- MIRVA MÄKINEN (Finland)
Details in Dance
During this intensive i am curious to find tools what helps to dance Contact improvisation. How to create alive dancing dialogue by using touch, movement, weight and balance? What kind of details we can find from dance by listening the alive situation. What if I have every moment many possibilities where i can guide or allow dance to go. How well we recognize when we are leading or following the dance? From light contact and softness we move towards more weight and intensity working with skin, muscle and bones and using this knowledge as a structure to build dance but also to build connection to the other person. We try to find safe and effective strategies of moving into and out of the floor; flying low and flying high.So this intensive will be lot about what kind of choices we make in dance and also about juicy details and basic principles of Contact Improvisation.
Mirva Mäkinen
I am a 34-year old dancer. I graduated (MA) from the Dance Department of the Theatre Academy of Finland in 2000. After studies I have worked widely in Finland as a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. From 2000 onwards I have acted as dance teacher and lecturer for dance at the Kallio highschool of Performing Arts. I have also taught at domestic and international dance, contact improvisation festivals. Beside that I work as a freelance dancer and choreographer. At the moment I am working in dance company Karttunen Kollektiv and in Circo Aereo, company for new circus.
In dance I am interested in the feeling of flow and soft movement. I love to investigate movement, its rhythm and different ways of inhabiting the body. A feeling of dancing is created by being able to switch the body from total relaxation to extreme intensity and “tension”. I call this the body’s ability to breathe and create movement. My ideal is curiosity and presence, which makes every moment true and meaningful.
I have learned CI by practicing, studying, teaching and performing. I love to explore my body and I am curious for all the movement possibilities. I
find other inspiration from contemporary dance, astanga yoga, meditation, aerial dance and acrobatics.
- ANGELA DONY (Russia)
Legs like arms and arms like wings
Training research of contact improvisation
The basic material for these classes will be working with deep body work and developmental movement patterns focusing on the hips and shoulders with a partner.
We will use parent -child patterns to look for the natural instinctual reactions imbedded in the body to support somebody and to be lifted. It will build up the structural support through the skeleton in order to be able to take physical risks.
We are going to explore the connection between the limbs and the center, and use it while dancing on the floor, in the air, and with a partner.
During this course we are going to reach unusual places by entering unknown trails in our dance, meet our limitations, and to find safe ways to go beyond our boundaries, in solo, with a partner and the group.
Qualities which I would like to awake and integrate into the dance are:
• Initiation and surrender
• Inertia as a source of energy
• Resistance and following the flow
• Risk and trust.
During this course we are going to reach unusual places by entering unknown trails in our dance, to meet our limitations, and to find safe ways for going beyond our boundaries, - in a solo, with a partner and in the group.
When I teach I give only those things which I know how to dance and love to dance. Observing my dance I discover my endless curiosity to spirals in movement and my aspiration to be light, to fly and to feel legs and arms like wings.
I recovered my childhood habits of creating relations with other people, such as trust, sincerity, openness and healthy selfishness. I am very interested to keep my dance vivid and live and, of course, to keep human touch in it.
I love the reality of dance – the floor, my body and partner’s body, gravity and weight, and I love to move this reality between the sky and the earth.
Andjela Doni
She is a dance improviser, choreographer and a teacher oriented to contact improvisation and contemporary dance. She was born in Kishinev, Moldavia. She is educated High School of Culture, St-Petersburg, Russia 1981 -1985.
After graduation, she has experience like theatrical choreographer for 10 Years
She took part in different international festivals of contemporary dance, collaboration projects concerning improvisation and contact with teachers like Regine Chopinot (France), Mary Folkerson (Nederland), Eszter Gal (Hungary), Benno Vooram (Sweden), Denny Lepkoff (USA), Lisa Nelson (USA), Nancy Stark smith (USA)
Since 1999 she lives in Moscow, and teaches contact improvisation, improvisation and development of movement.
From September 2006 she is organizer and leader of the project “Creative atelier for contact improvisation and performance teachers” in theater “Practice” in Moscow. This project provide space for different experiments in performance work and contact improvisation dance.
2006– 2009 July She is organizing the yearly International Contact Improvisation and Performance Festival in Moscow. 9 days experience of dance and performance. Festival includes the improvisational performance night in the Moscow Theater.
I can not say – “I teach contact”. I share contact improvisation, I share my self, I share what my teachers taught me, my dance, tea…
- SEBASTIAN GARCIA FERRO (Argentina)
Going Up Thinking Down – Going Down Thinking up
Contact Improvisation happens in different directions and sometimes we are tempted to forget the different choices we have inside them and organize our body only on the way that our dance takes place.
But what will change when we leave our bodies and organize us them in multiple path? What happen if we leave the Plan?
In this intensive we will look to extend the body through precise movement techniques and skills from Contact Improvisation: Spins, Inversions, Aerial Space, Weight, Touching Qualities, Gravity, Body and Spherical Space.
We will explore different ways to go, fall and land on the floor, in solo, duets and groups, awakening ours reflexes and perception, with Aikido elements in Contact Improvisation and the way to expand skills in our dance and improvisation.
Sebastián García Ferro
He is is a Choreographer, Dancer, Contact Improvisation Performer and Music Composer.
He studied Contact improvisation with Andrew Harwood, Nancy Stark Smith, Chris Aiken, Cathy Caraker among others. His knowledge of Contemporary Dance comes from Cristina Bosso, Gustavo Lezgart and Diana Szeimblum, Jordy Vidal, Ted Stoffer, Roberto Olivan, David Hernández, Martin Kilvady. He also studied Acrobats, Martial Arts, Clown and Physical Theatre.
He was part of the following dance groups in Argentina: “El Resbalón”, “Contragravedad”, “No se llama” and “Huellas”. Sebastián García Ferro is the Director of his own Dance company since 1999 and created 15 different dance pieces since then: “En redes”, “Contragravedad”, “Solamente Solo”, “Fetich”, “Vacio y Multitud”, “Huellas 1″, “On your Mark”, “Mandrös”, “Something Out”, “Back”,“Tancat Attitude”, “Afternoon Shining”, “Travellers”. He also collaborated with several project as an improviser and performer. He currently lives in Barcelona (Spain).
The Company obtained more than 8 Choreography residencies throughout Europe during the last 5 years in Rosas P.A.R.T.S. for the Summer Studio Project directed by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Le Bains Connective (Brussels, Belgium), Espaco do tempo (Portugal) of Rui Horta, Teatro, TanzHaus Nwr (Dusseldorf), Tanzfabrik (Berlin), La fundición (Bilbao, Spain), Cal L´Estrcuh, Area Tangent and Centro Cívico Barceloneta (Barcelona, Spain).
Sebastián García Ferro won the 1rst prix in the 12 MasPalomas Choreography contest in Canarian Island (2007), the 2do prix in the XX Certamen Coreográfico de Madrid (2006) with his last piece “Back”, the 3 prix in the Certamen Coreográfico de Salt with his piece “On your Mark” and 1 residence in the initiative D.A.N.C.E directed by William Forsythe.
He is the director of the Barcelona International Dance Exchange (B.I.D.E.) a platform for professional choreographers, dancers and performers: www.bide.be
He also regularly teaches Contact Improvisation, Composition, since 1997 in different festivals, dance studies and educational institutions in Argentina, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal and Belgium in places like: TanzHaus Nwr (Düsseldorf), Forum Dansa (Lisboa), Estudio 3 (Madrid), Area, Tragant Dansa (Barcelona), Dies de Dansa Festival (Barcelona), International CI Festival of Freiburg, Oster ImproFestival (Germany), Madrid CI Festival, International CI Festival of Buenos Aires (Argentine). He is also a musician and composed all the original score of his dance pieces and also collaborates with many other Dance and Theatre companies, he is a resident composer of Phonos foundation in University of Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona).
