Precision Contact
Contact Improvisation is an improvisational dance form utilizing physical principles such as touch, momentum, gravity, friction, resistance, counterbalance, lifting and falling. Primarily practiced as a duet form, Contact trains the senses and reflexes to allow for nuanced communication through touch, and the playful interaction of weight and momentum in space. The dancers work at the speed of reflex, tuned to the speed of falling.[1]
This is a skills-based Contact Improvisation workshop for movers that want to increase the awareness and precision in their dance.
We will address and practice 1) sustaining a clear point or points of contact. 2) the modulation of speed and pressure, 3) control during inversion, supporting and riding, 4) sensitivity to the floor, 5) integration of multiple foci, and 6) extending the variety of qualities in your dancing and your ability to move easily and intentionally between them.
[1] Paraphrased from Steve Paxton.
To book:
Contact Jocasta Crofts: mobile: 07875 151582, email: jocasta@contactdance.co.uk
Payment of £35 for the day, to be made in advance.
* NB: this event follows a 5 day performance making intensive ‘Perceptions, Presence, and Performance’ held by Jess, in Bristol. The two events are separate. For information about the longer event, please check out http://www.jesscurtisgravity.org/pgs/calendar.html.
Jess Curtis
Jess Curtis has created a body of work ranging from the underground extremes of Mission District Warehouses with Contraband and CORE (1985-1998) to the formal refinement and exuberance of European State Theaters and Circus Tents with Compagnie Cahin-Caha and Jess Curtis/Gravity (1998-present). Often working within a paradigm of collaboration and co-authorship, he has also produced thoughtful and engaging work with a number of innovative artists including Maria Francesca Scaroni, Jörg Müller, Claire Cunningham and the FabrikCompanie in Potsdam, Germany. He has been commissioned to create works for companies such as Artblau in Germany, ContactArt in Milan, Italy, Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company in England, and Croi Glan Integrated Dance in Ireland. Recently awarded the prestigious 2011 Alpert Award in the Arts for choreography, Curtis and Gravity have received a total of six Isadora Duncan Dance awards and a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for fallen, which went on to tour to over 40 cities in 9 countries. Curtis teaches Dance, Contact Improvisation, and Interdisciplinary Performance throughout the US and Europe and has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley and the University of the Arts in Berlin. He holds an MFA in Choreography from UC Davis and is currently a Ph.D candidate in Performance Studies there, focusing on embodiment and performativity in movement-based performance. www.jesscurtisgravity.org