This work is for dancers whose Contact Improvisation practice is beyond the beginning levels – those familiar with inversions, weight exchange, and changing states.
This is a two day dive into the fabric of touch that is key to our relational practices in the movement of Contact Improvisation – and for many of us, in the living of life itself. Steeped in somatic communication, this adventure into our movement life begins within ourselves, but moves outwardly, to where selfhood refuses to be stable, set and limiting. Instead, its instability is key to its creativity, the play that appears when our relational communication is fluid, Movement scores throughout the weekend will make this connection. In this workshop we will form and reform what we know as touch, exploring how this touch translates into the flow of movement. We increase the strength of our moving together with the human and the more than human worlds we also are.
Creative, thoughtful, heart based, skill based, our learning will be anchored in the core principles of Contact Improvisation, such as: how to move weight like water – actions of cascading. The details of touching within weight exchange. The rising and hanging of the body – each mode significant to communication. How attention lives in the very small. Extending to form surfaces that arc. Learning to trust the physicality of our extended intelligence.
Movement practices include lots of dancing both as skills building and exploration. Although, in many cases these will be the same thing.
DATE: Saturday 13th and 14th July 2024
SCHEDULE: (SAT & SUN)
Arrive : 9.30am
Finish: 5pm
BOOKING PROCESS
To apply for this workshop, please fill in the application shown in the below link so that we can get to know you better. Once you have submitted your responses, you will hear back from us within 4-6 weeks with an outcome. If your application is successful, we will also include details for payment to secure your place
Application form: https://forms.gle/ZUSiE8jhqbGmLsDr7
TICKET PRICE
Full price: £120
Concession: £75 (limited number)
(the option of payment by instalments will be made for all successful applicants)
CONTACT
bristolcontactresearch@gmail.com
VENUE & TRAVEL
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hRfBTSuQn7HB7omo9
50 mins – from Bus Station
40 mins from Flix / Megabus / National Express drop-off point (Bond Street)
ACCOMODATION
This workshop is non-residential, although local accommodation is available by AirBnB within a 10 mins walking distance from the venue. Hotels are a bit further away and are located in the center, around 40 mins by public transport.
Once you have secured a place in the workshop, you will receive additional information that may allow shared accommodation with other participants or the local Bristol CI community
FOOD
The hall includes access to a kitchen to warm food brought for lunch and a dining area to eat. Food can also be bought on Two Mile high street, approximately 10 mins walk from the venue.
A light selection of fruits, biscuits and teas will be provided at the venue.
ABOUT NITA LITTLE
Nita Little is an activist for relational intelligence through improvisational dance practices that began with the emergence and development of Contact Improvisation in 1972. This path was provoked by Steve Paxton. The only remaining Contact Improvisation (CI) teacher who was a member of the initial core of CI pioneers, Nita has remained on the cutting edge of this practice training generations of Contact Improvisation practitioners and teachers worldwide. A performer, choreographer, and dance theorist, Little received her PhD in Performance Studies in 2014.
She returns to international touring invited by dance companies, festivals, conferences and universities to teach, lecture, and compose emergent events. Her writing investigates ecological actions of attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. She directs an international network of dance research ensembles – the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (the ISSC).