Contemporary into Contact - Open session #4

About this event

Contemporary into Contact with Alkis Barbas

🌞Thursday evenings from September until (including) January.
19:30 studio opens for arrival
19.45 - 21.30 Contact Improvisation

This class on 29 October is a trial class, for new participants intrested in joining our group! You'll be stepping in the material about LENGTHENING and various forms of sharing weight.

During these 4 months you will have a chance to:
🔅Experience new ways of expressing yourself and connecting freely with others in the dance
🔅Expand your physical and mental capacities to sense, offer, and make use of support - without overthinking it
🔅Cultivate a healthy relationship to the self and others, within a touch-based practice
🔅Try lifts/moves further away from your comfort zone in a safer container.
🔅Practice movement patterns for a body that stays elastic and dynamic without chronic pain.
🔅Enjoy dancing in a supportive environment, embedded in the local CI community.
🔅Have a weekly appointment with yourself to be present and embodied

and much more…

Although this practice is accessible for virtually everyone, this group is meant for you to take the next step delving deeper into your movement. Based on how you experience the trial class, and your previous training, we decide together if this offer fits for you!

Pay-what-you-want after the session if you choose to not join the season non the less✨

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* Content
In this class we dive deeper into contact improvisation and its tools and techniques. Every month the practice centres around a different theme, each with various key elements like grounding, extension, spiralling, action and reaction, playfulness, falling into contact or group improvisation. There are exercises addressing the different experience levels of the group, with some classes being more foundational while others more challenging and combining principles.

Our approach is based on contemporary dance techniques, that broader your personal movement vocabulary (what you can and how you express yourself through movement). Contact Improvisation focuses a lot on the meeting with another body, and how you stay authentic to yourself while opening up to co-create the improvisation with someone else. It's fun, profound, and adaptable to your own needs and limitations.

* Accessibility
Both these classes are meant for everybody that wants to explore movement together, with a curious mindset and an eagerness to learn. Previous experience with CI or other dance practices is welcome. We wish to make these classes more inclusive and accessible, while keeping the focus and quality on movement. That means we will curate the level of classes throughout the weeks to fit the range of levels in the group. We will also have a look at the composition of the group that comes to the open class and have a talk with those who we doubt would match the class. Reach out to us in advance with your thoughts or questions!

We dance within boundaries that ensure we do not cause harm to ourselves or others. We push those boundaries where possible; however, this is not a therapeutic setting. If you are unsure whether your (mental) disability or injury might be an obstacle to contact improvisation, please contact the organisers.

* Commitment
If you want to join one or both of these classes, we do ask you to commit to either one or both of them for the whole period. We ask this in order to create a group of people that you train with. In this way, we build trust together and from there we can grow as a group. We want to give you the chance to really develop a deeper set of skills in this practice and we see this works better when the group commits to the training. Of course, you are free to miss some sessions if you have reasons to do so.

Stepping in November with 20% discount = 240 euros

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* Alternatives
If you are not ready to commit for half a year yet, we also offer a drop in class on Wednesday evening at the Vasim Circus Space in Nijmegen with a potluck afterwards. That is a great to get to know us as teachers, and build up your condition and familiarity with the form. You're also welcome to visit https://www.amsterdamjam.nl/calendar.html and look for a setting to practice CI all over the Netherlands.

For any other questions you can email Alkis Barbas via Hipsy. We'd love to hear from you, and even more to meet you on the dance floor!