Our Instinctual Movement (a contact improvisation workshop)
22 – 23 October, Bristol.
Facilitated by Jamus Wood and Lee Bolton.
Costs: £70 or £60 concessions. Bookings 07966498596 email: info@embodiedpresence.co.uk.
Unearthing your instinctual body, discovering the power within muscle, bone, blood.
A workshop dedicated to your instinctual knowing, unearthing your unique movement potential. A weekend workshop. Influenced by Instinctual Movement and Contact Improvisation. Come expecting to move, dancing on your own, in contact duets and group improvisations.
When I dance I feel that there are many places to dance from. One of these places that interests me greatly is a place of instinct, my animal body. There is a knowing in each of us, if we can let go of the mind control on our moving we can begin to trust our sensate body.
In this workshop we will dive deeply into our senses and touch that which we already know but may have forgotten. A weekend dedicated to listening to the dance from the inside out.
Each day will begin with a non stylised movement practice designed to allow us to inhabit our bodies, and bring the pure power and dexterity of our physicality into the dance. From here we will touch contact practice, score and group improvisation.
In the Contact Improvisation aspect we will be offering focuses and scores that will create new possibilities for our dancing. The potential of dancing beyond the box, with aliveness and a sense of freshness. We will be looking at the technical aspects of contact from a functional view. Using exercises as starting places to play with to grow from, giving us a chance to see places of habit and choice around this. Our dancing can then become an offering to each moment fresh, alive, spontaneous.
We welcome beginners through to experienced movers.
Wear warm comfortable clothes, layers are good for any floor work we might do in the warmups.
Look forward to dancing with you.
About Lee
I suppose you could say at the heart of it all I am a dancer. It seems my body was born to move. My softness, my passion, my sadness, my rage, my sensuousness, my sense of chaos all come through when I dance. This is where more than anywhere else I can be close to myself and have the capacity to touch life with freshness.
My passion for dance and in particular the drive to be as authentic in each moment as possible has led me from 5 Rhythms to Contact Improvisation and latterly into a practice of Non-Stylised movement based on the teachings of Helen Poyner.
This has led me to co-design a series of classes and workshops that interweave the teachings of fundamental movement, contact improvisation and presence based on the Movement of Being (Devon) teachings.
Dance for me is a metaphor for life. How can I really meet myself? How can I truly be here in this moment to experience life and meet you? This is what fascinates me. Movement offers the opportunity to ask these questions, with the potential to experience depth and understanding.
I offer a space for this exploration.
About Jamus
I love to move, to inspire creativity through dance and connection. I teach and guide classes in Contact Improvisation, Instinctual Movement, Somatic Yoga and perform with the Touch Down Dance.
I like it simple. I find that working with simple themes can take us deep into our own experience and are pathways to presence and embodiment. So themes I work with like arriving, how do we arrive into contact with ourselves, into a space and with another. I find this a fascinating topic.
Unusually, my path has been defined by a congenital eye condition – I almost lost my sight 10 years ago. Six operations on, my sight is improving, with future operations pending. I have found ways to transform my wounding into a unique gift. My life is not what it would have been without my eye condition, many doors initially shut, while others opened.
Along my journey, I have had the good fortune to work with many gifted teachers, many echo’s of these teachings live in my teaching today. Key figures are Malcolm Manning, Helen Poyner, K J Holmes, Lisa Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, Miranda Tufnel, Katy Dymoke, Adam Bradpiece, Ray Chung, Angela Dony.