Contact Improvisation: Class & Jam
Hosted by Isla Donaldson
This is an open invitation for anyone interested in practicing Contact Improvisation. Through solo work, partner work, and simple scores, we’ll explore the fundamentals of the practice — working with attention, embodied listening, and mutual support.
We’ll investigate our shared relationship with gravity and space, and explore the qualities of care needed to meet the ever-changing moment together.
The jam will be an unstructured space for dancing, witnessing, and resting. Here, we can integrate the material from the class and explore our own curiosities.
Everything offered throughout the class is an invitation and emphasis is on listening to our own bodies to guide the pace and intensity of the dance. This is an opportunity to be together and listen deeply, to soften, dance and play.
Open Level
This class is open to all bodies and curious minds. No previous experience is required. Both beginner and experienced practitioners supported.
Structure
Arrivals: from 12:45
Begin together: 13:00
Class: 13:00–16:00
Jam: 16:00–17:00
There will be breaks, and rest is encouraged 💛
Venue
St Matthew’s Community Hall
Chapel Lane, Stretford, Manchester M32 9AJ
We will gather in the Clarke Hall.
Practical things
Wear comfortable, loose clothing (long sleeves and trousers)
Bring water, a journal and a snack if you’ll need one
Cost
£10 — Concession
£15 — Standard
£20 — Abundant
Booking link
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScj0zngrOYEZJ2cCEGRGuZQvIvposrvPRL6TXU7BYpUhZIT9w/viewform?usp=header
About Me
I am a psychotherapist, Contact Improviser, and facilitator. Each thread of my practice is rooted in a trust in the innate intelligence of our bodies, and a curiosity about what supports this intelligence to emerge within and between us.
For me, Contact Improvisation is a research for living. It offers a direct, visceral encounter with ourselves, one another, and the physical forces that shape us. Through playfully embracing the unknown together and reclaiming our embodiment, we can rediscover our adaptability and collective capacity to respond to an ever-changing, unpredictable reality.
I am dedicated to the ongoing research, practice, and sharing of Contact Improvisation. My training includes study with teachers such as Nita Little and Charlie Morrissey, as well as intensive study with Kirstie Simson, Sasha Dodo, and Dolores Dewhurst Marks at the Towards Centre for Embodied Arts and Transformational Learning.
About Contact Improvisation:
“Contact Improvisation was initiated in 1972 by the American choreographer 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘅𝘁𝗼𝗻. Its roots are grounded in the experimental and innovative spirit of modern dance, and in ancient eastern philosophies, martial arts, meditative and contemplative traditions (Aikido & Tai Chi).
It presents a touch based, non-prescribed way of collaborative movement and interaction, favoring bodily awareness and mutuality over form. Its essentials invites to open the senses, to trust to the immediate direct experience, to connect to the ground, and to restore embodied connection with gravity and the changing physical reality.
It is an ongoing research that serves multi-directionally as a profound attentional, perceptional, relational, and physical training. CI in itself does not convey any particular meaning and has no specific goal to achieve. One of its core principles is to remain empty of any agenda while focusing on improvisation continuously…. It is open for all bodies and inquiring minds.”
- Sasha Dodo 2023
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