| This class is an occasion for dancers and non-dancers to practice listening, acting, self-centering, responding and co-creating. Dance improvisation is comprised of a large field of techniques, each one informing the other. These techniques bring our body-mind, and at times, our imagination, to co-operate with the environment in order to create non-literal stories. One of these techniques is Contact Improvisation. It is a personal research form focusing on our physical essence and intelligence in action. It allows us to observe how the body concretely functions in relation with its environment, as our weight goes down, as our structure articulates its axis and spirals, as our balance gets triggered and rearranged by physical forces, and as our supports bring our energy open and up. The environment we interact with (and within) is composed of different elements: the space-time fabric inside & outside of ourselves, the forces of the universe such as gravity, the current surrounding cultural reality, and the other living beings around us. In this training we will take the time to ask physical questions as we evolve through space, in touch or in energetic contact. We will also observe the emergence of responses and instant compositions as improvisation unravel. The idea of not taking our knowledge for granted will be central in our explorations, as well as cultivating presence with simplicity and engagement. We will practice embodiment of our different tensions and insights, in an organic way. Moments of deep focused study will alternate and intertwine with moments of ludicrous exchange and discovery, as we learn to dive into the present moment. |
width='300'height='200' alt="(JPG)" /> Crédits : Maryline Charneau
Crédits : Maryline Charneau |
width='300'At Studio Caravane, 903 St-Zotique East street, Montreal (Beaubien metro)
Wednesdays, 8 to 10 PM (arrival 7:45 please)
Fall season : $175 before August 31, $200 thereafter
Registration modalities: make out and send payment to ’Catherine Lessard’
873 Léonard, Ste-Thérèse, Qc, J7E 2N8
(Money transfer through Acces D also possible).
Bio:
photo : John Barret
Catherine Lessard transmits with passion and coherence the key principles of dance improvisation, Contact Improvisation and Authentic Movement since 2001. She has studied and performed with masters such as Nancy Stark Smith, Daniel Lepkoff, Nita Little, Kirstie Simpson, David Zambrano, Andrew Harwood, Patricia Kuypers Ray Chung, Diego Piñon and Zoe Avstreih.
She has experience in Body-Mind Centering and Butoh, and has professional training in music and communications. She also received a 300 hours training in Gestalt practice (psychology). Catherine teaches and performs dance improvisation regularly in Canada. She is invited each year to offer workshops and performances in USA and in Europe, in the frame of several international festivals as well as other established institutions (Boston, New York, EarthDance, Toronto, Freiburg, Paris, Lyon, Nantes, Grenoble). She is lecturer-educator at UQAM University Dance Department. She has also served as president of the Montreal Association for Contact Improvisation (ACI) from 2007 to 2010.
Catherine combines, in a unified pedagogy, both a sharp artistic vision and a hungry curiosity for science. Her workshops are explorations of human expression through breathing, awareness and various nuances of touch and movement, offered in a deep atmosphere of respect and discovery.
Crédits : Benoît Dhennin