reTuning the body
April 14th - May 30th | 2018
Contact Improvisation has many faces and many forms, that varies according to the teachers that choose to teach it, there is a multiplicity of teachers with different backgrounds and different approaches toward what we all call CI. Some teachers teach CI as a form that has a set of ‘moves’, rules, yes and no’s.. While others focus on the improvisation aspect of it, the unknown, the magic. - And there are teachers that believe you cannot have one with out the other, that we must practice the moves and learn to forget them, retrain the body to react and be available. Also, some of the teachers come with a wide background of dance training, while others are purely CI dancers and so teach only within the form’s limits.
People come to CI classes, jams and festivals also from a verity of reasons, the wish to feel free in movement, the wish to touch and be touched, for some CI makes them feel strong emotions and open up, some are interested in the moving body and finding a self expression in the movement.
My approach to Contact Improvisation is one of a dance background, oriented towards movement exploration. I believe in retraining the body’s natural response mechanism, and the ability to be open and available for movement. By doing so, we need not to learn forms of lifts or ‘moves’ that may look ‘fabulous’ or impressing toward the outside, but rather focus our attention inwardly and sense the movement washing our bodies with honesty and integrity.
Many people come to dance classes and try to copy what the teacher is doing by mimicking how they look like. This is true, in some cases, also to the people coming for a Contact Improvisation class. But in Contact improvisation you cant fake it, if your body is not ready for that move, you will not be able to do it. (and if you force it - you will get injured).
In these classes we will retinue the body’s natural response mechanism, working from the small movements of our joints to the big movement of our bodies washing the space. We will train in being honest in our movement so that we can feel it inside an available body, not doing anything we don't need to do, not wishing anything that is not there.
This work is inspired by Ilan Lev and Feldenkriz methods, with practices I studied and developed along the years of training as a dancer. (such as coordination games, reaction exercises, movement principles etc..) I believe in working individually on ones own body with these exercises and later introducing them within the context of CI.
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