The Athletics of Intimacy- a workshop in dance improvisations and somatic tunings
by K.J. Holmes
These classes will combine skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, and tunings of improvisational approaches in solo, duet and ensemble dancing. We will make the invisible visible, learning more about the interior of the body and our ideas and find pathways to exterior space, time and place. We will play with structures for improvising where we can witness and participate.
Contact Improvisation is a dance of improvising and partnering based on the physics of touch, weight, balance, momentum, stillness, flow and resistance, and perceptual play. Begun by dancer Steve Paxton in 1972, Contact Improvisation is a vital practice in contemporary dance and arts, combining aspects of martial arts, yoga, modern dance, gymnastics and social dancing.
These classes will bring forth skills, tools and practical experience of improvising to become more tuned to center and subtleties of touch, direction and intention. The classes will explore musicality and phrasing, the learning of specific rolls and lifts as well as how we craft time and space in spontaneous choreographies of solo, duet and ensembles. Skills will include release techniques and experiential anatomy to better understand the mechanics of the body, and patterns, body puzzles and forms that shape the body and space with odd timings and unusual perspectives to create dances that are dynamic and alive in the moment. We will cultivate 3 dimensionality and depth, as well as presence and readiness. The use of the voice (sounding into vocalizing) and writing (documenting, describing, poeticizing) will be a part of these classes as well.
Related articles will be handed out to support and enhance our studies.
Biography:
K.J. Holmes, a Brooklyn based dance artist/actor/singer/teacher, travels nationally and internationally teaching/performing/creating. K.J. has collaborated extensively with Julie Carr, Simone Fort, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson and Image Lab, Steve Paxton; has performed in the work of Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, Xavier Le Roy, Lance Gries, Mark Dendy, Melinda Ring, Karinne Keithley Syers, among many others; was cast in Matthew Barney’s new film Redoubt; collaborates with drummer Jeremy Carlstedt in L.I.P. (Love Is Power, MLKjr.); teaches at NYU/ETW, The Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College and Movement Research; William Esper Studio (Meisner acting with master teacher Terry Knickerbocker),Satya Yoga (with her guru Sondra Loring) and continues to study voice with Richard Armstrong; is currently becoming an Ayurvedic nutritional consultant and devising a new piece titled 900 Bees Are Humming, a multi-disciplinary work exploring death, life and transformation.
Times :
14.00-18.00
Price :
200 Euro
Registration fee of 80 euro is required (as part of the 200)
