MARCH 2012 CLASS with Diana Lara

Ready to Move: Exploring our Primitive Reflexes

In this class we will explore how our primitive reflexes—simple patterns of movement that originate in the central nervous system and that are integrated in the first year of life—support our sense of gravity, and the connection with the earth and our partner. Through individual movement exploration and dance in partners, we will play with the primitive reflexes and the awareness of the relation of the head and body with respect to the vertical, and how they support our readiness to go in and out of the floor, move in and out of contact, and move through space in the planes of motion.

Diana Lara is a teacher, choreographer and dancer from Honduras. She graduated from the choreography program of the Center for Research and Choreography at the Mexican Institute of Fine Arts and from the Somatic Research and Participatory Arts program at Moving On Center in Oakland. In 2011, she graduated from the Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga program offered by the School of Body Mind Centering. Diana teaches dance based on somatic principles for women recuperating from drug abuse and domestic violence at Purple Moon Dance Project, and yoga for elders at Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. Since 1995, she has danced and choreographed for contemporary dance groups in Mexico and Honduras, participating in festivals in Mexico and Central America. She currently works as an independent artist developing projects based in the exploration of somatic elements and improvisation with performers in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Mexico.

---

FEBRUARY 2012 CLASS with Ralf Jaroschinski

Sensing – Feeling – Action

In the beginning of contact improvisation, the focus was entirely on the dance’s pure physicality. Nowadays, however, contact improvisers all over the world acknowledge more and more that there is way more involved than just physics. In keeping with these two equal priorities, both skill work and a technical approach will characterize the first half of each class this month, and the second half of each class will prepare the participants for the jam situation through themed and open improvisations. We’ll use the feedback from our senses and our emotional intelligence to guide us into action to be specific rather than arbitrary in our choices, and deeply connected to our experience and communication with our partner(s).

Ralf Jaroschinski, born in Germany and raised in Brazil, was trained in classical, modern and contemporary dance techniques in Germany and New York City. He has worked as a freelance dancer, teacher and choreographer for over 20 years mainly in Europe and the Americas. He has taught Contact Improvisation for 16 years and also performs it in pieces created specificly with this technique, e.g, “Sci-fi Poetry” (2009) and “Never Felt This Way Before” (2010) with Andrew Wass. He will be teaching an Intermediate Intensive, Rapport, Feb 25 in San Francisco with SF CI Series co-producer HumilitySwim.org.

---

DECEMBER 2011 and JANUARY 2012 CLASS with Ali Woolwich

Finding Lightness

In Contact Improvisation (CI), having honed facility for giving and receiving a range of modulations of weight and pressure is key to finding satisfying complexity in the dance. Whether you’re a bigger/taller person interested in not squashing, or you’re a smaller/shorter person wanting to encourage more weight/pressure, lightness is a crucial question. This Class Series will address lightness: how to find it (giving/getting), how to alter your habits and presumptions to increase it, how to integrate it into your improvisational choices, and how to revel in the shifts and subtleties it brings into well-worn dance patterns. Through exercises and score play, we will address the nexus of physical skills and awareness tunings that will install/upgrade lightness as a reliable choice in our dancing.

Ali Woolwich has been working in Contact Improvisation (CI) for 22 years, and has taught CI since 1996. Ali has produced workshops, live performance and media through HumilitySwim in the SF Bay Area, NYC, Seattle, and New Mexico. Ali teaches dance/performance in university, studio professional and recreational venues, and in years as a dance teacher has worked with professional dancers, children, gay teens, queer women and trans men, integrated classes of disabled and non-disabled dancers, and seniors. A Lighting Designer and Theatrical Electrician (union Local 16), Ali is a founding staff A/V Tech at CounterPULSE. Ali is Co-Director of CIRF: Contact Improvisation Research Forum, which provides year-round CI events and training (see: ci-rf.org). Ali credits Peggy Schwartz, Keriac, KJ Holmes and Karl Frost as primary CI teachers. Ali’s performance work and teaching is influenced by training as filmmaker and classical musician, and through 20 years of training in post-modern dance/theater, Release Techniques (Joe Goode Performance Group, Lower Left, Umo Ensemble, Kathleen Hermesdorf and Joan Skinner), yoga and massage practice. Currently, Ali is investigating queer tango as a source for partnering innovation. More info: www.humilityswim.org

---

NOVEMBER 2011 CLASS with Rossana Alves

Fluid Dancing

This class will be grounded in Somatic Principals as a way to provide support, ease of movement and efficiency into our dancing. We will refine and deepen Contact Improvisation skills such as: rolling, surfing, falling, weight sharing, grounding, listening and lifting, allowing us to use our perceptions in a fluid and dynamic way. By awakening our physical and sensory awareness, we will be able to find our own ground as well as to create dialogue with others, opening up new possibilities for creativity and expression in solos, duets and group improvisation.

Rossana Alves, born and raised in Brazil, is a dancer, dance teacher and performer. She has been practicing Contact Improvisation for 13 years, teaching classes and participating in festivals in Brazil, Argentina and USA. Currently based in the Bay Area, she recently graduated from Moving On Center and has been studying at the School for Body-Mind Centering, as well as performing with Oakland Improv Collective.

 

---

SEPTEMBER & OCTOBER 2011 CLASS with Kristen Greco (SEP) and Daniel Bear Davis (OCT)

Tigers, Dragons, Skills & Scores

This class will cultivate skills for CI utilizing somatic principles and concepts from qi gong. We will dance from the floor to flying, and have a blast disorienting and reorienting in all the places in between. We will also experiment with group scores, bringing in a range of tools and textures for tactile communication.

Kristen Greco has directed, performed, and taught internationally in Mexico, Canada, South America, and Europe both independently and with The Carpetbag Brigade since 2000. Kristen most recently performed with Syzygy Butoh (CO), Human Nature Dance Theatre (AZ), and Live Art Installations (Denmark). Kristen holds a BA in Studio Arts/Performance from University of Colorado and a somatic education certificate from Moving on Center’s School of Participatory Arts. Kristen serves as guest faculty at USF teaching CI and partnering techniques. Kristen’s current research includes how access to different perceptive lenses can affect our habits, somatic processes, and performance experiences.

Daniel Bear Davis has been teaching and dancing CI and improvisational composition for 13 years. For 5 years his focus has been co-directing the dance theatre company, Shah and Blah Productions and performing with acrobatic stilt theatre company, The Carpetbag Brigade. He is currently an Axis Syllabus teacher candidate and his study with Frey Faust has been instrumental in developing the concepts that inform his CI practice in addition to his background as a bodyworker in myo-fascial release. His performance work has been presented in Estonia at The Imagining Bodies Symposium, at the SF International Arts Festival, and the SEEDS Festival and (with Kristen Greco) E|MERGE residency at Earthdance. Daniel has also performed with Felix Ruckert in Berlin, and on a suspended welded sphere with Copenhagen’s Live Art Installations (formerly Half Machine). He has performed full evening improvisations with Nita Little and Erika Tsimbrovsky in SF. His approach to CI is one of constant research into the expansion of range and choice.