Growing Roots to Dance: Contact Improv Fundamentals Workshop
(Flier)
6:30-8:30pm
Wed, 18 Nov, 2009
Suggested Donation $20 (no one turned away for lack of funds)
At the Clarks Green Institute of Vibrant Living (289 E. Grove Street, 18411)
Open to all levels of experience, this workshop focuses on the underlying elements of Contact Improvisation. Together we will develop skills such as kinesthetic awareness, breathing into efficient movement, receptive touch, pouring weight and rolling through a point of contact. We will also explore partnering from a place of curiosity and compassion for ourselves and for one another. The workshop will flow into a Jam for open dancing.
What is Contact Improvisation (CI)?
Contact Improv is a dance form created in the 1970's. It stems from various traditions including Aikido, Capoeira, and post-modern dance. Though also used in performance and choreography, a social gathering for CI is called a JAM (in the same way Jazz musicians get together for a musical improvisation jam.) Following points of physical contact (with other dancers or the space) provides the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation. As an art form and a movement practice, Contact Improv offers a holistic approach to how we understand our bodies-- how we move, feel, think, create, and interact with one another.
Facilitated by Lee Fogel of the Philly Contact Collective and Sarah Michelle Cutler of Laughing Tree Space. Both are dedicated movers committed to fun, exploration, and growth
Lee Fogel is a contemplative artist who writes, dances and teaches with a passion for living out nature's rhythms. She has been an Artist in Residence in schools and community settings in places as diverse as Philadelphia, New Orleans, Ohio, and El Salvador. She has led workshops in Contact Improvisation, somatics, and movement-based creative expression as a way to learn skills for environmental awareness, literacy, conflict resolution and confidence building. She was a guest speaker at the CosaCosa Art at Large forum on Art as Dialogue in 2005, and at the Earthdance SEEDs Festival (Somatic Experiments in Earth Dance and Science) in 2009.
Lee is currently living in Philadelphia where she co-founded the Philly Contact Collective, and is a Teaching Artist for the Pennsylvania Arts in Education Partnership. She holds a BA in Visual Arts/Dance, with a minor in Religion from Oberlin College ('07), and is a working towards her MA in Dance and Somatic Well-being through the University of Lancashire's New York City program.
Sarah Michelle “Sulis” Cutler is a mover, shaker, teacher, yogi, and healing artist. She first discovered Dance in the context of sound in spaces, and improvisational movement has been a cornerstone of fuller embodiment. Upon introduction to Contact Improv as an undergraduate at Mount Holyoke College (B.A. Biological Sciences, 2003), Sarah fell in love with the practice and presence of learning and being in the sphere of the body from the inside out and the outside in. Since first being seduced into the world of CI, Jamming has been a touchstone of sanity and nourishment; introducing this form to the local community is a dream come true.
Sarah’s healing arts practice, Laughing Tree Space offers Resources for Embodied Living. She is a Registered Polarity Practitioner (RPP), Cranial Sacral Therapist, certified Kripalu Yoga Teacher (KYTA), Yoga Alliance Member (RYT), and Reiki Master. Sarah considers food to be one of her healing modalities, and her passion for local, whole-foods, and her study of Ayurveda taste of magic. Her ministry is dedicated to embodied living, and it is Sarah’s delight to join you on the wild adventure of inhabiting your body and your life.
Clarks Green Insitute of Vibrant Living
Thank you to everyone who attended Sanity and Nourishment in a Cyber Age with Amadea Morningstar.
The event was recorded. $15 for each DVD--with $5 of that going to the food bank. Contact Sarah to order.
