CONTACT @ the DOJO
Contact Improvisation (CI) class & jam
Mixed level. Open to beginner to advanced dancers
2025 Schedule:
April 20: Frieda Kipar Bay
May 4: Patrick Crowley
May 18: Lani Nahele
Apr 20: Flight Physics
w/ Frieda Kipar Bay
We'll focus on ways to incorporate more loft in our dances - and what habits keep us heavy. We'll work with the floor as a landing pad, safe pathways through mid-air, and how to respond to a partner mid-flight. It'll be fun, not scary! Open to all, but most appropriate for those with some basic CI skill.
Frieda Kipar Bay is a weaver of embodied knowledge. Movement is the primary lens that she uses to experience life, and she works in depth with plant medicine to navigate health and disentangle from oppressive overcultures. She has been a professional performer, teacher and choregrapher since 2001, working with Sara Shelton Mann, Body Cartography, Melecio Estrella, and Scott Wells, among others. In 2008 she began training as an herbalist, botanist, and animal tracker and is a registered clinical herbalist with the AHG. Her practice draws on Daoist Medicine diagnostic practices, Qigong in the Wudang and medical traditions, wild tending and native plant restoration, and somatic experiencing and trauma resolution. The interface between reading the body and reading the landscape deeply informs her work as a traditional medicine practitioner, activist, and artist. www.friedakiparbay.net
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Upcoming Teachers: Lani Nahele, Funda Gul, and others
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Patrick Crowley teaches once a month, and then once a month, he curates other teachers who hold and convey Contact Improvisation with a comprehensive depth. Contact @ the Dojo began in Oct 2021, meeting 2 Sundays a month.
Dojo comes from “Do-”, a variation of Tao/Dao (the way) and “jo” (immersive learning space).
CLASS (general description)
A broad range of Contact Improvisation will be explored — states, skills, scores/Underscore, artistic practice, life learnings.
Dancers play with movement pathways in contact with a partner — in relationship with gravity, momentum, inertia, and friction. We work with ease and natural tone in our tissues and neurology. We explore rolling, falling, and flying in CI with the safety of mats as our floor.
The slow and subtle brings us to the big and enthusiastic, and vice versa. Centering, perception, integrated body, solo/follow/lead/3rd entity, reflexes, experimentation, readiness, rigor, heart, awareness, and enlivening will all be in the mix.
JAM
The jam will be open space to play and practice — with music and possible structure/warm-up.
For those experienced and new to CI, honoring different abilities. 10–27 people. Please read Health safety agreements (www.patrickcrowley.net/health-safety).
Emphasis will be given to those coming to both class & jam. Please arrive a little early.
WHAT is Contact Improvisation?
https://patrickcrowley.net/whatiscontactimprovisation
WHERE: Aikido Dojo, 30 N Maple St, #14, Florence, MA 01062
(Park in parking lot to right of building. Come in entrance in parking lot. Go in and upstairs to the right.)
REGISTRATION & PAYMENT
https://patrickcrowleybodyworkdanceyogasomatics.as.me/sch...
or text 617-320-9792
Class & Jam (3:00–6:00 pm): $35–$30–$25
Just Class (3:00) or just Jam (4:30): $25–$20–$15
(sliding scale: abundant–regular–low)
If unemployed, student, or wanting to do work/exchange, please contact Patrick.
INFO & QUESTIONS: (617) 320-9792 (text/phone)
Patrick Crowley has been engaged with Contact Improvisation and dance improvisation since 1983. He has taught at numerous dance centers, festivals, and universities both nationally and internationally, including Yale University, Boston University, Argentina Contact Festival, Freiburg Festival, Earthdance, among others. He is a coordinator of the Global Underscore. He worked with Nancy Stark Smith closely until her death in 2020, and studied or performed with many prominent teachers in CI including: Andrew Harwood, Kirstie Simson, K.J. Holmes, Daniel Lepkoff, Nina Little, Alan Ptashek, and others. Patrick has a background in modern and contemporary dance, Body-Mind Centering®, bodywork, yoga, theatre (Playback Theatre, Action Theater), contemplative practices, expressive arts, and martial arts. He has performed with various dance and theatre companies, including the Underscore +/- Group, Zany Angels, Six and 1/2 Project, and Boston's Access to Theater. He was certified in bodywork by Sensei Toshiko Phipps and Nationally Certified in 1993 and also teaches Playback Theatre, Yoga, and somatics. See less
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