[CI-Announce] K.J. HOLMES: Workshop in (Contact) Improvisation, BMC & Performance - Schwelle 7, Berlin: June 30 – July 4, 2009

[Jan Boeschoten]

K.J. HOLMES
Workshop in (Contact) Improvisation, BMC & Performance
Schwelle 7, Berlin
Tuesday, June 30 – Saturday, July 4, 2009 – daily 11 am - 16 pm


Morning Class:  The Athletics of Intimacy

The morning classes will combine skills and applications of Body-Mind   
Centering (r), with skills and practices of Contact Improvisation to  
fine tune and engage the imagination of the dancer in solo, duet and  
ensemble play.   The classes will explore musicality and phrasing, the  
learning of specific lifts and rolls as well as how we craft time and  
space becoming more tuned to center and subtleties of touch, direction  
and intention.  Skills will include release techniques and  
experiential anatomy to better understand the mechanics of the body,  
and developmental patternings, body puzzles, and forms that shape the  
body and space with odd timings and unusual perspectives to create  
dances that are dynamic and alive in the moment.  We will learn more  
about the interior of the body and and our ideas and find pathways to  
external space, time and place. discovering new challenges and risks  
in our movement vocabulary.

Body-Mind Centering (BMC tm) is an eclectic and dynamic approach to   
somatic training and re-education developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.
Contact Improvisation is a duet dance form initiated by dancer Steve  
Paxton in 1972 that investigates balance, trust, momentum, gravity,  
stillness  and perceptual play.



Afternoon Class:   Improvisation: Performance as Exposure

The training of Contact Improvisation is a physical practice that  
includes increasing range of motion, awakening awareness and  
clarifying intention.
We learn through kinetic feedback with another as well as through  
exploring different patterns of movement and how all of our senses  
lead us into dancing. Touch is not enough.
Preparing to perform requires more than awareness, it asks us to be  
seen and to see.  In this workshop, we will focus on meeting  
truthfully and directly the unexpected.
Contact Improvisation will be our entrance into the physicality of our  
images and applications of Body Mind Centering (r) will fine tune us  
to the mechanics of our instruments - our bodies.
Weight, mass and breath become movement, become landscape, become  
story, become question, become idea.  We will play with heightening  
our senses and perceptions, amplifying our awareness to expose more of  
our interior, making the invisible visible to play with time and space.
Witnessing, reading, writing and the voice will be used to further  
engage and enliven our imaginations and for discovering new challenges  
and risks.
How do we ready ourselves for performing and who is the being in the  
body?


The workshop will culminate (if desired) in 2 evenings of performance.


About K.J. HOLMES
K.J. Holmes is an independent dance artist, singer and actor who has  
been exploring improvisation as process and performance since 1981.
She teaches, choreographs and performs at festivals, universities and  
venues throughout the world, as a soloist and in her collaborations  
with artists such as Simone Forti, Image Lab (Lisa Nelson, Karen  
Nelson and Scott Smith) and in the work of Steve Paxton.  Her  
influences include Contact Improvisation, Body-Mind Centering (r),  
Yoga (certified teacher 2007), Authentic movement, Ideokinesis,  
Alexander and Feldenkrais techniques, Martial Dance, world vocal  
studies and contemporary dance and theater.  A 1999 graduate of the  
School for Body-Mind Centering, K.J. is adjunct faculty at New York  
University Experimental Theater Wing, is an ongoing teacher Movement  
Research NYC and has a private practice in Dynamic Alignment and Re- 
integration in Brooklyn, N.Y. where she lives.  She just completed a  
two year acting training in the Sanford Meisner acting technique at  
the William Esper Studio in New York City and is developing an evening  
length piece entitled This is where we are (or take arms against a sea  
of troubles) which looks at where the body and language meet.


Participation: 5 days 200 Euro
Sleeping: We can host up workshop participants in our special sleeping  
cocoons. The cost is 10 EUR a night per person.

Registrations per email: info at felixruckert.de
Place: Schwelle 7, Uferstraße 6, HH 1. OG (near Uferstudios), 13357  
Berlin, Germany
Website: http://www.schwelle7.de/Workshops.html