Absolute Anfängers - Contact Improvisation Workshop

In the organizer's words:

Time: Sat. 22.03.2025 from 14:00 to 18:45
Location: Movement room in the Gängeviertel, Valentinskamp 34a (2nd floor left), 20355 Hamburg
Teachers: Natascha Golubtsova & Christos Litsios

*Dance level: None and first experience with CI

The workshop series "Absolute Beginners" consists of two parts "Part I" and "Part II". Both parts are self-contained and can be attended in any order and independently of each other. Join now to familiarize yourself with the basic principles or to gain more clarity on the essence of the form.
About the workshop:

Have you been wanting to try Contact Improvisation* (CI) for a long time? Or have you been to your first classes or jams, are curious and looking for more clarity about the essence of the form?

This workshop provides a compact approach to the dance form and an in-depth exploration of its fundamental principles. We understand Contact Improvisation as a spontaneous and open-ended exploration of movement between bodies and gravity.

With clarity, we convey a biomechanically-informed, technical understanding, keeping in mind that every dance is a unique and delicate human encounter. Following the origins of form in the 70s as performance art, we focus on the artistic dimension of CI. To this end, we create a space in which we ask questions and explore answers with mindfulness and consent in solo, partner and group exercises, always in search of lightness and poetry in movement.

Why Contact Improvisation:

Contact Improvisation is an exciting contemporary dance that does not require fixed forms such as step sequences, figures or similar. Just by following intuitive principles, dance is created with oneself and others. CI also breaks with normative understandings of roles, and leading sequences become a dynamic interplay of harmonious movements. The free form places high demands on the dancers' perception and, in addition to deepening body awareness, trains mindfulness of oneself and others in every moment. New movement potentials, including acrobatic ones, can be achieved without great effort and a high level of activity can have a playful, health-promoting effect. The special attention demanded by dance for dance partners can have a positive effect on one's own ability to relate to other people and a strong feeling of connection sometimes develops between dancers. Dance demands that you turn to your own immediate interest in the movement at every moment and therefore requires you to turn away from external standards and underlying motives. This practice has the potential to be transferred to other areas of life and can thus strengthen one's own inner compass.

Other possible benefits of CI are
- Increasing general fitness
- Increasing the sense of balance
- Increased zest for life, liveliness
- Promotion of ambiguity tolerance
- Improvement of non-verbal communication

Clothing:

So that you feel comfortable and protected in physical contact - as well as the others in physical contact with you - bring clean dance clothes that cover your skin as much as possible: long trousers (please no shorts, leggings, jeans); a T-shirt or long-sleeved shirt (please no belly or off-the-shoulder tops); no zippers, buttons or jewelry. As the floor can be cold, bring a pair of socks and a sweater.

Registration & Questions:
Please register via the following Google form (no Google account required!):
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevmINzUCgqrh51uizCP86r3CioFKcsfKzeh_GOrp4ZqijByw/viewform?usp=header

If you have any questions, write to us directly:
moving3poetry@gmail.com

Payment:

Early Bird 70 € (until 10.03.2025), after that 90 €

!!! Bring a friend and pay together 120 € Early Bird and afterwards 160 €

If the amount of the fee is an issue for you, please contact us.

In case of non-participation, the transferred amount cannot be refunded.

____________________________________________________________

Christos is a behavioral scientist, mediator and contact improviser. CI combines his intellectual interests in negotiation, leadership and embodiment with his passion for movement. After years in competitive sports such as martial arts and basketball, he now enjoys dance for its collaborative nature and the potential for almost unlimited freedom and creativity in movement and expression. Driven by a lively curiosity and a love of learning, he is used to being a beginner all the time. Therefore, he is very familiar with the "Beginner's Mind" and appreciates meeting people where they are. He has been teaching weekly for 3 years and regularly gives workshops at home and abroad.

https://bio.site/chrizzozz

Natascha has been researching and creating in the field of dance since 2006, starting with contact improvisation and contemporary dance and soon adding Authentic Movement, Butoh, The Axis Syllabus, Feldenkrais, Ilan Lev Method, Body-Mind-Centering, Dance Improvisation and Instant Composition. She fuses all these influences in her classes and jams. This is exactly how she combines somatic and performative approaches as a dance artist when performing in public spaces and on stage. She is particularly interested in the question: What potential is there in being human and how can it be discovered in dance?

https://www.nataliagolubtsova.com/

Price information:

Fee: 70€ Early Bird until 10.03.25; Regular 90€ Bring-a-Friend Early Bird together until 10.03.25 120€; Regular together 160€