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Teachers

Morning Intensives: BMC into Contact Improvistion

Ayelet Yekutiel


Ayelet Yekutiel is a Dancer, Choreographer, Movement Researcher, Therapist, Pedagog and Peace Activist.

She is a graduate of SEAD Academy of Dance (AT), Sampoorna Yoga Teachers Training (IN)  Kelim Choreography Studies (IL). Certified Somatic Movement Educator of Body-Mind Centering. Certified Axis Syllabus teacher. Contact Improvisation facilitator. Soon to graduate from the BMC® practitioners (therapy) training. 

As performer and collaborator, she has worked with Sharona Florsheim, Nitzan Lederman, Daphna Horenczyk, Dafi Altabeb, Marcio Canabarro, “Tunet Egyuttes” dance company, Kolben Dance Company, Benjamin Vandewalle, Michael Schmid, Khaled Barghouthi, Alain Platel and Sara Shelton Mann, amongst others. She is a founding member of Augustine Collective and an independent teacher and choreographer, performing and sharing her work worldwide. She is currently part of the “Ripples Collective” – a collective of Artist and Activists from Israel, Gaza, West-Bank and Jewish & Palestinian diaspora, that create spaces of performance-ceremonies for grief, collective liberation and political imagination.

Ayelet Run three dance, performance & somatics programs in the Foodforedt of Bethlehem of the Galilee, including “Raksit Al Jasad” – Led by Palestinian and Israeli facilitators for a mixed group of students in Arabic & Hebrew. 

Alongside and interwoven with the dance and somatics world, she is also involved in Peace Activism & Artivism in Palestine~Israel, and facilitates dance ceremonies.

Tact-Teach / Co-facilitators

Catalin Diaconu 

Movement has been a fascination for me for as long as I can remember. As a child, I was always moving to the rhythm of music, but I also dreamt of becoming a stuntman, trying to imitate the dangerous stunts I saw in movies. My first formal practice was Kung Fu, but I soon left it, feeling it was too violent for me. I was called to a more fluid and inward-oriented practice, and I found Tai Chi. I practiced for many years, and even today, the principles of breath and fluid movement I learned back then are at the core of my dancing. 

In 2015, I discovered Contact Improvisation, and it felt like arriving home. It has been my main movement practice ever since. I instantly fell in love with it, and the more I danced, the more all the different parts of me came together. My background as a computer engineer gave me a deep curiosity for the technical, biomechanical aspects of the form—a desire to understand how things function. At the same time, my life as a musician tuned me into the compositional and poetical tensions that CI points to. All of this led me deeper into researching and embodying its principles. 

For me, contact improvisation is about principles that need to be embodied to be danced; they can only truly live in us when they are felt and experienced, rather than just intellectually understood. I approach every dance with a dual mindset: the curiosity of a scientist who never reaches a final conclusion, always trying to keep the experience alive and present, combined with the pure joy and exuberance of a child. I see every CI dance as a profound opportunity for researching, sharing and communication. Starting in 2017, my passion for dance, cultivated through years of workshops and festivals with inspiring dancers and teachers, naturally evolved into teaching. I now enjoy searching for ways to assist people in their own process of understanding CI’s principles, and I feel excited to share my findings with both new and experienced dancers. I have deep respect for this practice and for the wisdom of the many knowledgeable people I have met in jams and festivals who have touched and reshaped me. I look forward to meeting you, sharing dances, and learning from you!

Defne Erdur

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.

Ayelet Yekutiel


Ayelet Yekutiel is a Dancer, Choreographer, Movement Researcher, Therapist, Pedagog and Peace Activist.

She is a graduate of SEAD Academy of Dance (AT), Sampoorna Yoga Teachers Training (IN)  Kelim Choreography Studies (IL). Certified Somatic Movement Educator of Body-Mind Centering. Certified Axis Syllabus teacher. Contact Improvisation facilitator. Soon to graduate from the BMC® practitioners (therapy) training. 

As performer and collaborator, she has worked with Sharona Florsheim, Nitzan Lederman, Daphna Horenczyk, Dafi Altabeb, Marcio Canabarro, “Tunet Egyuttes” dance company, Kolben Dance Company, Benjamin Vandewalle, Michael Schmid, Khaled Barghouthi, Alain Platel and Sara Shelton Mann, amongst others. She is a founding member of Augustine Collective and an independent teacher and choreographer, performing and sharing her work worldwide. She is currently part of the “Ripples Collective” – a collective of Artist and Activists from Israel, Gaza, West-Bank and Jewish & Palestinian diaspora, that create spaces of performance-ceremonies for grief, collective liberation and political imagination.

Ayelet Run three dance, performance & somatics programs in the Foodforedt of Bethlehem of the Galilee, including “Raksit Al Jasad” – Led by Palestinian and Israeli facilitators for a mixed group of students in Arabic & Hebrew. 

Alongside and interwoven with the dance and somatics world, she is also involved in Peace Activism & Artivism in Palestine~Israel, and facilitates dance ceremonies.