Physical Poetics
A Contact Improvisation Workshop
with Karl Frost
Amsterdam
11-13 December 2026
Studio 239
Friday 19h-22h, Saturday/Sunday 12h – 18h
This workshop focuses on CI as experiential art practice and research in biomechanical poetics. We hold a frame of contact improvisation as body-and-physics-based exploration of bodies moving in physical contact. We explore subtle and larger-scale physics, but in the spirit of “biomechanical poetics”, we use articulate explorations of physics to support the experience of the ineffable.
Technical work develops functional awareness of self and partner, weight, structure, and mechanical flow, drawing on the Passive Sequencing technique, a release-based approach to CI and proprioceptive awareness. We cultivate an inner calm that allows us to sense more deeply from a place of relaxed presence, which curiously allows us to be more moment-to-moment adaptive. We’ll start with body explorations slow and heavy, working with the image of a soft pouring of weight through the body, surface to surface, across the floor and through the space. We work with, rather than against gravity and feel the pleasure of weight: our weight, giving weight into support, and the soft compression of receiving another’s weight. We move with shared weight, taking it eventually higher and with shifting speed through space, into and out of the floor, and occasionally through the air. With calm mind, we find physical presence, fluid motion, and soft power,
Poetic exploration focuses on the felt experience, sensation, curiosity, imagination, and ineffable meaning in motion. Using “poetry” as a metaphor for creativity in improvisation, we look at diving into and shaping physical narratives, where the “meaning” may be found in the play of physics, the imaginal world, or both. The aim is refined artistry grounded in the joy and curiosity of the body. We play with getting lost in the moment and in the play of physics and sensation. In small details of sensation and response, we find doorways into different “physical voices”: different characters or aspects of ourselves. We play with distilling and amplifying these personal sub-voices to find new journeys in contact.
The workshop is grounded in training exercises from the physically interactive performance work and paratheatrical practices of Body Research Physical Theater.
Mind work, Body work, and some sweat.
Logistics
An open level workshop for the physically curious.
Registration and Fees
write to Sam Otte for details: samuelotte@gmail.com
As with most Body Research events, this workshop 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 the lower end, write a note and we can work something out!
bio: Karl Frost has been teaching and performing contact and related work in body-based creative process since the late 1980s. He is known internationally for his dynamic and articulate movement style, rigor in physical research and teaching, and for the edge-pushing nature of his work in both practice and performance. His work, influenced by studies in contemporary release technique, Alexander technique, and martial arts, has been showcased across the US, Canada, Europe, and South America. His performances, via Body Research Physical Theater, take the body and emotionally and physically felt experience as their reference points, often in highly audience interactive frameworks.
Karl holds a PhD in Ecology (emphasis in Human Ecology and Cultural Evolution Theory), and MFA in Dramatic Arts, and a BA in Physics. He is currently a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany).