ART OF IMPROVISATION RESIDENCY - Celebrating 50 years of Contact Improvisation (Goa - India )

“How do you know that you are not improvising?” November 7th - December 2nd Arambol, Goa Art of Improvisation is a four week residency celebrating in India the 50 years of Contact Improvisation - improvised movement form that fosters movement conversations between movers in a spontaneous and attentive way. The residency is a creative space to focus on Contact Improvisation and other cross-disciplinary art forms to immerse ourselves in the space of curiosity, artistic exchange, movement inquiry, and co-creation. Improvisation practices draw us to explore the movement, the dance that is unrestricted by codified techniques and expectations, and which is liberated by curiosity, awareness, attention, and playful inquiry. A space of allowing oneself to melt into the presence of the current state and move from within, with others and the environment. The residency is designed for those who look for a flexible space dedicated to movement, which allows growing one’s own practice and creativity and opens the possibility for collaborations. The Residency is grounded in Contact Improvisation and expanded by other improvised movements practices, visual arts, and poetry. The four parts of the residency will be dedicated to learning different approaches of researching movement and investigating new possibilities of collaborative and spontaneous creation. Part 1 - Just BE - Body Exploration in solo movement and Contact Improvisation Part 2 - Inside the Spiral - movement techniques and Contact Improvisation at the intersection with other art forms Part 3 - Effortless acrobatics - techniques of falling and flying Part 4 - Roots of Contact Improvisation - performance creation !Weekly registration is open! You are invited to submerge yourself into the green surroundings of the Arambol village in North Goa and dedicate this time to return to the body, bring the awareness to senses and attention to the embodied perception of the self. >> Schedule The sessions will run five days per week (Monday to Friday). Every day we will spend 5 hours in the studio/ in nature. 10am-1pm - MORNING SESSION 1pm-4pm - Lunch break 4pm-6pm - AFTERNOON SESSION >> Location JUNGLE DANCE Arambol, Goa, India >> Contact [email protected] WA +48 531815811 (Adrianna) www.incontact.co.in >> Price Indian nationals & residents of India 30,000Rs - Early bird 35,000Rs - Late bird One week: 12,000Rs Non-Indian nationals €450 - Early bird €520 - Late bird One week: €170 Registration form: https://forms.gle/HBH6bcEUJh8dy1xs9 Early bird offer ends on October 7th! We offer 5 fellowship spots with a discounted price. Please send an inquiry to [email protected] to find out about the application process. Price includes lunch and afternoon tea and snacks. Accommodation and other meals ARE NOT included. To arrange the accommodation please get in touch with Kishore: [email protected] +919884307558 >> INTENSIVES WEEK 1 Just BE - Body Exploration in solo movement and Contact Improvisation With @aditya The first week explores various movement tools inspired by somatic practices (embodied anatomy, Body Mind Centering, Axis Syllabus) in order to awaken the awareness of one’s body-mind and foster the embodiment of the movement. We will draw attention to fluid movement of the spine, follow the effortless paths of spirals, explore our weight, and manage the patterns of safe falling through landing and launching pads. These practices will be a grounding base to explore the movement with others through Contact Improvisation. We will look into ways of distributing one’s weight in solo movement and while moving with another body. Engaging in the practice of listening as a fundamental principle of Contact Improvisation, we will cultivate the ability of dropping into the presence of being with one’s own body while moving with others. WEEK 2 Inside the Spiral - movement techniques and Contact Improvisation at the intersection with other art forms With Adrianna “When we sense others moving in different ways, we acknowledge our own possibilities of movement beyond what we thought possible.” This week will integrate two approaches towards Contact Improvisation. In the morning sessions we will be focusing on the exploration of efficient movement and following the flow of the spiral, relationship with gravity, and finding ways to self-organise while sharing weight. We will work with movement relationships in duets and trios that allow us to release the body-mind into the flow of movement. The afternoon sessions will offer a contemplative practice of exploring the cross section between movement, art, and poetry. We will be using improvisational tasks to awaken spontaneous and intuitive ways of creating and co-creating moments of collective art. WEEK 3 Effortless acrobatics - techniques of falling and flying With Ivan The third part is dedicated to exploring and deconstructing the acrobatic and advanced techniques of flights in the following topics: Bones and muscles: learning to control and merge the tone of muscles with momentum in order to support partners and avoid injuries. Water: exploring inner water dynamics and bringing awareness of the quality of viscosity and waves of momentum. Fascia: studying the anatomy of deep and superficial fascia to move in a softer manner. Time & distance: tuning our attention to these two elements to learn how to be accurate and train the reflexes and achieve lightness in flights. Through exercises that combine intellect and intuition we will find keys to unlock individual self-study, allowing the integrated body-mind to learn from itself. In the process of learning we will embody these aspects and look at emerging states and possibilities of opening up Contact Improvisation in a new way with every dance. WEEK 4 Roots of Contact Improvisation - performance creation With Guru The last week will gather and culminate the research of the first three weeks in a performance project. The research of this intensive will focus on performance as a process of making choices. We will look into this abundant act of spontaneous composition of movement and never-ending possibilities to respond. We will contemplate on the question - to what do I respond? In the world of improvisation, when there is no clear matter to relate to, how do we make a choice or formulate a response? Focusing on the process and the delicate space of intuitive co-creation we will carry these questions into different sites to immerse ourselves in the inspiration of the environment. We will be working with imagery and improvisational tasks and scores, and exploring individual, duet, trio, and group possibilities of collaborating, creating, and responding. >> INTENSIVE TEACHERS BIOS ADRIANNA MICHALSKA https://www.facebook.com/adrianna.a.michalska Contact improvisation dancer, facilitator, traveller, and independent artist with background in somatics, contact improvisation, creative writing, and various improvisation methods studied across the globe. Adrianna graduated with a Dance and Culture degree from University of Surrey, UK and Next Choreography course at Siobhan Davies Studios, UK, and is a certified DanceAbility teacher. She is interested in embracing artistic practices from different cultures into a creative process, and looking at the trans-disciplinary potential when working with text, image, sound, and movement. With her work she aims to develop a better understanding of an artistic ensemble as interdependent on the exchange of attention, perception, judgement, and decision-making of its members. She is also curious about working with instant composition in performances and pushing the boundaries of spectator-performer relationship through participatory and experiential pieces. With her work she travelled, performed, and shared with many diverse audiences in India, Thailand, Romania, Poland, UK, Singapore, and more. Currently Adrianna is collaborating with Contact Improv India and InContact - organisations that foster the development of contact improvisation scene in India through movement arts residencies, workshops, regular classes, jams, performances, and discussions. GURU SURAJ https://www.facebook.com/gurusurajart Guru Suraj is an artist with a background in visual and movement arts, dedicated to researching, organising communities and events, and performing on the cross-section of different art forms. Guru has a Bachelor’s Degree in Painting from the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai and a Master’s Degree in Philosophy of Yoga from Tamilnadu Physical Education and Sports University, Chennai. The curiosity of movement has led him to years of study of Contact Improvisation (improvisation movement that fosters a physical and non-physical connection with others while moving) and various somatic techniques, which investigate the mind-body connection as ways to explore one’s internal self. Together with other first Indian practitioners of CI, he founded Contact Improv India (CII) and later on InContact (incontact.co.in) both organisations focusing on teaching and performing CI throughout India, and making this art form accessible to everybody. Fourteen years of practising CI has brought immense depth in sharing this form as a platform for cultural exchange, and experience in engaging a wide range of population in India. Guru’s main focus in his artistic practice is discovering different ways of interacting with each other that are not constrained by conventions or traditions. In his teachings he bridges both the radical and the traditional. He invites to strengthen creativity, discipline curiosity, and learn through sharing different modes of communication that are beyond verbal language. ADITYA SASIDHARAN ( ÃD!) https://www.facebook.com/aceaditya Aditya Sasidharan is a movement practitioner, who enjoys experimenting with different kinds of movement based forms. His being and occupation finding echo in the common concept of movement. His journey of movement started in jovial childhood dancing, pre teenage times getting into martial arts (Karate), later falling in love with football and slowly towards intense and disciplined dance forms when he ' Graduated in Dance ' through Terence Lewis Dance Foundation Scholarship Trust (TLDFST) ' by Terence Lewis. He also invested himself in learning the basics of various martial art forms like capoeira, muay thai, akido, etc & finding love in parkour purely for its efficient way of organising ones own body to execute simple to complex maneuvers smoothly eventually being led to the universe of contact improvisation (CI). He later travelled extensively throughout India to spread awareness around CI and in these journeys, he had an epiphanous realisation – that people needed to listen to their own bodies better so that they can communicate with another. Thus began his personally conceived and conceptualised sessions themed around ‘Body Exploration’. In these sessions, Aditya helps individuals develop a foundational, yet deep rooted understanding about their own bodies and its interaction with the world outside, such that they can discover the most effortless way of moving. Breath being an integral part of movement and his sessions. His sessions are based on personal experiences, but also extensive observations of other people. A deep sense of respect and empathy guide Aditya’s sessions, wherein, he does not look at himself as a teacher, but a facilitator aiding in the discovery of the uniqueness which lies in each body. He endeavors to help people listen to themselves. Creating confidence, comfort through awareness of their own bodies is what Aditya has helped countless people achieve, while conducting these sessions in an air of openness, joy and uninhibited fun. This understanding of one's own body eventually helps to connect, listen and understand other bodies in CI much more freely. Once the individual understands how to organise and discipline their own body at any level (ground/ standing/ flying) the fear of falling is eliminated or reduced which helps the body to be more relaxed and composed when flying with a partner. The mind is less occupied but the body is agile and confident. IVAN GURIANOV https://www.facebook.com/guryanov.ivan Since he was 18 years old, Ivan has studied yoga and meditation along with multiple spiritual teachings. At the age of 20 he encountered a martial art teacher who for several years taught him basic principles of movement which later on he found in Contact Improvisation. For many years his passion to explore physics and communication through dance and movement continued in the form of free research, studying from every dance partner and every object. Ivan studied different modern dance forms and social dances, and although they were not fulfilling his interest for free improvisation they gave a lot of material for further exploration of the dance. For the first time Ivan encountered contact improvisation in 2013 and since 2017 it became his core practice. He has been teaching Contact Improvisation in Russia, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Ivan is a passionate practitioner of multiple art forms: music, theatre, butoh, tango and many more, integrating every piece of knowledge into the practice of CI. His unique characteristic is curiosity for self research through direct experience and analytical decomposition of the movement.