Inspiral - Contact Improvisation Intensive Workshop 24 Jan - 17 Feb 2022, Koh Phangan

INSPIRAL: 21 day Contact Improvisation Intensive workshop and 3 days of final performances with Sasha Dodo and Dolores Dewhurst-Marks 24 Jan - 17 Feb , 2022 Koh Phangan, Thailand This workshop is designed to prepare body-mind for contact improvisation; to bring embodied understanding of the dance form, its principals, and to open prospects of its potential development. We perceive contact improvisation as a highly complex and long durational practice, that requires preparation and understanding of its history and development. Embracing its current state, not only as a research based movement form, but also a practice impacting, contributing and transforming artistic, socio-political, therapeutic, and spiritual fields. The format of the workshop and it's duration offers in-depth study, space for practice and provides conditions for integration. The program contains: a set of solo practices for preparing and tuning body-mind for contact improvisation / retrospective of CI / study and practice of falling and rolling / grounding through sensing gravity / principals of CI with emphasis on continuity of attention, mutual collaborative attitude and spatial awareness / experiential anatomy of the musculoskeletal and fascia systems with an emphasis on efficiency / spherical and spiral movement organisation and orientation / whirling meditation and intentional disorientation / improvising in ensemble / contemplative practices and writing. Course material will also include additional reading assignments. Referencing materials from Contact Quarterly, Sharing the Dance by Cynthia Novack, Caught Falling by Nancy Stark-Smith, How to Land by Ann Cooper Albright, Material for the Spine by Steve Paxton, and other CI sources, including CI documentaries. The nature of the material includes risk taking and experimentation, entering unknown territories that require extra attention for ourselves, our partners, and the group process. Full commitment and punctual attendance is required without exemption. At the end of the description you will find definitions of Contact Improvisation that serve as the identity of this workshop. The program is organised into 4 blocks 4 days each with 1/2 rest days in between. And an optional 3 days of public performances at the end. This course is not orientated for beginners. Schedule: 24,25,26 morning 9-13:00 27 evening 17-20:00 28 off 29,30,31 morning 9-13:00 1 evening 17-20:00 2 off 3 off 4,5,6 morning 9-13:00 7 evening 17-20:00 8 off 9,10,11 morning 9-13:00 12 evening 17-20:00 13 off 14 rehearsal day 15,16,17 - final performance days - morning and evening. Structure of the morning session: 30 min grounding through sensing body and gravity 1h 45 mins first part of the session 25 min break 1h 45 mins second part o the session 30 mins open space for integration, dancing, talking, contemplation. More information is coming soon. Price: 370 EURO / 13500 TBH normal price 250 EURO / 10000 TBH budget price Registration form: https://forms.gle/KBZy2mtnoXkaP5Vz8 We are curious to hear about your motivation, current interest/research in the practice. It’s important you are attuned to the proposition and it’s requirements; that you are ready to go through this 21 day process. About Sasha & Dolores: Sasha and Dolores are independent artists, directing and curating ART CONTINUUM NOMADIC RESIDENCY, designed for international artistic exchange, development and production of art. Focused on dance improvisation, performance, poetry and short film; REVERSE RIVERS COMPANY, a vehicle for their artistic work. BEING NATURE PROJECT, encouraging connection with deeper self and the natural world, engaging in poetry and dance with nature; TOWARDS center for the education and research of contact improvisation. Co-organizers of THAILAND CONTACT & MOVEMENT ARTS FESTIVAL, and THAILAND CONTACT IMPROVISATION CONFERENCE. Their artistic work interweaves movement, visual and text, with an emphasis on poeticality that reveals contemplative vision, sense of interdependency and underlying presence of the unknown in everyday life. Teaching internationally workshops, laboratories, and retreats. Currently based on Koh Phangan, Thailand. In their teaching work, they are interested to shape spaces for investigation of body intelligence in relation to spatial awareness and the imagination. https://reverserivers.com/ https://artcontinuum.space/ DEFINITION OF CONTACT IMPROVISATION: There are many ways of defining CI. Here are three definitions made by Steve Paxton (the originator of CI): "Contact Improvisation is an evolving system of movement initiated in 1972 by American choreographer Steve Paxton. The improvised dance form is based on the communication between two moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion —gravity, momentum, inertia. The body, in order to open to these sensations, learns to release excess muscular tension and abandon a certain quality of willfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes rolling, falling, being upside down, following a physical point of contact, supporting and giving weight to a partner. Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one's basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self-correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones, bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened." ”The exigency of the form dictates a mode of movement which is relaxed, constantly aware and prepared, and onflowing. As a basic focus, the dancers remain in physical touch, mutually supportive and innovative, meditating upon the physical laws relating to their masses: gravity, momentum, inertia, and friction. They do not strive to achieve results, but rather, to meet the constantly changing physical reality with appropriate placement and energy.” "The reason its called contact improvisation because there is a 3rd entity that arises in this state. Hopefully you get to a state of agreement between the two of you that neither one of you is leading. It doesn’t become leaderless, it is the two of you who are together leading."