Contact Improv at Temescal Arts Center
This series is no longer happening at TAC.
To get your Thursday evening CI fix in the East Bay, head to 7th Heaven Yoga Center in Berkeley. Details here.

Information for Temescal Arts Center is here.

Information below is an archive of CI workshops and jams curated by Hilary Bryan at the Temescal Arts Center in Oakland between 2004-2007. This series of four-week workshops allowed each instructor to develop and build material so that students could sink in more deeply than a typical "pre-jam" class.

Past Workshops:
Dynamic Support - Jez Parus April 6-27, 2006
Transform the tendency toward static support by learning to be fluid while giving and receiving weight. We will work specifically with finding stability and letting go into instability. Experience the support of your skeleton in relation to the floor and your partner. Develop the ability to fall with ease and grace. This begins a pathway into true dexterity in which you learn to orient within disorientation. Move beyond habitual and unconscious constraints in your patterns of movement and patterns of contact. Explore the myriad degrees of freedom in your joints and discover dancing that is simultaneously lighter, stronger and more available to your partners. Vocabulary will be worked with as a revolving doorway to principles of support, release, flexion, extension, momentum, intention and surrender and will be learned within the context of dancing rather than as isolated "moves.”

Jez Parus has been teaching Contact Improvisation since the mid-nineties. Her work and teaching style are thoroughly kinesthetic and aim to reveal the exquisite and functional logic of the body. She is a student teacher of Awareness through Movement and a student practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, the trauma healing work of Dr. Peter Levine. Her hope is that dancing brings more pleasure, grace and wakefulness into everything we do, from taking out the garbage to making love to helping someone change a flat tire.

Dancing in the Silence – Archana Samantha Beers March 2-30, 2006
Dancing in the Silence: honing the dance through soundless-ness and sightless-ness. The senses are the lenses through which all sensation, experience and action are mediated. The sense of sound is a subtle sense of touch. In contact we use the word "listening" to describe a texture that supports deeply sensitive dancing. We can also use the actual listening sense to inform our subtle and immeidate responsivity and receptivity, our sense of space and our fluid mobilization. When we open to listening in quiet dancing, we find options we have never before "heard." Our dancing gets soft, available and present. By the same token, the sense of sight is the most strongly linked to thinking, or pre-thinking our actions. When we inhibit sight with blindfolds we become able to access enetirely new realms of sensation and CHOICE. Old activation patterns are left behind, and we relax fear of the unknown and come into exponential knowing of our relationship to the floor, our partners and our own weight. In this series, we will focus on sound and sight as our guides to choice-full, juicy, curious and sensitive dancing. Blindfolds will be provided.

Archana Samantha Beers is an intrepid, embodied voyager, dharma geek and movement educator who lives to serve awakening. She has led CI, Dharma Dance and GetReal Yoga workshops, retreats and trainings on five continents over the last 12 years. Her work explores in how we experience deep play, right relationship and intimacy with all things through embodiment. Current cutiosities: bound and unbound experience, sustainability in movement patterning, spontaneous composition, silence. http://www.dancingfreedom.com

Precision Contact – Jess Curtis February 2-23, 2006
A skills-based Contact Improvisation workshop for those that want to increase the control and precision in their dance. Working from the floor to flying with technique and discipline. We will address and practice 1) the modulation of speed, 2) the development of 360° awareness 3) control during inversion, supporting and riding, 4) sensitivity to the floor, 5) integration of multiple foci, and 6) extending the variety of qualities in your dancing and your ability to move easily and intentionally between them.

Jess Curtis is a director/choreographer and performer of interdisciplinary dance/performance. Working independently, and in the collective performance groups CAHIN-CAHA, Cirque Batard (France/USA‘98-2002), CORE (USA '94-98), and CONTRABAND (USA'85-'94), he has created and collaborated on numerous award-winning performance works known for their intense physicality, emotional honesty and athletic beauty. http://www.jesscurtisgravity.org/

Assisted Levitation – Vitali Kononov November 3-17, 2005
We will examine some specific pathways in contact related to elevating. Basic understanding of contact principles will be required. This class is an experimental lab for people interested in advancing their skills. If you have wings - please bring them, if you don't - come and find them for your dancing.

Vitali Kononov is a dancer, director, teacher, bodyworker, and improvisational performance artist. Born in Russia, transplanted to the Bay Area in 2001, his studies have included contact improvisation, dance, physical theater, clowning, as well as various somatic disciplines and improvisation modalities. Vitali teaches regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, and annually at the American Dance Festival (2003-04).

Contact Creations – Katarina Eriksson October 6-27, 2005
Focus on the improvisational aspects of contact, playfully experimenting with timing, dynamics, expressivity, and form. Practice listening simultaneously inwards and outwards, to ourselves, our partners and our surroundings. Watch each other to explore possibilities for communicating to the world outside of the contact duet and play with group forms to develop easy transitions in and out of physical contact.

Katarina Eriksson has been involved with improvisational dance since 1989, collaborating with artists such as Julyen Hamilton, Ray Chung and Swedish improv group Floke, and teaching CI to children, adults, and professional dancers and actors since 1991. Katarina’s traditional dance background includes The Gothenburg State Theater and Opera, Sweden. She curates the performance series Moment's Notice with Cassie Terman and teaches theater improv at The Cathedral School for Boys, SF.

Contact Skill – Stefanos Georgantis July 7-28, 2005
Use the basic language of contact improvisation to expand into more refined aspects of the form. This is a beginning/intermediate level class.

Stefanos Georgantis has been practicing improvisation for over 18 years. In the early part of his career he taught and performed contact improvisation in the US and Europe. During that time he created venues that paved the way for how performance art is practiced today (Point Reyes Studies Project). In the last six years he has studied other forms of improvisation and performed with more than a dozen prominent improvisers. Contact Improvisation, Action Theater, and meditation make up his complex and distinct performance style of physical improvisation.

The CONNECTION in Improvisation – Rodrigo Esteva & Mirah Moriarty August 4-25, 2005
(Beginners to Advanced movers are welcome)
You are invited to fall in love with dance again, or for the very first time, in this month-long workshop. Using bodywork, basic acrobatics, martial arts and improvisation, we will develop further our internal sensitivity to timing, dynamic shifts, and internal knowing... Knowing when to enter and when to exit, establishing relationships through contact and yet maintaining an awareness of the whole group. When improvisation is deeply connected, both internally and externally, it truly is a divine experience. Come and play with us!

Mirah Kellc Moriarty (USA) and Rodrigo Esteva (Mexico) have recently relocated to the Bay Area. They are co-directors of Heartbeat Dance Company, created in 1999. They have dedicated their lives professionally to dance for ten years, performing internationally as a duet in renowned festivals and theaters of the United States and abroad and as members of PEARSON WIDRIG DANCE THEATER in New York City (1994-2001). Their invitations for 2004-5 include teaching at Studio 303 (Montreal), at the European Dance Development Center (Netherlands), and at Stanford University (USA).

Free Falling, Soft Shoving – Ali Woolwich May 26-June 23, 2005
Falling: replacing fear and unfamiliarity with easeful options to recover, respond, and reorient. Safely increase your confidence for catching yourself. Share your fall and recycle its momentum with your partner. Shoving: negotiating pressure with partners, rather than bowling them over or going limp. Find gliding rides and surprising lifts that have a satisfying oomph with almost zero muscle effort, regardless of size or gender.

Ali Woolwich has been working with Contact Improvisation for 15 years and directs HumilitySwim, a CI-based performance ensemble which has shown performance work throughout the Bay Area and Seattle (http://www.rodneyj.net/ali). She has offered workshops for queer women since 1996, hosted a weekly Ensemble Jam at Studio Valencia 2001-2004, and in 2004, launched a quarterly fundamentals intensive, CI Square One.

Six-Pointed Star and Other Delicacies – Julie Kane April 28-May 19, 2005
We will focus on reaching (in and out) through all 6 limbs: head, tail, arms and legs. Through exercises and explorations we will enjoy pushing, pulling, perching and resting, gesturing and wrestling with all our tendrils. Making solid contact…extending yourself and your dance…extracting the same. Come find out.

Julie Kane (MFA) is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, explorer of movement & beauty. She has studied many diverse movement forms ranging from competitive gymnastics to African dance forms to Ballet, Modern, and Postmodern dance. Julie danced with Sara Shelton Mann’s legendary Contraband dance company for five years, breaking new ground in the field of contact improvisation and its application to performance. She has been teaching contact and modern dance for 15 years and is interested in the science and art of movement. Believing that the body responds to acknowledgement of its parts, Julie uses the internal dance of breath & blood, knowing where different organs are located, how many bones make the spine to support the dancer and move the dance.

Philosophy of Contact – Sheldon Smith March 31-April 21, 2005
Can the philosophy of contact, its connections, pathways, rules, ideals, be carried into a broader improvisational form? Can one share a contact dance with the architecture of space or the sound of one’s voice? Can one moment in time share a dance with another moment in time, an image with an image, an atom with an atom? Questions … experiments ... new possibilities?

Sheldon B. Smith has been making and performing dances for twenty years and is co-artistic director of Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts. His aesthetically diverse and technically and technologically challenging work has won a whole bunch of awards. He is currently creating a collaborative duet with San Francisco based dancer/choreographer Kathleen Hermesdorf. He has recently performed improvisationally with Compagnie Felix Ruckert and was a guest on Jennifer Monson’s Birdbrain project. http://smithwymore.org/

Integrating Movement Methods – Ray Chung January 6-27, 2005
Developing skills for moving seamlessly in and out of contact, how can we use elements of different movement forms (CI, martial arts, dance, bodywork) to create the dance that moves us physically, emotionally, and in spirit?

Ray Chung is a performer, teacher, engineer, and artist who has worked with Contact Improvisation and improvisation since 1979. He uses Contact Improvisation as part of improvisational performance practice and integrates other movement forms into his work, including martial arts, bodywork and Authentic Movement. He regularly collaborates with dancers, musicians, and other artists.

Juice! – Tara Brandel December 2-16, 2004
Playing with scores and games, exploring the roles of active and passive to make our dances juicier. We will start each class with body work.

Tara Brandel discovered CI from Steve Paxton when she was 15, and also studied with Mary Falkerson, Katie Duck, Laurie Booth and Lloyd Newson (of DV8). She has been teaching contact since 1991 in London, Berlin, and rural Ireland (at a convent!). Tara has taught CI at WCCIF, Studio Valencia, 848 Community Space, 8th Street Studios and Dance Camp, as well as teaching contact to kids and bodyworkers. Tara also runs Mna Rua Dance productions.

Speak with your Feet – Hilary Bryan October 28 - November 18, 2004, March 3-24, Sept 8-29, 2005
Articulate your legs and tail -- how do they move? how do they speak? Align them for strength and power. Use them for support and communicating with your partner. Ground your dancing so you can fly!

Hilary Bryan has been working with Contact Improvisation as a performer, choreographer and teacher for 13 years. She has worked with Steve Paxton, Karen Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith and Ruth Zaporah. She is certified in Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals™ with teaching credits at SF Dance Center (since 1997), UC Berkeley, Cal. State Hayward, SFSU, and dance festivals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Taiwan and New Zealand. She codirects Frank and Bryan Dance Company and practices movement therapy, coaching dancers, singers, and athletes. She is also a founder of The Body at Work, ergonomics training and consulting for computer users.

Techniques for Play – Katarina Eriksson September 30 - October 21, 2004
Focus on the improvisational aspects of contact, playfully experimenting with timing, dynamics, expressivity, and form. Practice listening simultaneously inwards and outwards, to ourselves, our partners and our surroundings. Watch each other to explore possibilities for communicating to the world outside of the contact duet and play with group forms to develop easy transitions in and out of physical contact.

Katarina Eriksson has been involved with improvisational dance since 1989, collaborating with artists Julyen Hamilton, Ray Chung and Swedish improv group Floke, and teaching CI to children, adults, and professional dancers and actors since 1991. Katarina’s traditional dance background includes The Gothenburg State Theater and Opera, Sweden. She curates the performance series Moment's Notice with Cassie Terman and teaches theater improv at The Cathedral School for Boys, SF.

Precision Contact – Jess Curtis September 2 - 23, 2004
Described above.

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