About Festival
India Contact Festival, hosted by ProDancer is a vibrant celebration of movement and connection, dedicated to exploring Contact Improvisation as a profound and transformative movement practice. Dive into diverse learning opportunities, including intensives, workshops, and jams led by incredible teachers from various countries.
Engage in artistic expression through captivating performances that demonstrate the beauty and potential of Contact Improvisation as an art form. Explore the depths of somatic practices, fostering a deeper connection between your body and mind. Our festival is not just a dance event; it's a transformative experience that goes beyond the dance floor, nurturing personal growth, creativity, and self-discovery.
At India Contact Festival, inclusivity is at the heart of our celebration. Our festival provides the perfect space for community building and forging connections. Engage in discussions, conversations, and interactions that foster mutual understanding, empathy, and trust. Enjoy moments of rest, walks in nature, bodywork sessions, saunas, water contact, and more, designed to nourish your body and soul. Embrace the magic of Contact Improvisation and be part of this extraordinary journey of self-discovery, artistic expression, and community building. It's a celebration of movement, connection, and personal growth, where everyone is welcome!
What is Contact Improvisation?
Contact Improvisation (CI) represents a unique dance form that centers around the fundamental physical concepts of touch, momentum, and the sharing of weight. CI involves a practice where two or more individuals come together through a common point of physical contact, embarking on an exploratory journey to sense and respond to one another's movements and impulses. Within the realm of dance, CI enables dancers to harness their intuition, delve into their personal interests, and carefully examine their own physical boundaries and capabilities. In the process, CI cultivates a heightened awareness of the present moment, emphasizing a deep connection to the 'here and now.' Each partner engaged in CI becomes an integral part of a constantly evolving landscape, influenced by their individual perceptions of time, space, and energy. Through the language of touch and proprioception, CI practitioners effectively 'listen' to their bodies and those of their partners, continuously observing how human forms can coexist in a seamless and rhythmic flow.
The roots of Contact Improvisation can be traced back to 1972 when Steve Paxton, a pioneer in this art, amalgamated his experiences in contemporary dance, acrobatics, and Aikido to create this unique practice. Over the years, CI has absorbed influences from a variety of techniques, trends, and research, along with the distinctive approaches of its practitioners and teachers. This dance form explores an array of skills, including falling gracefully, achieving balance, effortlessly lifting partners during 'flights,' and the ability to communicate and respond to both fellow dancers and the environment. Dancing within the context of CI does not necessarily provide clear-cut answers; instead, it immerses participants in a perpetual journey of exploration and discovery, rendering this practice consistently fascinating and endlessly engrossing.
AMProDancer Infotech PVT.Ltd is a private organization founded in the year 2018 to create opportunities for the dance community and the general public to engage in dynamic programming globally. ProDancer as an umbrella organization evolves on a different level from its members. It is not connected to any particular dance school, company, federation or other institution.
Our Host
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Kieran Mitchell // Intensive Teacher
Kieran Mitchell has been a dedicated practitioner of Contact Improvisation (CI) for the past 14 years and has taught and facilitated the form for the last 8. He has been invited to share his work at major international CI festivals across Asia, Europe, and Australia. With a background in modern dance, ballet, and improvisation. Kieran’s is involved in physical theatre, contemporary dance theatre, and other performance art. As a movement mentor, he works one-on-one with individuals to cultivate embodied play, increase range of motion, and enhance physical function. Kieran is interested in the way CI allows the practitioner to dissolve and reify the borders between the self and the non-self. To ask the questions: where do I end? Can I extend myself into another body and access the floor through that body? Where is my attention? Is it focusing on the internal, the external or the sense data itself? Kieran’s teaching emphasizes clear communication of technical understanding. His classes often begin with a focus on the ‘doing’ aspects of CI—“moves” and pathways— before inviting participants towards a forgetting of the technical and allowing the body to express itself in its ‘being’ modality.
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Maria Nurieva // Intensive Teacher
Maria Nurieva graduated from theatre college as drama actress (2001) Kazan University of Culture and Art as jazz dance teacher (2017-18)
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Marcel Nuriev // Intensive Teacher
Marcel Nuriev graduated from the Kazan University of Culture and Art, the theater department in 2005. In 2011-2013 studied at the master's course at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet - Research Laboratory for the composition of modern forms of dance.
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Shifu Ash // Organizer, Class Teacher
Shifu Ash is a dance movement researcher, philosopher, choreographer & visual artist based in Mumbai, India. His expertise lies in movement practices such as Wing Chun, Aikido, Modern Contemporary Dance, Ballet and Contact Improvisation with an experience of 20 years. He is also a former member of CID-UNESCO Paris (International Dance Council) and the founding member & CEO of ProDancer. As a movement practitioner he has trained with number of masters like: Grandmaster IP Chun, Nancy Stark Smith, David Zambrano, Frey Faust, Sara Shelton Mann, Kira Kirsch, Andrew De Lotbinière Hardwood, Akram Khan, Desmond Richardson, Era Jouravlev, Stephanie Godino, Terence Lewis, Mia Michael, Sonya Tayeh, Anjelika Doniy, Danny Ezralow, Ohad Naharin… to name a few. He has been invited to teach at some of the prestigious dance festivals & companies in India & abroad like Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, Goa Contact Festival, Portugal Contact Festival, Goa Dance Residency, Berlin Contact Festival, Contact Meets Contemporary Festival Goettingen, Tokyo Nomadic Residency, Chinchintalu Festival Dubai, Divadlo Studio Tanca, Henny Jurriens Studio Amsterdam, Terence Lewis Contemporary Dance Company, Dance Perfect Prague, Nritya Shakti, Institute Of Classical & Modern Dance India, Saint Petersburg Conservatory Dance, Radi Sveta Art, SDVIG Studio Saint Petersburg, etc. In the year 2021 Shifu Ash was titled "The Saint Beast" by the International Martial Arts Federation Japan and was also featured as the cover artist for the martial art magazine Jissen.
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Trinidad García Espinosa // Class Teacher
Trinidad García Espinosa...one of the pioneers of Contact Improvisation jams in Barcelona since 2001.She is a prominent teacher and facilitator in the international Contact Improvisation community. She has taught regularly in Barcelona and at festivals such as the New Year Festival of Barcelona, Dances Summer Festival, Freiburg Contact Festival, Madrid Contact Festival, In Touch Festival, and her own Dance Here Project. Her training includes studies in Comprehensive Affective-Sexual Education, certification from the Department of Education (Government of Catalonia ) She studied in Institut del Teatre in Barcelona contemporary dance (1994) and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (1997), where include her knowledge of Contact Improvisation under the guidance of pioneers such as Mary Prestidge, Karen Nelson, and Steve Paxton. With extensive experience, she has , BMC, Dancespace, movement Research in New York and worked in Berlin until 2001. Since 2005, she has practiced Feldenkrais and other somatic education approaches, complementing her integrative approach to teaching and practicing Contact Improvisation. She is an active member of the Touch&Play Barcelona team, a collective dedicated to exploring movement and connection through improvised dance.
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Carey Jeffries // Class Teacher
Carey Jeffries is an interdisciplinary dance artist whose work weaves Contact Improvisation, Instantaneous Composition, Butoh, and contemporary somatic practices, informed by a long-standing dialogue with visual art. Her artistic path began with Fine Art studies in London and Canterbury under the sculptor Sir Antony Caro, where early engagement with sculpture, fabric, and spatial composition laid the foundations for a movement practice rooted in form, weight, and transformation. Encounters with performance sculpture and a decisive meeting with dancer Lindsey Kemp led Carey to shift her focus fully toward dance and embodied research. She deepened her practice through Butoh and Body Weather, studying internationally in Spain, France, and Japan with key figures including Min Tanaka and the Mai Juku lineage, Masaki Iwana, Tetsuro Fukuhara, Sumako Koseki, Carlotta Ikeda, and Atsushi Takenouchi. These experiences grounded her work in states of presence, metamorphosis, and the poetic intelligence of the body. Since 2000, Carey has expanded her research into Contact Improvisation and Improvisation, training with internationally renowned teachers including Yann L’Heureux, Emmanuelle Grivet, Félix Rukert, Kirstie Simpson, Daniel Lepkoff, Nancy Stark Smith, and Claire Filmon, alongside Nora Hajós, Charlie Morrissey, Adrien Russi, and Mirva Mäkinen. Parallel to her dance training, Carey has pursued extensive somatic studies including Yoga (Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Yin, and AcroYoga), Thai massage, Osteo Wuo Tai, Ilan Lev massage, Kalarippayattu, and Vipassana and Tantra meditation, studied in France, India, and Thailand. These practices continue to inform her approach to touch, weight exchange, listening, and energetic flow. Carey has collaborated with numerous artists and musicians, creating over 20 solo and group works. From 2010 to 2018, she co-founded and directed Studio Keller in Paris with Fabienne Menjucq, a center dedicated to dance, yoga, and bodywork research where she taught regularly. Her current research and teaching centers on the development of “Deep Contact”, a somatic and dance practice fusing Contact Improvisation, Butoh, massage, and yoga. Alongside her movement work, Carey maintains an ongoing visual art practice, drawing dance—particularly Contact Improvisation—as a way of tracing movement, memory, and relational space, which she exhibits internationally.
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Aric Master // Class Teacher
Aric Master is a dance movement researcher, educator and choreographer based in Mumbai, India. His expertise lies in movement practices such as Flying Low, Passing Through, Martial Arts, Contact Improvisation, Modern Contemporary Dance, Jazz and Ballet with an experience of 15 years. He is also a former member at TL Inc (Terence Lewis Inc) and the founding member & one of the Organisers of PDF (Partner Dance Festival India). His current project involves assisting in choreographing for Reality Show Indias Best Dancer and an upcoming Webseries in India. He is also co-curating Omniverse.art which focuses on bringing AI and Art together. As a movement practitioner he has trained with a number of masters like: David Zambrano,Terence Lewis, Peter Jasko, Joe Alagado, Laura Aris, German Jauregui , Corinne Lanselle, Marta Coronado, Kathleen Hermsdrof, Vega Luukkonen, Hugh Stanier, Katja Mustonen and many more. After having trained in Contemporary under various renowned teachers around the world, he has developed a new approach called EXFLOOR (Explore The Floor) in which the aim is for a dancer to find the connection of the whole body with the floor; going through the roots and channelising the whole energy to interact with the floor in different levels. The fundamental area of Exfloor plays with the idea of a relationship of the body with the Moving Floor a 3 dimensional space full of spirals and constant momentum using tools from different techniques like Flying Low, Physical Momentum, Centrifugal Empowerment and Connection of Breath and Sound with Movement.
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Josh Jones // Class Teacher
Joshua Jarvis Jones is a movement artist whose work blends contemporary dance, contact improvisation, and emotional storytelling. Trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dane, Josh's practice is routed in authenticity, using movement to explore connection and human experience. He has an Founder of Lean_in, creates spaces for embodied exploration, community, and healing. His work is shaped by personal transformation, somatic in-quiry, and a commitment to bridging the personal with the collective throug the language of the moving body.
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Nakula Somana // Class Teacher
An OG of the Indian contemporary dance landscape, Nakula brings decades of embodied inquiry, precision, and an unwavering commitment to process. A Dravidian from the Deccan Plateau, Nakula was born to parents who left pastoral lives for work in big cities. When he isn’t attempting acrobatics, you’ll find him playing the Jewish harp or tending to a garden before sunset. He dreams of settling near the mountains someday, learning to ski or paint, whichever comes easier, and enjoys visual art and Japanese cuisine in any order they arrive. Currently working with found and pedestrian movement, Nakula continues to deepen his choreographic and compositional research. His presence is not just pedagogical, it’s a transmission of lineage, curiosity, and quiet rigor.