
In the Second year of this event, we want to take into account the philosophical foundation of the CI, so we invited our French colleagues to share their teachings.
the program included:
1 intensive class in the morning, 1 class in the afternoon, exhibition of contact improvisation, every day jam in the evening additional program and EXHIBITION of Contact Improvisation, curated by Romain Bige.
MORNING INTENSIVE with Asaf Bachrach (3h/day)
TECHNIQUES FOR WAITING / MATSU GIJUTSU (Japanese)
What does it mean to improvise?
For many people (and dictionaries) to improvise means something like “do or perform on the spur of the moment”. However, the latin origin of the word is in-provisus or unforseen.
So rather than focus on the doing, improvisation invites us to attend to what is yet unexpected or unknown...
In other words, as improvisers we ask how to wait for the un-waited for (French: attendre l’inattendu, Slovenian: čakati nepričakovano).
We will spend our time together collectively contemplating this koan like Proposition.
The French verb ‘attendre’ can be translated in English as ‘wait’ or ‘expect’. The verb ‘wait’ comes from Anglo-French and Old North French waitier "to watch". The verb ‘expect’ comes from the latin ex- "thoroughly" + spectare "to look". Unlike the two English verbs that are associated with vision, ‘attendre’ comes from the latin a-”towards’ + tendere ‘stretch’. A kinesthetic, haptic stance. So how can we wait for, or stretch ourselves towards something if there is nothing there?
In this series of workshops we will develop and share our techniques for waiting together. The work will be inspired by the teachings of Steve Paxton (Contact Improvisation), Lisa Nelson (the Tuning score), Min Tanaka (body weather) and the somatic philosophy of Hubert Godard (Rolfing).
- AFTERNOON CLASS with Romain Bigé & Alice Leguiffant
SURVIVING CONTACT
Practicing Contact Improvisation is not without risks: a dance of reflex and intimacy, it puts us through states of flow, but also of fear and confusion. In this workshop, we’ll endeavour to equip ourselves to survive contact. Everyday of the week, we’ll target one object of survival: surviving weight, surviving falling, surviving flying, surviving boredom, surviving loneliness.
Improvisation is filled with fleeting moments when we don’t know: we don’t know what to do, what we should do, what our bodyminds can do. How do we give ourselves the time and patience to study our own surviving skills? How do we learn to expose ourselves to this vertigo without putting ourselves in danger?
2018
Dance and performance of CI
Teachers:
Nuria Urcelay Martinez (ESP), Davide Casiraghi (ITA-SLO), Nayeli Špela Peterlin (SLO), Dave Murray-Rust (SCO) and Teresa Hunyadi (AUS)
- Elements of Contact Improvisation -
Trough our imagery, somatic descriptions, playfulness and touch we will discover the taste of this dance form.
We will explore fluid movement, rolling, sliding, entering and going out of the floor, flying, moving in contact with oneself and others and improvise together.
- Performing Contact Improvisation -
We will explore the performative aspect of Contact Improvisation, presence, connection with the partner, ecosystem dynamics and relations in and with the space, with and without music.
Working on our state of attentiveness and imagination, we will play with composition tools, images and performative forms to improve our reflexes and our ability to deal with the flow of the things that happens in the environment during the improvisation
LAB & CITY PERFORMANCE
For the teachers and for the experienced dancers that are willing to participate it’s scheduled a research lab and an urban site specific performance in Ljubljana city center on Friday late afternoon.
The aim of the site specific performance is to investigate the relation between city architecture and dance as a part of the same continuum. Looking to buildings as emotionally and personally significant places for individuals, determined as much by the events that go on in them, as by the demarcation of their walls.