Program
The festival program will feature a variety of activities, including intensive sessions, workshops, jam sessions, live performances, underscore events, morning practice, as well as opportunities for relaxation, leisurely walks, bodywork, discussions, and engaging conversations, among others.
Intensive
PARTNERING
Liza Tarabanova
From a fleeting glance to a deep physical connection — this class is a journey through the language of contact. We begin with the simplest forms of interaction and build toward complex lifts, spirals, and finely tuned, dynamic duets. At the heart of our approach lies dialogue. A pause, a question, a gesture — these become physical conversations, where listening is just as important as doing. Movement becomes a score; bodies become instruments of thought and emotion. This is not just technique — it’s about trust, timing, and truth in motion. We dive into contact as a space of discovery, using tools we’ve developed through years of work with university students, the “Midnighters” company, and the “Rules of Movement” school. Expect a demanding, full-bodied experience. The class builds progressively, designed for intermediate and advanced movers ready to challenge their coordination, sensitivity, and strength. Please wear clothes that cover your elbows and knees — your skin will thank you.
Intensive
Coupled Pendula, Spirals, and the Architecture of Flight
Kieran Mitchell
In this intensive, we explore how two bodies can become an evolving architecture of swinging, spiralling, lifting, and returning each other through shared weight and momentum. Like coupled pendulums influencing each other’s arc, or spirals continuously unfolding into new spirals, our dancing becomes a study of continuity: how one movement gives birth to the next. We begin by grounding ourselves in the essential principles of Contact Improvisation: the rolling point of contact, clear pathways for giving and receiving weight, and an embodied understanding of how our structure can support both stability and motion. From this foundation, we enter the dynamic interplay between the over-dancer and the under-dancer. Special attention will be paid to sharing weight through the pelvis and understanding how we access the floor through the partner’s body. What does it mean to offer the body as a steady, reliable architecture? What does it mean to generously surrender ones’ weight and agency to a partner? How do we guide a partner safely and attentively, through flight and back to their own centre of weight? We will investigate transitions across levels, from bodysurfing on the floor to upright exchanges. We will examine how the architecture of the body, its bones, spirals, and shifting centres, can support another while moving through space. Throughout the intensive, we combine technical clarity with somatic listening and moments of compositional group work, allowing dancers to sense when to anchor, when to follow, all while cultivating a compositional awareness. Rather than seeking fixed forms, we practice responsiveness: attuning to momentum, shaping direction, and improvising movement together in real time. The aim is not to master a set of techniques, but to inhabit a dance where stability and softness coexist, where we can become both the pendulum and the one who catches its swing.
Contact Class
QUANTUM CONTACT:
Shifu Ash
In this class, you'll explore the art of partner dancing through the lens of microscopic awareness, focusing on the subtle language of touch. This class will guide you in mastering the delicate balance of taking responsibility for another's body while learning to command, listen, and negotiate through movement. You'll delve into key aspects such as building trust and understanding reflexivity—where every action invites a reaction. We'll also cover self-protection and safeguarding your partner, all while engaging your imagination to intuitively track and respond to your partner's movements. "Quantum Contact" is designed to deepen your understanding of touch and connection, transforming your dance practice into a refined and resonant dialogue.
Somatic
THE POWER OF FLUID: EXPLORING BEHAVIOUR & ADAPTABILITY
Trinidad García Espinosa
(Somatic into dancing, the influence of Gravity ) . “There is nothing so soft and weak as water in the nature, still nothing can overcome the strong and hard better than water." The fluids of the body, presence and transformation, set the ground for basic communication, and mediate the dynamics of flow between rest and activity. The fluid reacts immediately to the change in position, pouring in the direction of gravity. Each fluid relates to a different quality of movement, touch, voice, and state of mind. We will focus like in a performance. Practices for discovering movement through improvisation, this approach emphasizes being alert drawing from somatic practices, developed a discourse, on those postural dynamics of movement. fundamental skills of re-learning self-exploration, curiosity and awarness. Water, despite being soft and seemingly weak, has the ability to erode even the hardest rocks over time.
Movement Class
%20(59)_Original.jpg)
PASSING THROUGH
Aric Master
Passing through uses the dynamics of complex systems to create a collective web. The group will create dynamics that will be flexible, complex, getting the group to fit tight together, yet always keeping doors open for the unpredictable. The group moves constantly, transforming the environment of the dance. The room is full of pathways - infinite pathways passing through the walls, the floor, even the bodies. These pathways go in any direction and are filled with curves, large and small. Visible and invisible spirals are constantly passing through the students. Thus the “passing through” is created into a spontaneous composition. When the group becomes one mind, it can never get lost, there is never one person leading, everyone is following. The whole group is constantly traveling, weaving their bodies inside and out of their classmates and still always aware of the environment around them. After taking part in the “passing through” the student will learn to instantly connect with their environment and become more spontaneous in the making of choices as an improviser, choreographer or dancing in someone else’s work.