CI50 London

A weekend of dancing and discussion to mark 50 years of contact improvisation. The event will contain classes, jams, presentations, discussions and more.... CI50 London Weekend Schedule, 26-27 November Goldsmith’s University London SATURDAY 26 NOVEMBER 9.30 - 10.00 Welcome & Registration 10.15 -12.15: Studio GWT class with Rick & Jovair into jamming 10.15 – 12.15: Studio 300 class with Simonetta & Thomas into jamming 10.15– 12.15 Studio 154 class with Mark Rietema & Kathy Crick 12.15 -3pm studio 300/George Wood Theatre for jamming studio 300a / studio 5 : for rest/ bodywork 12.15 – 15: lunch break in internal garden/ atrium entrance / any available space in the canteen and corridors. The university café will be closed but places near the campus are open. 13.00 - 15.00 Critiquing Contact: Race, Intimacy and War: Panel and Discussion, studio 154 Bring your lunch and join us for a discussion with provocations and reflections on the practice of CI in the context of metoo, racism and war. Panel includes: Prof. Anna Furse, Dr Tamara Ashley (chair) and Katya Taranova. 15.00 Opening Circle in the Great Hall 15.15 Great Hall - tag & teach team: a smorgasbord class with The Stupendous 6 Rob A / Maga R /Jo D / Marie C / Penny C / Vanio P 5 - 9 BIG JAM musicians: David Leahy & Will Glanfield SUNDAY 27 NOVEMBER 09.45 Welcome & Registration 10.15 – 12.00 Studio GWT - class with Lalitaraja & Kate Brown into jamming 10.15 – 12.00 Studio 300 - class with Mary Prestidge & Katy Dymoke into jamming 10.15- 12.00 Studio 154 Richard & Malaika Sacro-Thomas 12.15.– 14.00 lunch break /300 /300a/ 5 for Jam or rest in the canteen space or corridors 12.45 – 13.45 Studio 154 The history of Contact Quarterly and CI, 1972-2022, Colleen Bartley with questions / discussion 14.00 - 15.00 Great Hall – Warm up with Angus Balbernie * 3 - 6 BIG JAM musician Ansuman and Jam Finer * 5.40 Closing circle Space available during the weekend 300/ 300a/145/5 all day George Wood Theater from 10 to 3 Great Hall 3-9 Saturday and 2-6 Sunday Please note there won’t be any cafe open inside the college but there are many cafes and take aways close to the college. Class Descriptions and Teachers: SATURDAY (10.15 - 12.15): Little Lifts with Jovair Longo and Rick Nodine We will work with subtle weight shifts, assisted floor slides and low altitude flights. We will celebrate small exchanges and enjoy transitions rather than goals. We will discourage trying too hard to lift and instead look at how the effortless tipping of weight across our partners axis can make us float. Jovair and Rick have worked together for more than 25 years. They became friends dancing for Yolande Snaith’s company in the 90’s. Yolande studied with Steve Paxton at Dartington in the 80’s and used CI as an element in devising her choreography. In 1999 Rick and Jovair created ‘Ongoing’ an improvised duet based in CI that they toured and performed for 9 years. Jovair and Rick taught alongside one another for 15 years at The Place (LCDS). Their collaborative CI workshop, Learning Touch, was first produced by Independent Dance in 2000 and they have taught together many times since then. ‘Spine Dances: Feldenkrais & CI’ with Simonetta Alessandri and Thomas Kampe In this class Simonetta & Thomas are drawing on The Feldenkrais Method® as a resource for Contact Improvisation. The class will focus on the three dimensional articulation & communication of the spine in solo and partner dancing. The Feldenkrais Method offers an accessible toolkit to expand our ability to rediscover & retune ourselves. It invites us to listen to ourselves and to explore the world of our internal sensation. It activates organic intelligence & relational partnering skills and supports communication through touch, a readiness for being-with, and re-orientation in gravity, allowing for gentle sensorial and at times exhilarating dancing. Thomas Kampe (PhD) has worked as a performance maker, researcher and somatic dance & theatre educator in diverse collaborative contexts with people of all abilities across the globe for 40 years. Between 2012 and 2022 he was Professor of Somatic Performance & Education at Bath Spa University (UK) where he co-directed the Creative Corporealities Research Group. Thomas is a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method ® which forms a rich foundation for his teaching and research. He recently co-edited JDSP Vol. 13.1 &2 (2022): ‘Embodying Eco- Consciousness: Somatics, Aesthetic Practice and Social Action’, and was guest editor of the IFF Journal Vol. 6 (2019): ‘Practices of Freedom : The Feldenkrais Method and Creativity’. His latest book-chapter on ‘Feldenkrais and a Theatre of Enaction’ was published in 2021. Simonetta, an Italian dance artist and somatic educator based in London, applies the Feldenkrais Method in dance and movement training and in performance making. She teaches at Trinity Laban, Goldsmiths University and London Contemporary Dance School. Her work is informed by more than 30 years of dancing, teaching and choreographing. Her choreography has been for dance companies, student pieces, large scale opera, improvised performance, site specific and movement direction for theatre. She has been a guest teacher in more than ten countries. She obtained the Post Graduate Diploma in Choreography at London Contemporary Dance School. She is a Fellow of Higher Education Academy. ‘Meeting' with Kathy Crick and Mark Rietema Kathy and Mark will teach a joint class that offers explorations into tuning, listening and connecting with one self and others. How do we attune to our own sense of being and how does this become a ground for dynamic meeting? Kathy Crick teaches Contact Improvisation, Choreography and Performance as a faculty member at Trinity Laban. She has been developing and sharing her practice through creative collaboration, performance and teaching for over 25 years. Her interest is in improvisation as an integrated technical, compositional and performance practice. Mark Rietema has been moving, dancing and exploring the body through martial arts, contact improvisation and other dance forms all his life. He teaches Somatics and CI in London as well as abroad, and offers workshops, lectures and group facilitation around embodiment, communication, mental health and conflict resolution in places such as King’s College, the NHS and grassroots/activist groups. He works as a psychotherapist and somatic movement educator in London, having studied Process Oriented Psychology and Body-Mind Centering®. He has a previous background in community arts projects and performances (UK, US) with an MA in Community Arts from Goldsmiths. He currently teaches as faculty for Embody Move UK, Insitut Prozessarbeit Deutschland and as an Associate in Kings College. www.markrietema.com SUNDAY (10.15 - 12.00): How to bow and kiss your knee with Kate Brown and Lalitaraja For this class they invite you to share some of their ways into dancing with Contact Improvisation, working with sensitivity and openness in duets, and exploring the possibilities of larger ensembles. Moving easily in and out of the floor we will then progress to standing and lifting, maintaining the same soft approach and generosity to ourselves and our partners. Kate and Lalitaraja have sustained a practice of improvising together for many years, meeting regularly as The Friday Club, as well as dancing in each other’s choreographed work on numerous occasions. CI, the body as a source and resource with Katy Dymoke and Mary Prestidge Following the fundamental principles of finding ease in movement and touch based communication, we revisit the basics leading us into dancing CI. Navigating pathways through the body and through space we explore levels, rolling, giving and taking weight, moving in and out of the floor. CI is a practice that takes us beyond the day to day into realms where we acknowledge our limits and where the body is our source and resource. Mary’s professional dance career has spanned 6 decades. Her first dance work was with Ballet Rambert in early 1970’s. In 1976 she and other dance artists co-founded X6 Dance Space and its successor Chisenhale Dance Space, in London. Mary’s interest in improvisation and modes of improvisational performance began at this time and she brought these new approaches and aesthetics of dance and performance to a growing independent dance scene. Based in Liverpool since 1995 Mary currently shares a small studio with Liverpool Improvisation Collective and together they continue to develop dance research, performance and artist exchange. As director of Touchdown Dance since 1994. Katy considers Contact Improvisation as a movement form that enables authenticity, healing and also a wonderful creative, social, sport or recreational activity. In her therapeutic practice CI and movement establish a realm in which moving bodies enact the unspoken and allow inner ‘voices’ to express. With BMC content the movement experience enables the self to relocate in the corporeal – it is like going to the source and finding an infinite palette of possibilities. Katy has taught at intensives and festivals all over the world and has supported a peace and reconciliation project in Sri Lanka since 2012. Steering momentum with Richard and Malaika Sarco-Thomas In this class, we will work on entraining our nervous system to tune into the micro-movements of momentum and inertia. We will explore sourcing our improvisation from the small dance and responding to our environments through physical listening. Richard Sarco-Thomas has been active in the teaching and research of CI in the UK and Europe since 2006. His ongoing practice of Japanese martial arts Aikido and Jujitsu informs his approach to improvisation. Malaika Sarco-Thomas lectures in Dance at the University of Chester's Department of Music, Media and Performance, and has been researching contact improvisation since she first encountered the form in 2000. Her edited book Thinking Touch in Contact Improvisation: Philosophy, Pedagogy, Practice (Cambridge Scholars Press 2020) documents her recent enquiry into teaching CI to doctors and students of the health sciences. tickets (available from Sunday 13/11/22): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ci-50-london-contact-improvisation-50th-anniversary-tickets-454823137247