5 DAY INTENSIVE WORKSHOP WITH SCOTT WELLS
August 16-20^th, 10am-4pm

Flying ≠ Jumping

We will practice flying, catching, landing, fluid acrobatics and deft maneuvers. We begin with clear, satisfying contact in which pleasure is the first teacher. For the acrobatics everyone will work at their own level and will learn best by building group safety and trust - everyone will do something new. We will learn some repertory and practice taking the aerial work into improvisation.  Jumping ≠ Flying because jumping is a muscular action, whereas flying is in the bones and is affected greatly by emotions and attitude. My main work is as a choreographer and I rigorously investigate partnering and acrobatic movement ideas.  I think this allows me to bring unique movement and training to my workshops.Video info: SW&D 1 minute trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h1-LQ0Dufo

In 1981 Scott Wells discovered the pleasure of contact improvisation shortly after becoming obsessed with the struggles of modern dance.  He stuck with both and currently directs a company in San Francisco and tours annually to Europe. Wells has created works for skateboarders, for boxers and choreographed West Side Story.  In 2005 and 2009, Scott received the Izzie (San Francisco’s most prestigious dance award) for Outstanding Choreography and was selected by Dance Magazine as “one of the 25 To Watch”.

The workshop is open for those with some experience of CI.

Registration and payment:
To register, you need to send an email to verodear@gmail.com and indicate the price you are about to pay. Sliding scale means you are choosing the price that is suitable for your situation. (If you are a student, or do not have regular income you pay the 130€, if you are a professional performer with a regulat income or have a contract you pay 140 or 150€). In case you have a question about the price, please contact Vera.

You will pay the workshop fee at arrival on the first day, so please be at Trafó on the 16th of August at 9:45 am. If you arrive later or have other problems or questions (like: can not stay for the whole week) please contact Vera either by mail or phone.

Accommodation:
If you need accommodation also write to Vera and she will help you organizing housing with participants or friends or in cheaper hostels.

Food:
The work goes from 10 am to 4 pm every day. There will be no food provided by the organizers. You need to either bring sandwich with you for lunch or there is a supermarket next to Trafó, where you can buy food, or a restaurant accross the street. It serves delicious dishes both meat and vegetarian.

Further information: Szilágyi Ilka ilkafanni@hotmail.com

Price:  130-150 € sliding scale
Venue: Trafó Kortárs Művészetek Háza, 1094 Budapest, Liliom u. 14.
Registration: Kovács Vera: verodear@gmail.com

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2010 spring workshops:

13/14 March, 2010. Saturday and Sunday 10:00-16:00
AN INTENSIVE WORKSHOP WITH ADRIAN RUSSI (SWITZERLAND)

courage - trust  - surrender: Following through

Where does my dance lead me to when I give full commitment to gravity and to the movement flow? How does a lift feel like that moves both of us through space instead of simply bringing my partner straight up and down again? How can I find the trust to follow my partner unquestionably?

Following through is one of the core principals of Contact Improvisation - this is what I found in the last years of dancing, exploring and teaching this form. As following through is something very active it goes fare beyond of just letting the dance happen. To follow my own movement impulses, gravity and my partners dance I have to be absolutely present and to develop the ability to change the direction of my movement at any split second. Moving in this way will bring me inevitably into the very here-and-now - and the dance evolving from there may be very wild and fast or almost not visible from the outside.

In this workshop we will explore Contact Improvisation under the aspect of following through as well on the level of movement technique as from the improvisational point of view. This can be very demanding and liberating at the same time! You will need to find your trust, surrender and sometimes also your courage to follow the offered material, but over the time you will discover more and more the big freedom, the excitement and the grace coming from the principal of following through.

We will work on movement principles, contact skills and - very important - on deepening our ability to perceive our body, the space and the partners movement. Improvisation scores and bodywork will round off our work in movement. There will be space for free dancing, verbal exchange and for silence to get a deeper understanding of this dance form and to integrate the new material in your own dancing.

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.

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 http://www.adrianrussi.com/

Level: These classes are open for everybody.
The material will be prepared in a way that as well beginners as experienced dancers can profit fully.

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8/9 May 2010, sat 10:00-15:00, sun 11:00-16:00
with Sabine Parzer (A)

In the here and now
Contact Improvisation, Feldenkrais(R) - based Bodywork, Authentic Improvisation
for dancers with basic improvisational skills

this workshop addresses our ability to be present in the current moment,
in the dialogue, physically and emotionally, with ourselves and in connecting with other dancers

breathing is our first awaking impulse to connect and prepare our awareness
in our body, muscles, organs, our cells and our momentum
sensing our boundaries through the awareness of movement and range possibilities
letting ease unfold our joints
exploring developmental paths
letting movement, expression and voice come out of inner sources - guiding us to the next place
moving into the dance with ourselves and others, our heightened awareness and open space by listening to our inner impulse and developing an inner witness
touch qualities and breathing awareness come together in the dancing
connecting this presence without effort, finding the middle ground,
letting go of it and opening up to the unknown
tapping into the life/ movement/ energy source and returning to a safe
ground

Sabine Parzer (Fabie)
Is a dancer, choreographer, dance- and movement teacher and works in a dance therapeutic setting. Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, she spent ten years abroad (USA and Germany). In Chicago she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Dance and danced professionally a.o. in Mordine & Company Dance Theatre and many independent productions. Her choreographies and improvisational structures have been performed in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, Mexico and many more. She was a co-founder of the collaboration group “Loop Troop”. Her latest collaboration “Point in Line” with didgeridoo player Dubravko Lapaine was premiered in Austria in May 2009.

Sabine has taught people from the age of 2 till 92 in improvisation, release work, contact improvisation and authentic movement ( i.e. Moscow International Contact Festival, Barcelona Nomad Festival, Impuls Festival Vienna, KontaktBudapest). Since 1999 she has been teaching dance and movement at a rehabilitation centre in Austria for people after work/ traffic accidents and neurological diseases. Sabine is a practitioner of ZenBodytherapy(R), TRT Radiance(R) and Systemische und Integrative Bewegungslehre (R) (an extended Feldenkrais method) in her private practice. She is the organizer of the Greifenstein Contact Jam in Lower Austria and Co-Organizer of KulturLANDschaffen, Symposium for Sustainability.
She has two children.

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25-27 June, 2010.
3 day intensive weekend workshop before the festival
with LIOR OPHIR (IL)

Falling Into the Festival
A workshop in Contact Improvisation

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, we will look for relaxation and awakeness when we dance – with space in our joints to ride the opportunities as they appear,  and space in our minds to recognize and enjoy these moments – we will look for appreciation for the dance that arises.

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.

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 7^th ICF (Israeli CI festival) and the 1^st Impulse festival (for Improvisation in word, movement, music) in Israel. Lior is currently a traveling artist, teaching and performing throughout Europe, Japan, America.

My current interests are:
- Improvisation as performance art – how can I fill an empty space? How can I fine-tune myself as performer to get closer to the "human-string" that vibrates in all of us?
- Contact improvisation as performance art and exploring the physical aspects of CI
- Answering the question: “What do I teach when I teach CI?” or just asking the question...
- Finding a home inside me while being a nomad
- Performance in public spaces / site-specific work
- 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.

DAILY SCHEDULE:
25 June / friday 17:00-21:00; 
26 and 27 June/ sat, sun 10:00 – 16:00