WEEK INTENSIVE CLASSES in CI / Registration OPEN

Registration for SUPER DISCOUNT : HERE

This event precedes the

34th EDITION MONTREAL CONTACT IMPROVISATION JAM

the 26 and 27 November 2016.

Under the theme of the annual Jam "DANCE YOUR DANCE" we will nurture and deepen the subject by a variety of guidance.

Monday, November 21, facilitated by Geneviève Martel

7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Listening : conversation and negotiation

Listening is not only done with you ears to hear sound, but is also done with the body to feel our physical being. Physical listening is particularly important in dance partnering to feel the influences from inside and outside ourselves and our partners, to learn, and to understand how to negotiate the alternatives presented. Including: organization and structure, volume, strength, resistance, weaknesses, weight. The goal: to contribute to a captivating and safe physical play with your dance partner.

We will explore this with specific guidance and scénarios, and enjoy the process of dancing!

Biography Genevieve

Tuesday, November 22, facilitated by Nicoletta Dolce

6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Reed, silk and other stories. Between the tension and the relaxation, there is a whole world!

Comment cultiver la flexibilité? Et comment nourrir la souplesse et la douceur? Évidemment, sans sacrifier ni la force ni la résistance. Voilà autant d’aspects de la dynamique, magnifique et en même temps complexe, qui caractérise notre danse contact. À ceci j’ajouterais l’importance d’une bonne alternance entre deux états : la tension et le relâchement. Comment pouvons-nous nous engager dans une portée, si facile ou hardie soit-elle, avec la ‘juste quantité’ d’effort? Et comment serions-nous toniques et stables dans nos ancrages tout en gardant la légèreté et la souplesse dans nos membres?


À travers une série d’exercices consacrés à l’exploration de ces états, nous parviendrons à l’élaboration de structures et de portées plus complexes. La progression sera graduelle et adaptée à tous les niveaux d’expérience. Nous formerons alors un paysage où des chats, calmes et vigilants, des roseaux, flexibles et forts, et des fils de soie, résistants et souples, danseront dans la connivence et l’écoute.

Biography of Nicoletta

Wednesday, November 23, facilitated by Eroca nicols

6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Agressive Snuggling

I have recently studying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and I see parallels to contact. Like CI, in BJJ it is absolutely necessary to commit all my attention to the task at hand because of real physical risk. One of the aspects I love about BJJ and where I see a very real difference from CI, is the incredible clarity of boundaries. When a person "taps out" a little tap on the shoulder or leg or really anywhere that can be reached, means: stop doing what you are doing, let go, physically come apart and start again. Also, before engaging in any touch, there is a customary fist bump, palm tap. These cues are not a suggestion of agreement, these cues are clear; yes, I agree to engage and; no, I longer agree and we are now stopping.

I believe that we can begin to work on this and at the same time have a good time learning some fun skills from another partnered movement practice (BJJ.)

Here’s a list of some of the things we will definitely do:
– Ask for and receive consent before touching anyone!
– Develop and practice both a physical and a verbal start and stop signal.
– Practice saying yes and saying no and meaning it.
– Practice hearing yes and hearing no and responding to it.

More skills we will work on:
– play with different levels of compression and weight
– extreme squeezing, how do we dial up and down our tone?
– improvising from three BJJ "positions"
-guard, half guard, side guard.

Let’s be real we only have a few hours, we will do what we can!
Bring cozy clothes and an open mind.

Thursday, November 24, facilitated by Kelly Keenan

6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Feeling Dancing.

JI am interested in the perceptive capacity of the body. I am interested in how we can catch and chase awareness as we move in relation to gravity and others. This workshop is a partnering study.
Drawing from the Axis Syllabus and Thomas Myer’s Anatomy Trains, an anatomically supported movement principle will be focussed on as a subject to sense through time and space as we dance. Maintaining the movement principle as a thread to perpetually tune into our own bodies I will offer participants contexts to explore individually, with the assistance of a partner and in partnering dances… including lifts !

“All techniques, when not turned into doctrine, become mindfulness practices - they give the mind a specific place to focus so that we can drop into levels of absorption that interrupt distraction and habit.”
Michael Stone, The Inner Tradition of Yoga

Biography of Kelly

Friday, November 25, facilitated by Tanya Williams

6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., followed by a JAM until 10:30 p.m

Devotion to Your Sweetest Edge

By practicing tuning into the deep intelligence of the body and honouring our Yes and our No moment to moment, we find ourselves riding our most alive learning edge.
Whether this constantly shifting edge be physical or emotional or otherwise, how we relate to it, makes all the difference, and will be unique from moment to moment and dancer to dancer. From this active anchor in self-trust, we can bring all of ourselves to this dynamic dance of relationship. From here our capacity for joyful learning rapidly expands as we revel in refining our research.

Biography of Tanya

Biography Teachers

GENEVIEVE MARTEL

Elle est nouvellement basée à la ville de Québec où elle gère entre autre, les ateliers et jams réguliers de CI depuis plus d’un an. Avant, elle a habité et travaillé à Toronto pendant 20 ans ainsi qu’à New York quelques années, où elle a, dans ces deux villes, accumulée et puisées ses connaissances et expériences à travailler et collaborer avec des artistes renommés en danse contemporaine, en ballet, en théâtre, ainsi qu’en danse Contact Improvisation.

Elle a étudié la danse auprès de plusieurs artistes reconnus, notamment Margie Gillis, Ohad Naharin, et les compagnies Forsythe et Merce Cunningham. Elle s’est aussi perfectionnée en art de la scène au Labyrinth Theater Company co-fondé par Philip Seymour Hoffman, et est certifiée instructeur de Ashtanga Yoga.

Ses créations et son travail d’interprète ont été présentés à New York sur les scènes comme La MaMa, PS 122, Here Theater et au Labyrinth Theater Company. Comme artiste invitée, elle a travaillée entre autre à l’Université de Toronto et à l’École de Danse de Québec, et a reçu une bourse pour une résidence au Centre des Arts de Banff en Alberta.

De plus, Geneviève œuvre depuis presque 20 ans comme productrice, coordonnatrice et directrice de production pour des projets d’envergures en photo et télévision de publicité, en cinéma, les arts de la scène et les arts visuels, ce qui apporte une qualité et perspective unique à son enseignement.

KELLY KEENAN

She is a Montreal based dance artist and teacher fascinated by the perceptive capacity of the body. This is reflected both her artistic and teaching practices. She has collaborated often with Kira Kirsch, Adam Kinner, Catherine Lavoie Marcus and more recently in projects with Katie Ward, Kevin O’Conner, Sara Hanley and Maria Kefirova.
This Fall 2016, Kelly is working on a new creation in residence at the Banff Center and and 3rd Floor Projects at Usine C.

TANYA WILLIAMS

She is a context artist with a passion for dancing with complex systems… in community, on the land, and in the body. She has been facilitating contact improvisation for 17 years, along with physical theatre, improvised performance, and authentic movement. She studied Alexander Technique movement education and Structural Integration bodywork for many years and enjoys developing new ways to draw on all these forms to enrich the practice of contact improvisation.

Recently, she has been developing the integration of the Pathway work of Laurel Mellin, integrating contact improvisation & authentic movement into an embodied self-facilitated practice for consciously changing neurological pathways. She has been working with the MT Space (Multi-cultural Theatre Space) for over 10 years, and currently gets totally inspired facilitating devised physical theatre with youth. She founded the Ontario Regional Contact Jam, Friends of the Floor Dance-Theatre and The Living Room Context 24/7 learning community exploring what it means to embody a systems understanding and an experience of flow in everyday life.

Tanya is IN LOVE with contact improvisation as both her personal trainer & spiritual teacher, inviting her to find delight in her learning edges and generate full-body co-intelligence with others to create the future we want as it emerges.