The Point of Contact
•how does it move across space, over a body?
•can it be measured, how is it felt?
•what emerges from tactile exchange and weight transfer?
•where does it begin, does it end?
•what is in-between these points of contact?
•where should we be moving from and how am I relating ?
•what is my body telling me?
•what is being expressed, am I aware of its qualities?
•are we listening?
•how do I feel afterwards?
•what is the point of having contact?
We ask these questions as a framework for the workshop – proposing exercises around which participants can find their own answers; inviting the child, the explorer and the creative within each, to discover and learn through experimentation.
Some Context:
Originally from Brazil, Alessandro is traveling where the dances take him. Him and Jonah met in Mexico some years ago at a dance lab of like-minded movers/facilitators. This past winter they guided side-by-side during Inmersion, a CI festival he co-produced in Oaxaca. It’s a rare treat to have him teach in Montreal, as it is his first time here (and hopefully not the last!).
For this mini-series we’re merging mutual interests to offer a workshop focused on the mysteries of both the physical, and meta-physical, points of contact.
Content:
Mapping out a full spectrum between invisible and tangible;
Acknowledging the forces from which flesh cannot escape, then proceeding beyond, towards areas of non-fixity. The senses, open and available, become the bridge through which a dance can pass, from life, to life. Moving with deliberateness, searching for resonance; the simple yet trying act of drawing-in a deeper state of presence.
Schedule:
May, Thursday 11: 18h-21h ($40)
May, Friday 12: 18h-21h ($40)
May, Saturday 13: 13h-17h ($50)
$110 package
Or *Early bird price of $100 before May 7th
At White Wall Studio
(4532 Ave. Laval, corner Mont-Royal, H2t2b2, Montreal)
Please direct questions and/or payments HERE
(Prices include tax)
Bio :
Jonah Leslie
The apple doesn’t fall far from its tree, they say. As the son of two dancers (movement/theater teacher Jo Leslie, and CI master Andrew Harwood), he was raised with a unique exposure to these disciplines. Early on he was drawn to other movement style, but dance was all around, always. He observed, learned, practiced and taught.
Later he circled back to CI through a workshop with Chris Aiken. CI has been a central practice of him ever since. And to which, he has supported and nurtured it through his bodies amassed knowledge of other forms such as Tai-Chi, somatics, contemporary, and street dance.
Alessandro Rivellino
Where is the intersection of dreamland and awakened in this big reality called Dream?
Alessandro Rivellino? He have been living dance and contact improvisation in a surrendered way as a dancer for 18 years and as a teacher for 12 and had the opportunity to travel to 24 countries, offering and having classes, intensive courses, workshops, residencies and Jams with different and experienced colleagues, which probably gave him a good “floor” to start with ‘not knowing with certain quality’…
He also organized, different meetings and festivals of this CI practice, in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Portugal, Denmark, Turkey and Mexico. He come from different dance schools at the somatic level and movement research. In his practice he integrate various techniques and bringing the potential of dance to life. If you ask him about his deepest interest in dancing and teaching the answer would be around living questions related to dance itself, to the presence and to the Big Mystery.
He hope through this illusion of you and I being separated, we can drop it, and go beyond our hanging names to explore the in-between field of existence to dance and be danced with and through the visible and invisible forces entangled at each single moment and find the way to be at the arch of beauty.