Feldenkrais into Contact Improvisation
Sensing new pathways into reinvigorated dancing
With the Feldenkrais Method, we direct our attention to internal sensations, without judgement, acknowledging the intelligence of the body and curious about new possibilities. We identify habits and clarify choices to promote efficiency, freedom and a sense of ease that involves our whole selves.
This specific way of tuning in with what we are experiencing magnify our senses, affecting the quality of our presence and alertness, bringing us to the present moment while engaging in self-discovery and authenticity. The group’s shared somatic process creates trust and support experimentation and imagination while working with larger and more complex movement in solo, duet, trios and group.
When we engage with touch and weight we find more sophistication in sensing, reading, and communicating during the physical conversation. We use specific movement patterns from Feldenkrais to underpin principles of Contact Improvisation – specifically spirals and centre-to-limbs connections. The possibility emerges to refresh our CI vocabulary and to explore it in more depth, by experimenting with hidden and unfamiliar pathways, or looking at the more familiar CI vocabulary from another perspective in order to enjoy authentic, unpredictable and reinvigorated dancing.
“Tact of Teaching”s – meaning pedagogical thoughtfulness – are an invitation for teachers to find a point of contact for teaching together. Finding their individual teaching inquires and follow that together with their colleagues’. Assuming that practical knowing-in-action requires pedagogical sensitivity, vigilance, and tact we hope to challenge and inspire the teachers as well as the participants of these sessions.
LAB’s:
We reserved time slots for the laboratories to be proposed by the participants. In the labs you have the possibility to bring in or try out your own interests with the people sharing similar interests.
one2ones:
You can get one one2one session with one of the teachers for ~15 min. You come with your question, interest, wish for feedback. You can work 1 on 1, come with a friend or small group.
Kitchen Table is a setting for an open discussion about any topic (in this case in and around CI), but with a rule set to create a performance out of the ordinary. During a set time anyone interested can witness and/or participate in the discussion. The topics are open and the exchange of speakers is actively encouraged.
Schedule
Facilitators
Simonetta Alessandri (IT/GB)
Simonetta is an Italian dance artist and a somatic educator based in London. She applies the Feldenkrais Method in dance and movement training and in performance making. She teaches at Trinity Laban, Goldsmiths University and London Contemporary Dance School. Her work is informed by more than 30 years of dancing, teaching and choreographing. Her choreography has been for dance companies, student pieces, large scale opera, improvised performance, site specific and movement direction for theatre. She taught for more than 20 years in Italy and kept Contact Improvisation alive in Roma for 10 years with her classes and jams. She was one of the few dance practitioners in Italy who began working with Contact Improvisation in the 90’s. She has been a guest teacher in Germany, Colombia, UK, Norway, Israel, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Poland and Taiwan. She obtained the Post Graduated Diploma at London Contemporary Dance School, she is qualified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method and she holds the Teacher Certificate of the Royal Academy of Dance. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is one of the founders of CI@Goldsmiths, association of dance artists dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of Contact Improvisation in London and UK.
Ulli Witteman (DE)
Ulli is studied actor & performer and a teacher for acting, movement, awareness & communication. A passion for movement and growth has drawn him to new directions since he was a child. Besides practicing Ballroom Dance and Hip Hop as a teenager and 30 years of studying different Martial Arts forms he also fell in love with Contact Improvisation in 2001 during his actors studies at the University of Performing Arts in Frankfurt, Germany. After performing more than 1.000 shows in the German State Theater system he decided to change his focus to sharing his love for CI, Acting, Awareness in Relating and Communication in Munich and abroad. Since 2010 he taught Workshops, Classes and Retreats in China, Japan, India, Thailand, Bali, Israel, Palestine, Russia, Crimea, Georgia, USA, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and many European Countries. On a regular base he coaches individual clients and teaches CI, communication and his own PLAYFIGHT system in the region of Munich, Germany.
Defne Erdur (TR/FR/IT)
Defne Erdur is a dance artist and a sociologist working in the fields of performing arts, therapy and education. She is trained in Contemporary Dance (PhD), Sociology (MA), Intermodel Art Therapy & Creativity, Body Therapies (Deep Tissue Release, Trigger Point & Movement, Integrative Craniosacral Therapy), Meditation, and Trauma Healing (Somatic Experiencing). She is the co-founder and editor of idocde.net.
In 2016 she completed her PhD thesis in Turkey (DANCE EDUCATION ON THE TRANSITIVE LINE BETWEEN LIFE AND ART: Contributions of the Technique, Methodology and Pedagogy of Contact Improvisation to the Physical, Artistic and Psycho-social Development of Amateur Dancers). In 2017 she co-published mindthedance.com: A Guide/Movement to Document Contemporary Dance/ Movement Teaching, as an outcome of the REFLEX Europe Project.
Besides her private practice, she had been regularly teaching at ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, MSGSU Istanbul State Conservatory, CI-Turkey, ElimSende and ÇATI Associations. She also gives her workshops (Hunting Gathering Cultivating, Every Body Knows, Mind the Body, and Embodying Time) around the world (Tanzhaus Zurich, Konservatorium Wien, Mandala İstanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Vienna, Berlin and Freiburg CI Festivals…), working with different populations (professional and amateur movers, therapists, women, and migrant children and youth).
Her movement teaching practice is mostly informed by her intensive trainings with Simone Forti, Julyen Hamilton, John Britton, Nancy Stark Smith, Daniel Lepkoff, Kirstie Simson, Nita Little, Frey Faust, Keith Hennessy, Aydın Teker, Marcia Plevin and Julia Buckroyd. Today, she continues her quest within Body Mind Centering, Axis Syllabus and Integral Somatic Psychology studies.
