During the course of Movement 12’s initial two-year period we will curate four 3-day workshops with international dance artists. We will also curate two 5 – 6 day Summer Schools. The workshops will enable people to work more intensively with international dance artists.
Past Workshops...
SUMMER SCHOOL
Weight and Weightlessness
Flight and Fall
A workshop for solo, duet and trio work derived from Contact Improvisation
with
Jacky Miredin (Rome)
Charlie Morrissey (UK)
Adrian Russi (Switzerland)
The Dance Studio, University of Brighton
14th -18th Sept 10am-4pm daily.
Cost: £120
This workshop explores Contact Improvisation in trio and duet work with three acclaimed and highly experienced male dancers and teachers.
Looking at upward motion and elevation, lifting and falling, elasticity and connection, resistance and yielding - via the connection with two partners.
We will work with three-dimensional awareness, and explore the space behind, above, below and in front of us - both external and internal experiences of it, as a way to facilitate an agile and playful approach to the many choices we encounter in our dancing.
We will use momentum and weight as a catalyst for lifts, and find ways in which we can ride the momentum created by setting our masses in motion.
We will capitalise on this opportunity to work in trio's and use it to go beyond our perception of what is possible in our dancing; working with two partners
will help us find places and pathways we have not yet been able to explore with one.
Be ready to dance!
This workshop will be physical, fun and exhilarating.
For experienced dancers.
Bio’s
Charlie Morrissey has been working as a performer, teacher, director and researcher for 20 years across the UK and in many others countries around the world. He creates site-specific and theatre and gallery based performance work. His teaching is central to his practice and is informed by long-term working relationships with Steve Paxton, K.J.Holmes,
Scott Smith, Kirstie Simson and Lisa Nelson and many others.
Charlie has been practicing dance and Contact Improvisation for 20 years. He is based in Brighton.
For more information, go to www.charliemorrissey.com
Adrian Russi is a CI-teacher, performer and body therapist, who has been involved in Contact Improvisation since 1992.
After he studied New Dance at “bewegungs-art” in Freiburg/Germany he continued his education with many different teachers, among them Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith who have started to develop CI in the early seventies with a group of other movers.
He is based in Switzerland where he offers his work as a free lancer to a wide range of people. He is regularly invited to international festivals and to teach workshops all over Europe . In his teaching he focuses on the technical aspects of CI (ease, precision and
strength) as well as on matters of perception (sensation, connection of inner and outer space, of bottom and top) and a creativity coming from a distinct body-awareness.
For him the pleasure of play, deep engagement in the dance, and respect for others are the basis for gaining the most possible in dancing CI. As a performer he works with many different international artists and his performances are primarily based on free improvisation incorporating Contact Improvisation, dance, dance-theatre, voice and live music.
Adrian is bsed in Bern, Switzerland.
For more information, go to www.adrianrussi.com
Jacky Miredin is a choreographer and teacher of modern, contemporary and improvisational dance, working internationally, He is co-founder of dance company Sanza Nemo Collective, founded in 1993 in New York City. His aim is to create a space where dancers can express and develop their capacity as movers and performers. Contact improvisation and improvisation are the main tools used for that purpose. He has been inspired in his research by masters such as Kirstie Simson, Julyen Hamilton, K.J Holmes, Martin Keogh, Ray Chung, to name a few of them.
In January this year Jacky Miredin has had the opportunity to performed his first improvisation solo performance “IT” in New York City. He takes part in numerous festivals throughout Europe. And this summer he will be teaching at the Frieburg Festival and taking part in ECITE in Liverpool.
Jacky is based in Rome.
For more information, www.romacontact.com/chi-siamo/jean-hugues-miredin
Together, Jean-Hughes, Adrian and Charlie have been working under the title Moving Men, performing and teaching together since 2007 in Switzerland, Germany and Rome , and, in 2009, in Holland and Poland.
To book - send a deposit for £50 made payable to Moving Brighton and Hove, to Rob Hopper at 104, Upper North Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 3FJ, UK
For further details email Rob Hopper at info@movement12.org
Ursula Stricker, (Switzerland)
Ideokenisis
4th, 5th, 6th September 2009
Cost £80
Mabel Elsworth Todd pioneered Ideokinesis in the 1920s. Her book, The Thinking Body, described new ways to use all the senses as well as inner feeling and imagination to retrain the body to move with ease and balance.
The system became an invaluable tool for generations of dancers, actors, and performance artists, thanks largely to one of its most important teachers, Andre Bernard (1924-2003).
Ursula Stricker trained directly for 20 years with Andre Bernard.
To book - send a deposit for £40 made payable to Moving Brighton and Hove, to Rob Hopper at 104, Upper North Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 3FJ, UK
For further details email Rob Hopper at info@movement12.org
Choreovideo Laboratory
Lisa Nelson(USA).
Curated by Becky Edmunds
at The Basement, Kensington Street, Brighton.
7th, 8th and 9th March 2009
£80
Exploring the dialogue between moving and seeing.
The second of Lisa Nelson's Video Lab's in Brighton following on from the first the previous year.
This workshop is suitable for screen dance artists, and dance artists with a particular interest in Lisa's work.
With hands-on work with the mobile camera, we will focus on the process of in-camera editing, generating spontaneous and complete compositions.
The workshop is preparation for any application of video to dance to video.
Emphasis will be placed on developing a spontaneous response and flexible attitude toward seeing movement, and evolving camera and editing techniques that complement, augment, and/or reflect the way we move through our world.
Lisa Nelson has been exploring the role of the senses in the performance of movement since the 70s.
Best known for her work as an improvisational performer and choreographer, and developer of Tuning Scores, she has been extending her inquiry into the video medium for many years, creating and teaching a two-year course of study in video and dance at Bennington College, U.S.A.
She teaches and performs across the U.S and abroad and continues a longstanding collaboration with dancer Steve Paxton.
She is director of Videoda, an archival, production, and distribution project for videotapes of improvised dance performance worldwide, and since 1977, has co-edited Contact Quarterly, an international dance and improvisation journal. She lives in Vermont.
Participation to the workshop is by application only:
Please send a short expression of interest in the workshop with a biography, to Becky Edmunds at:
becky.edmunds@googlemail.com
Andrew Harwood
5-day workshop
29th September - 3rd October
Brighton Ki Centre
BEING READY
What does it mean to be ready to dance at any time, with anyone, anywhere ? There are no set formulas, but there is an attitude and a state of mind and body that can be cultivated toward this objective.
Being completely attentive and always prepared on all levels, will enable us to go beyond thinking our way through the dance, and help us be attuned to what is actually taking place.
This total presence allows us to be freed of the mental chatter, planning ahead, and judgement, which so often override the body’s ability to make appropriate split-second choices. In this way the improvisations can be entirely physical, playful, heartfelt, surprising and enjoyable.
Explored themes will include: tumbling, flying, use of variable speeds, use of direct action and initiation, resistance, disappearance, subtle ways of moving weight, flowing through unfamiliar circumstances, extending our personal range of movement, and integrating our imagination and our heart.
Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is the artistic director of AH HA Productions a project oriented company focusing on improvisation as a performing art.
Andrew is recognized as an exceptional international teacher, performer and creator in the field of instantaneous choreography and contact improvisation since 1975.
His work has been presented in numerous international festivals since 1980 (Impuls Tanz, La Biennale, Festival Montpellier, F.I.N.D., Festival des Antipodes, IF/ New York, Bates Dance Festival, etc).
He has danced with the companies of Fulcrum, Jo Lechay, Marie Chouinard, and Jean-Pierre Perreault, and has collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Kirstie Simson, Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Ray Chung and Benoit Lachambre among many others.
His background includes athletics, gymnastics, yoga, modern dance, Release Technique, improvisation and Aikido.
He was awarded the Canada Council’s Jacqueline Lemieux dance award in 2000.
Danza Sensible
Claude Coldy
3 day Intensive
October 10th - 12th.
A three day dance workshop with Claude Coldy and Danza Sensibile, a highly potent form of body research and movement practise.
Curated by Miriam King and Movement 12, this course is suitable for all wishing to deepen their sense of presence and focus on being present within your body.
The three days will be studio based in Brighton and in Hove with one evening of work within a small warm swimming pool, this session will introduce elements present in the outdoor/nature aspects of Danza Sensibile.
Sensitive Dance
In a fast-moving world, where every day we seem to move further away from a living contact with nature’s elements, the Sensitive Dance, through body movement, offers an original way to slow down and experience the true essence of our very being from its most dense to its more subtle states. The aim is to reach movement awareness, a mirror to our movement in life.
In this research of awareness with the world, that brings a necessary exchange between macro and micro movement, the Sensitive Dance takes us to a revival of some of the fundamental steps in evolution with an aim to return to the sense and potentiality contained in our body structure.
“ to enter into the discovery of the world through a three-dimensional experience of space and create, in our most inner self, the birth of life movement, expression of life’s Dance”
Practicing movement awareness in the Sensitive Dance seminars is the chance to reach a new consciousness in body experience amplified by group presence. In the Sensitive Dance seminars the group becomes a place of truth, relationship, respect, sharing and welcoming for body messages.
Here are just a few of our practice topics:
- A central theme is verticalisation: opening, taking direction, bringing the body into the world via the main steps of phylogenesis
- Element laws and cycles
- Presence
- Movement sense and non-sense
- Self expression and creativity
- The birth of a dance
CLAUDE COLDY
Claude Coldy, dancer and choreographer, leads the Sensitive Dance both in indoor studios and in natural surroundings in Europe. The Sensitive Dance is for anyone with basic body work practice:
Dance, theatre, martial arts, body work therapy etc.. people following a course in life who wish to enter into the experience of movement awareness.
The Sensitive Dance originated in 1990 from Claude Coldy’s meeting with two osteopaths Marie Guyon and JeanLouis Dupuy.
The Sensitive Dance movement awareness experience takes on four main directions:
- Personal development and a study of relationship
- Education and pedagogy through movement
- Artistic expression
- Physical and energetic body re-harmonising
Atsushi Takenouchi
and
Hiroko Komiya
3-Day Intensive Workshop
Curated by Virginia Farman
Friday 9th, Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th May
10.30am - 5.30pm
Cost £80
at Falmer Village Hall, Falmer, Nr. Brighton,
and Burt Woods, Park Lane, Laughton, Near Lewes.
Butoh is an improvised movement form originating from post-war Japan, described as " the dance of the dark soul" it employs imagery from nature, life, death and the human psychi to inspire a unique, individual dance, drawn from the inner core of the dancer.
The work is physically and emotionally demanding and creative.
It will be set to live musical accompaniment throughout and on this workshop partcipants will spend a day dancing in an area of outstanding natural beauty in an ancient woodland in Sussex.
Atsushi has been performing Butoh for 30 years and together with Hiroko has been teaching and performing in Europe for the last 7 years. in 2008 they performed at the Venice Biennale.
Originally from Kyoto , Japan, Atsushi is a student of Tasumi Hijikata, his work features in the writing on Butoh by Sandra Farleigh.
The Poetry of Motion
Kirstie Simson (UK) and Christian Burns (USA)
Curated by Charlie Morrissey.
At The Dance Studio, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton.
19th – Fri 21st December 2007
Improvisation and Partnering Skills
“One of the legends of British Dance and one of the greatest exponents of Contact Improvisation.”
Time Out Magazine on Kirstie Simson
Kirstie and Christian will give classes in dance improvisation, drawing from their knowledge of contact improvisation, dance techniques, the Japanese martial art form of Aikido and their extensive experience of improvisation in performance.
Their focus will be on exploring uninhibitedly the huge potential of the body’s response to the primal urge to move, inspired by deep energies released through human
Interaction, physical challenge and through the excitement of discovering new territory, new sensations and a daring to go beyond inherent ideas of limitation.
The classes will be built on very simple physical principles allowing students to explore their experience of moving and to understand their own bodies more profoundly, which is often experienced as joyful and liberating.
Christian and Kirstie will be focusing on various aspects and techniques for freeing up the body - allowing it to move with greater ease and grace. They have both spent many years researching ways of moving, which generate full and fearless dancing, and both enjoy the challenges of intense physicality. They will be sharing their discoveries with students. The classes offer dancers a way in which they can extend and deepen their experience of moving.
Kirstie Simson
Kirstie has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called "a force of nature" by the New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has "immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance" according to Time Out Magazine, London. Simson’s eternal subject is freedom, as she dares to go beyond the boundaries of form and structure to create movement out of the rhythm of life itself.
Christian Burns
Christian has performed, taught and choreographed as an independent artist for various dance companies, schools and art centers around the United States, Europe and Asia. His choreographic and dance-video work has received several awards, grants, artist fellowships and artists-in-residencies and he is the co-founder of The Foundry, an interdisciplinary dance company based in San Francisco. Christian was recently a guest artist with The Forsythe Company for the creation of Equivalence, which premiered in Dresden Germany. Christian currently resides in Holyoke Massachusetts where he and his collaborators are renovating the nineteenth century Parsons Hall, into a live work and a dance residency facility.