Nita Little's Relational Intelligence Workshop Communication in Contact & Ensemble Improvisation

NITA LITTLE is coming to the Finnish Hall in Berkeley, California for a full 3-day weekend of Contact Improvisation! - Friday, Sep 8 from 10:30am to 4:30pm - Saturday, Sep 9 from 10:30am to 4:30pm + optional community jam from 7:00pm - 9:00pm - Sunday, Sep 10 from 10:30am to 4:30pm Price: $300-400 Early Bird until Friday, May 19 $350-400 Regular Price until Friday, July 14 $400 Last minute joiner price until Friday, Sept 8th *We aim to make this accessible to everyone regardless of financial circumstance. Please reach out to ask about other payment options. This work is for dancers whose Contact Improvisation practice is beyond the beginning levels - those familiar with inversions, weight exchange, and changing states. Expect to be touched on all levels. ***APPLY HERE: https://forms.gle/wYvAzqnB3GYXuZxj9 *** We'll review & accept applicants on a rolling basis. If you'd like to receive a certain tier pricing, make sure to apply at least three days before the cut off date to make sure there's enough time for us to review and for you to submit payment. RELATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: COMMUNICATION IN CONTACT IMPROVISATION AND ENSEMBLE IMPROVISATION When bodies meet, intelligence is found in the quality of touch, the organization of physical forms, the ability to share the physics of motion, timing, and the giving and receiving of weight – but it is also, and particularly, in our ability to communicate. In this workshop we will study tonal states in order to enhance dancer’s ability to inform one another. Speaking in the language of presence, we will learn to cast physical attention into and through different spaces of being and within one another’s flesh. Working in duets and ensembles, our CI includes modes for building tactile attentional networks enabling these skills to appear in ensemble forms. We will emphasize communication within actions of touch, kinesthetic logic, and embodied attention. Diving into the metaphors that arise when we move well together we can extract personal wisdom from our time dancing. Expect training in specific skills, movement meditation, and trance practices to enhance learning, research scores, personal feedback, and ensemble performances. This work is for dancers whose Contact Improvisation practice is beyond the beginning levels - those familiar with inversions, weight exchange, and changing states. Expect to be touched on all levels." ABOUT NITA LITTLE Nita Little moves between the individual and their collective body dancing within environments of creative experience that unpack and engage our relational response-ability. Always touching a body that is a mind, she details the potentials of volatile and flexible embodiments that knit ourselves and our worlds more finely, dearly, and flexibly together. Working with spatial and temporal practices that emerged first with Contact Improvisation and then within dance improvisation, she devises scores that awaken dancers’ sense-abilities to find mindfulness practices that are implicit within creative action. As one of the founding developers of Contact improvisation, she has pioneered inquiry into the physicality of attention for 50 years. Her work resulted in a PhD studying the articulation of presence as relational which continues to influence her ability to speak and act across disciplines, challenge the domination of a narcissistic cultural imaginary and offers dancer/movers belief in the profound gifts of their art. https://www.nitalittle.com/