Conversing Bodies, Dancing Gravity

 

a weekend of Contact Improvisation with Irene Sposetti and Karl Frost

  • When: 30 September – 2 October
    • Friday 19:30-22:30, Saturday/Sunday Noon- 18:00
  • Where: Leipzig, Germany
    • (Fudoshin Aikido Dojo, 45 Josephstrasse)
  • Cost: 135 to 200 sliding scale, discount for early enrollment

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Irene and Karl co-teach a workshop based on a shared curiosity in the root explorations of CI as physical conversation in the language of weight, structure, gravity, and momentum.

We agree to explore the unique possibilities when we share control of movement and allow ourselves to affect each other. We listen through our bodies as we are affected and adapt to constantly changing mechanical circumstances. There is a play of physical problem creation and solving and exploring novel movement possibilities.

Part of a good conversation is listening, so we begin with attuning to proprioception: physical listening.  We quite the mind and attend to the small dance of subtle movement in our own bodies.  By releasing reactivity, we feel the other through our own being moved. From here, we refine our skills in conversing with weight and structure, in space and time and with each other in improvised dance dialogues.  We aim to greater openness to physical possibilities while attending to the physical realities of our and our partner’s structures and abilities to safely and playfully refine our agreement to off-balance, interdependent movement.

 

We seek to understand and refine a conscious (re)distribution of weight at all times. Accepting the giving and receiving of weight and organizing structure, we find a feeling of lightness, ease, and power. Clearing the mental field from expectations, we combine skillfully and safely our physical structures with one another while embodying and articulating creative improvisations.

Fees 

  Early Regular price  
payment received  16 September 29 September ‘at the door’
fees in euros (fees are sliding scale, meaning pay whatever you can within the suggested range) 100 to 200  135 to 200  145 to 200 

If because of covid you have to cancel or the workshop is cancelled, payment is completely refunded. In the event that you have to cancel for non-covid reasons, payment will be refunded, minus a 55e deposit. 

The event is “no one turned away for lack of funds”. This means pay what you can in the sliding scale range, and if you can’t afford it, write a note and we can work something out.

To Register…

Note:  Karl is traveling through late September and will at times be out of internet connection for some days at a time.  please be patient for responses to e-mails and registration.

Corona Protocol: The workshop will be held within existing corona restrictions.  At the moment of this writing, all will be asked to take a covid self-test before the workshop.  Also, all will be asked to reduce exposure in the days before the workshop.  If there is any doubt based on exposures before the workshop, please also test on the Sunday morning, before the workshop.

 

www.beingmotion.com  

Irene is a multidisciplinary performing artist, teacher and dance maker. She studies drama, classical music and dance. While originally from Italy for the last twenty years she has been living, traveling and working abroad as an independent freelancer. She is being offering dance training, making performances and lectures in universities, schools, companies, festivals, cultural institutes, and independent platforms throughout Europe and Asia. Her artistic path has been therefore influenced by many different cultures and is deeply intertwined with self-inquiry investigations and practices. The main theme of her movement research is Improvisation. Through her practice she aims for a heightened state of presence, increased awareness in the body, effortless motion, and a broadening of the technical and investigative skills of the mover. She has a particular interest in intuitive learning processes, empowering individuals, and promoting independent research and artistic projects. In 2011 she created Being Motion, a platform for sharing her artistic practices, research, creations and educational projects.

Karl has been practicing, performing, and teaching contact improvisation and interdisciplinary, dance-based performance since the mid 1980’s in California. His work has been showcased over the last 3 decades across 5 continents, both in established institutions/universities and in independent studios and theaters. Known internationally for his dynamic movement style and for the edge-pushing nature of his work, physically and psychologically, both in process and performance, his performances take the body and emotionally and physically felt experience as their reference points.  He is known for his articulate teaching and the depth of the material that he accessibly offers. He began his movement explorations in martial arts as a teenager, before expanding his studies to contemporary dance, contact improvisation, physical theater and a variety of somatic practices. His performance work, via his company, Body Research Physical Theater (www.bodyresearch.org), explores post-dramatic works rooted in somatic psychology and paratheatrical exploration, alternating between stage productions and highly interactive performance happenings exploring audience agency and personal meaning. A base of his movement practice and teaching is the Passive Sequencing work which he has developed, cultivating ease and presence in motion, soft power through movement intelligence, and the pleasure of finer moment-to-moment awareness of self and partner in motion.

He has a BA in Physics, an MFA in Dramatic Arts, and a PhD in Ecology.  He has relocated to Leipzig for his work as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture in Leipzig, Germany. His CI and dance/theater work can be found at www.bodyresearch.org, while some of his visual anthropology work can be found at www.culturalvariant.org