K.J. Holmes
Improvisation, Somatics and the Poetic of Performance Practices
This five day workshop will bring forth skills, tools and practical experience of somatic research, improvisation and composition for students to become more attuned to physical centers and subtleties of touch, direction and intention. They will have time to utilize these discoveries to tune their physical instrument of body and mind as well as deepen into the source for creative practice in theater, voice and the poetics of moving.
Through acquiring articulate language to describe states of experience, we will create maps for entering into experiences of sensation and design to be blueprints for performance studies, establishing fluid ground for supporting the wisdom of each students’ experience. Along with the momentum of new input to support different qualities increasing solo attention, awareness and intention, we will actively witness ourselves and each other.
Each student will gain knowledge of their strengths as well as widen choice, create discernment and practice embodiment through exposing contradictions in the body and engaging with the imagination in ensemble. This workshop will guide students to find volume within themselves, new states and qualities of expression, and the play between discipline and freedom, strength and vulnerability. Movement, voice, writing, drawing will be a few of our tools.
K.J. Holmes’s biography:
K.J. Holmes, NY based dance artist/actor/singer/teacher, travels nationally and internationally teaching/performing/creating.
K.J. has collaborated extensively with Julie Carr, Simone Forti, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson and Image Lab, and 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; performed in filmmaker/artist Matthew Barney’s film Redoubt and Catasterism in Three Movements; collaborates with drummer Jeremy Carlstedt (LIP); teaches in NYC at NYU/Experimental Theatre Wing, and Movement Research; She attended the certificate program of The School for Body-Mind Centering® 1995-99, and is a graduate of the William Esper studio (Meisner acting with master teacher Terry Knickerbocker), Satya Yoga, and Ayurveda’s World.
K.J. recently recreated her 1991 duet Swim/Sea/No See with her collaborator Karen Nelson, performed her solo dance installation 900 Bees are Humming, and has begun a new dance and music process Blue print with the mentorship of composer/musician/writer Henry Threadgill. You can see her in recording artist Mitski’s new video Bug Like an Angel.
kjholmes.info
Dates and times:
June 17-21
14:30-18:30
Price:
200 €
Package deal:
In the same week David Zambrano is teaching in the mornings. You get a 15% discount for registering to both workshops.
Photo by Elyse Mertz, courtesy of New Dance Alliance
Additional information from K.J. Holmes:
My studies with master Ideokinesis teacher, Andre Bernard, led me to the many practices that have become my touchstones in teaching and dancing; I still follow the many directions that these practices take me on to support my experience and as material for teaching. These approaches include Contact Improvisation (studying with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Robin Feld, Randy Warshaw, among many others); Release techniques (including Topf technique, Alexander and Feldenkrais); Improvisation (working directly with Simone Forti and Troupe for years with her Dance Constructions and structures as well as with Daniel Lepkoff and many others); the Tuning Score (with Lisa Nelson and Image Lab, a brilliant compositional practice based in time, space, weight, measures, empathy and opinion within an ensemble decision making); Somatic Practices such as Body Mind Centering ® (developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen); Post Modern, pedestrian and complex movement practices; Material for the Spine devised by Steve Paxton; Martial arts of Aikido and Tai Chi; Yoga and Ayurvedic trainings that are essential to understand how to sustain the health and wealth of the body-mind; and theater and voice studies including Meisner, Grotowski and Lucid Body acting techniques, Roy Hart voice technique; Writing from the Body; Somatics and the Poetics of Performance.
I cultivate deep listening to the many stories finding voice through teaching patterns and qualities of different systems at anatomical, physiological, emotional and mental levels. I hold a space that is respectful and also challenging. I am alert and sensitive to each student’s unfolding narrative, and how to best prepare them to speak from their truth as well as open them to unexpected strengths and desires, especially in relationship to partnering skills and improvisational practices. Coming from my own constant searching for my own voice and finding communities that hold space of trust and risk, I offer students a safe space from which to claim themselves. I seek to empower the students’ voices, as dancers, as actors, as singers, as speakers and most importantly, as humans very much alive in these challenging times.
