Contact Improvisation – 14 week course – with Saskia
Date: Starts Wednesday 14th September 2016 – ends Wednesay 14th December 2016
Time: 7.15pm – 9.15pm
Venue: The Willow Studio, St Werburghs Primary School
Cost: £84 for the course, or £42 per block of 7. Otherwise £10 (£8 conc) to drop-in
Led by: Saskia Chaplin
Starting on Wednesday 14th September for 14 consecutive weeks. A weekly two-hour class exploring the basics and more of contact improvisation.
Contact Improvisation (CI)
CI is an improvised dance form that fine tunes your senses and wakes up your ability to listen and respond to what is happening in the moment. Open to all bodies and inquiring minds.
This series of classes will offer an in depth explorations into the fundamentals of CI, enabling you to develop core skills to support fluidity and safety, whilst opening up to new possibilities in your movement.
Practicalities
This course is suitable for all levels, whether complete beginners, or those wanting to deepen their practice. It is ideal to attend the whole course, as there will be a progression of learning. However, drop-in is also possible at £10 per class (or £8 concessions)
Please bring loose comfortable clothing, with a warm layer to start and end in, kneepads if you have them, and water (though there is access to tap water in the adjoining kitchen area).
Contact
To book your place or find out more, email Saskia on saskia@contactdance.co.uk or phone 07904 121 646.
About the Teacher
Saskia Chaplin “I first met CI in 2007 and have since attended events and workshops all over the UK and Europe, entering the world of teaching in 2011. It’s a form that suits me well; I love the physicality of it, to be surprised and delighted in the moment. I love that sense of responding in new and unexpected ways in creative play, finding moments of synchronicity, feeling my body respond confidently and instinctively, whilst exploring the world in the moving 3D offered by other bodies & minds in the space.
Despite a science degree in Photography, I have always been drawn to engaging with the world through the body – yoga, meditation, and, since 2002, working as a massage therapist.
My CI journey coincided with my journey into biodynamic craniosacral therapy, for which I qualified as a therapist in 2010 and now offer alongside my massage work. I am intrigued by the links between these forms; where the micro reflects the macro, the individual reflects the group and visa versa.”
Content
Below is my draft plan of this autumn course to give you a sense of what we will cover. I may decide to change the format slightly as we work together as a group.
Week 1:
First contact – first finding our connection to the floor we will explore the use of push, pull, and slide in contact with the floor and our partners to make first contact in the dance
Week 2:
Follow the leader – using exercises to offer direction, leading and following our partners in space, fundamentals of listening
Week 3:
Give and take – giving and taking weight, counterbalance, using weight, and exploring how to say yes/no through our bodies
Week 4:
Massage into Movement – we will use bodywork to bring awareness and movement from or skin, muscles and bones.
Week 5:
The Centre – moving from our centres, offering and taking lifts, leading and following from centre
Week 6:
Up – exploring some simple lifts, the table, hip lifts, etc, and finding movement with weight exchange
Week 7:
The Underscore – a light introduction to the led underscore. A held way to explore basic jam skills.
Week 8
Listening – a 3-part journey of listening; moving from your internal landscape of feeling and sensation, into aware contact through touch and others, then outwards into a wider sense of the space as we dance in and out of contact.
Week 9
Ease, Flow, and the Awkward
Week 10
Spiralling Softly – finding pathways from, to, and with, the floor and our partners
Week 11
Inside Out – tensegrity – exploring our inner bounce, tension, compression, reflection.
Week 12
Backspace – orientation and disorientation. Opening up our backspace to finr our upside down, downside up, and round-a-bout!
Week 13
Legs as arms – waking the legs and exploring the possibilities of low level moving.
Week 14
Essential Jam skills: offering, taking, leaving invitations, and exploring ways in and out of the dance.
*See you Dancing, Saskia *