[CI-Announce] DANIEL LEPKOFF: Improvisation Workshop, November 22-26, 2010, Schwelle7, Berlin/Germany

[J.B.]

PLEASE forward to friends, collegues and groups OR publish on your  
website, thanks Jan
*****************

Foundations of Improvisation
5 day intensive Improvisation Workshop with Daniel Lepkoff
WHEN: Monday – Friday, November, 22-26, 2010, 12 am – 6 pm
WHERE: Schwelle 7, Berlin, Germany

FOUNDATIONS OF IMPROVISATION
Researching Movement, Mind & Flow of Information

“I view dancing as the imagination acting through the body. My work  
examines how the mind and body act together to compose our movement.  
Whatever is happening, at any moment, is appreciated as an intelligent  
response to one's present moment and as material that can be placed in  
a dance frame. The workshop provides tools and situations for  
researching your own movement choices and developing your powers of  
observation. I am an improvising performer and my  own reference point  
in creating and practicing this work is to develop a performance  
practice. However these techniques can be easily applied by anyone  
interested in making dances or dancing, as well as people with a  
curiosity about the creative process and an appetite for being  
physical.”

“The material is drawn directly from my own movement research which  
has it's roots in seminal the work I began in the '70's with the early  
developments of both Anatomical Release Technique and Contact  
Improvisation, as well as the work of Steve Paxton, and the work of  
Lisa Nelson.”

We will divide our 6 hours of studio time into two work sessions with  
a break in between:

I.    The Movement of our Attention - Ordinarily we are unconscious of  
the movement of our attention and so do not notice how we constantly  
scan our environment, with all of our senses,  for information. This  
facility is often under utilized. Through practice we can cultivate  
and strengthen our innate ability to observation and access new  
perceptions and physical understanding of where we are and where we  
can go. For a dancer it is a key to movement invention and research.

We work with an combination of stillness and movement to research and  
delve into the details of how the mind composes physical images,  
movement desires, and ultimately organizes our body to move. Aspects  
of stillness can be found within movement and inside of a stillness  
one finds a moving state. We work specifically with the constructive  
rest position in connection with deeply reflex ordinary movements such  
as: breathing, crawling, walking and running. Gradually we building a  
clear and visceral link between high energy action and deep seamless  
observation.

II.  Moving the Environment - The visible boundaries of our body are  
transparent to the force of gravity. The forces that we feel within  
our body, (compression or stretch) do not know the difference between  
what is us and what is our environment. We move ourselves by extending  
our energy into the environment. The environment answers. We move it  
and it moves us. This duality offers an extended dimension to our  
awareness and understanding of what is happening in our dancing as we  
navigate through time and space.

We will work with objects (both large and small) and each other to  
explore extending our architecture and expressing force and intention  
into the environment.
Our work forms a base for a shared physical language and  and supports  
creating spontaneous compositions in solo, duet, or group. For more  
detailed information on Daniel's work go to: www.daniellepkoff.com

Material developed in the workshop will be presented to the public in  
an Informal showing at the end of the week, Friday, 26 at 8:30 pm, Our  
focus will be live performance as a venue and vehicle for sharing  
information We will use this opportunity to think about the nature of  
improvising in performance and to consider what is happening  
physically in the minds and bodies the performers and audience members  
in the theater.

WORKSHOP: http://www.schwelle7.de/Daniel%20Lepkoff.html
REGISTRATION: xs4jan (at) gmx.de
PRICE: 150 EUR

SLEEPING:
We can host up workshop participants in our special sleeping cocoons.  
The cost is 10 EUR a night per person.

----------- LOCATION --------

Schwelle 7
Uferstraße 6, HH, Aufgang links, 1. OG
13357 Berlin – Wedding (Nähe Uferstudios)
http://www.schwelle7.de
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=286059761953

Schwelle 7 – Cie. Felix Ruckert Berlin e.V.
Artistic & Managing Director: Felix Ruckert
info at felixruckert.de

Trafic Link: U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Straße, U9 Nauener Platz, SB  
Gesundbrunnen, SB Humboldthain, Bus M27 Brunnenplatz
http://maps.google.de/maps?daddr=13357+Berlin,+Uferstr+6


-----------------------

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORK & PERFORMANCE
by Daniel Lepkoff

„As a maker of dances, a designer of theater and an improvising  
performer,

I am not specifically interested in presenting “dance” movement on the  
stage.
What is happening
at any moment,
I see as possible material that can be placed in a dance frame.
Each of us exists in an on-going physical dialogue with our environment,
tuning to the details and nuance of our own and
each others’ movement behavior and to the conditions of our present  
moment.
We observe, we feel, and we act.
We create our own images and
construct our own understandings.
Ordinarily this activity is unconscious.
In the theater I want to stimulate audience and performer alike to  
consciously and actively create their own images,
and so my work is designed not to tell the audience what it is they  
are looking at.
Inside of a moment of disorientation, of not knowing, lies an  
opportunity for a person in the theater
to create their own story.
In these times, we are surrounded by media images designed by others
to manipulate our attention and to control what we know and do not know.
As an artist, the performance event offers me an opportunity to create,
Empty Space.“

------------------------------

CV

DANIEL LEPKOFF's work looks at "all" of our movement as a finely tuned  
physical dialogue with the environment and explores the form and  
composition of this interaction.

He played a central role in the development of Release Technique with  
Mary Fulkerson and Contact Improvisation with Steve Paxton since the  
early 70’s. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s he traveled extensively;  
actively teaching, performing, and exposing this new work and new  
ideas to audiences worldwide.

As a performer and teacher he is known for his commitment to a way of  
composing dances that arises from the process of living movement, a  
vision of living in the body in a physical dialogue with the environment

He is one of the founders of Movement Research in NYC.

In the 80's Daniel was a member of the New York based improvisational  
performance ensemble “Channel Z” from 1982 to 1987. Channel-Z’s  
members included: Robin Feld, Paul Langland, Daniel Lepkoff, Diane  
Madden, Nina Martin, Stephen Petronio, & Randy Warshaw.

Over the years he has collaborated with many other artists and  
performers including: Lisa Nelson,  Steve Paxton; Paul Langland, Saira  
Blanche Theater in Moscow (Oleg Soulimenko and Andrej Andrianov), Lux  
Flux in Vienna (Inge Kandlsdorfer, Annette Pffeferkorn and Jack  
Hauser) and Japanese dancer, Sakura Shimada, among others.

His own work has been seen in NY  at PS122, The Kitchen, Movement  
Research, DTW & Danspace. He has received grants for The Robison  
Foundation &  The Suitcase Fund. In 2002 he was the artistic director  
and co-produced (together with Mira Kovarova) of "Physical Dialogues"  
a dance festival in Bratislava focusing on alternative systems for  
researching movement.

He has published numerous articles articulating concepts that are  
central to his own work, these writing appear in CQ, The MR  
Performance Journal and Contredanse Publications in Bruxelles.


  
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