Faculty Information: We are inviting each teacher to bring ideas of classes and styles of work they may wish to explore, but to also leave space for what they wish to particularly share following their time at CI36. Below is a list of individual teachers background as well as some thoughts about potential areas of investigation.
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Barbara Stahlberger found her passion for Contact Improvisation in the year 1993 while living and moving in Karlsruhe/Germany. She enjoys seeing people falling in love with Contact Improvisation and keeps on building up the CI-community. Teaching CI, New Dance and Pilates and organizing different events for CI, for example the contactfestival freiburg.
In teaching she is interested to explore the movement of each body and find again and again new ways to move and share the dance!
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Daniela Schwartz (Argentina/France): Dancer, Performer, Improviser and Teacher of Contact Improvisation and Instant Composition since 1998. Graduated in Fine Arts at ESAD, Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg. She has participated in different projects, labs and performances in Cuba, Mexico, USA, Europe and South America. Influenced by Martin Keogh, Danny Lepkoff, Nancy Stark Smith, Mark Tompkins, Andrew Harwood, Julyen Hamilton... She has been invited as a guest teacher with Eckhard Mueller in diverse Companies, Festivals and Institutions in South America. As a member of the dance theater Cie Dégadézo, she co-created "Cabine d'essayage: , "Parlez moi d'amour" and has been teaching at Theater Pôle Sud, EMDS Ecole Municipale de Danse, TNS Teatre National, and CIRA, in Strasbourg. Years of jewelery making, objects, textile and fashion studies, video creation, installations, performances, and the different artistic aspects of "the body" informed her physical practice and her intellectual research, questioning the idea of «the human being separated form the world». Lately she assisted Eckhard Mueller to develop SKIN, an interdisciplinary and interactive performance project and realized in many cities worldwide.
Interests: IMMERSION IN THE BODY: An invitation to dive deeply into the Contact Improvisation form taking advantage of the immersion into the body's wisdom. Guided by the sensation and perception into the experiential anatomy, we will approach some basic principles of the form creating a frame for observation and action. Stimulating the natural curiosity for the unknown, we will enter the exploration attentive to the bodie's responses in relationship to the physical forces and we will sink into the dynamics of weight exchange. The practice will deepen our state of consciousness, our availability and trust to develop, stretch, and transfrom the possibilities of the body in the dance.
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Eckhard Mueller: Falling in love with Contact Improvisation in 1988, Eckhard Müller (Germany/France) started studying contemporary dance, including improvisation and CI at bewegungs-art Freiburg (diploma 93), and with Alito Alessi, David Zambrano, Mark Tompkins, Julyen Hamilton, Martin Keogh, Nancy Stark-Smith among many other masters.
As a dancer he has worked for choreographers such as Iztok Kovac, Mark Tompkins, David Zambrano. He has been teaching CI since 1994 to professionals of theatres/companies, dance students in academies and non-professionals in dance centres all over the world. For the last 3 years, he has been ?touring? in South America, co-teaching with Daniela Schwartz in diverse companies, festivals and institutions. For 20 years Eckhard has been tremendously active to build up ?contact communities? in his home city Freiburg as well as in his new home Strasbourg and supporting others all over the world. He is co-founder of the contactfestival freiburg, a major CI event in Europe. In 2006 he developed SKIN, an interactive performance concept with elements of Contact Improvisation and instant composition. He realized this concept in collaboration with Daniela Schwartz in different cities worldwide, each time with a new group of professional dancers, musicians and videasts.
Interests: see IMMERSION IN THE BODY (above)
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Gabriela Morales is an Argentinian dancer and performer, she was born and still lives in Rosario, a big port on the Parana river. She practises Contact Improvisation since 1988 and she has been teaching CI since 1992. She studied with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Daniel Lepkoff, Alitto Alessi, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung, Martin Keogh, and Susan Schell, among others. She participated in several Jams and performances in the USA and Europe. Since 1999 she is a guest teacher at the International Festival of CI in Buenos Aires. She teaches and performs regulary in Argentina, Italy, Spain and France.
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Joerg Hassman has taught CI since 1995. From his background as a dance and theatre improviser he entered the stage and eventually contemporary dance techniques. Actually he draws a lot impulses out of the muscular, controlled but fluent movement qualities of capoeira. Another strong base are techniques like Alexander and BMC which are based on the human anatomy and which are looking for the least necessary effort of a movement. And not to forget: playind and a huge amount of curiosity.
Teaching seems to be more essential to him than performing, although stage is a great and necessary teacher for him. He still hasn't given up his believe in Contact based improvisation on stage even though his main stage work are set pieces with various companies - performed e.g. in France, Egypt, Japan and the USA.
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K.J. Holmes is an independent dancer, singer, poet and body worker exploring improvisation as process and performance since 1981. She teaches and performs throughout the world. Influences include Contact Improvisation, Body-Mind Centering ® , yoga, Authentic Movement, Martial Dance, world vocal studies and contemporary dance and theater. Interests: See Interweave Intensive Description
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Leilani Weis teaches, experiments and performs Contact Improvisation and Tango. She has teached at the Fine Arts Schools in San Miguel Allende (Mex) where she also co-founded the experimental group “La orden de los suspiros”. In La Havana, Cuba, she collaborates with the Narciso Medina Company and National Arts School teaching, creating and dancing. Was part of the “Touch Monkey project” performing in California and Texas (USA). Since 2001 she teaches and lives in Italy where she creates moving pieces with “Central de Movimiento” company and collaborates with different artists. She organizes LunatiContact event and is part of the theater association Skenè. Interests: The dance of the small things - a way to artistic expression. We will concentrate on the details that enrich the dance, giving the chance for poetry to emerge. Practicing waiting and doing less, we will revalue the dynamics of CI, finding a way of expressing our self in an artistic way.
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Martin Hughes has performed and taught in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. After two years studying Contact in NYC (with some very influential visits to Earthdance) he returned to Australia, and helped develop the Contact community there, establishing the Melbourne Jam, running residential jams and teaching and performing throughout Australia.
Interests: These are three areas I always find myself teaching:
1. The 'Moving Jigsaw': ... the moving, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle ... where you are one of the pieces! ...
2. 'Flying Instructions': The trick is to apply the instructions as your body/mind is screaming at you to "GET DOWN!".
3. 'Dulo-ing': Dancing solo in a duet ... finding the improvisation in your contact ...
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Mirva Mäkinen is a 33 years old professional dancer, choreographer and teacher from Finland. Her friends from the contact improvisation scene call her "White rabbit" or "Mirvana". She has studied movement in different places. and has a Masters degree in Art of Dance (Theatre Academy of Helsinki, Finland) and also a Masters of Physical Education (University of Jyväskylä, Finland). She loves to explore the body and movement possibilities, finding other inspiration from contemporary dance (release technique), astanga yoga, meditation, aerial dance and acrobatics.
Interests: Falling into contact. Nothing needs to be done, nothing is happening but possibilities are opening - this is the best state of awareness, relaxation and readiness, when I dance contact. Force of gravity and momentum is to dance with senses so that we can communicate and meet the other person through dance. My aim is to find spirit of contact improvisation in classes. Not just exercises but more about finding the way of playing with different tones and senses from your body. Listening yourself and your partner can introduce skin and touch can lead to dancing. From light contact and softness we move towards more weight and intensity working with skin, muscle and bones and using this knowledge as a structure to build dance but also to build connection to the other person. We try to find safe and effective strategies of moving into and out of the floor; flying low and flying high.
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Pen Dale is an Australian dancer and improviser who originally trained in mainstream classical and contempory dance before deciding that improvisation was far more interesting. Her exploration of dance as personal expression took her down many different paths, including authentic movement, BMC, 5 rhythms, and various approaches to dance therapy. She discovered Contact Improvisation quite by accident, and so began a mad love affair with the form which has taken her far from her sunny Australian home to study and teach in both the US and Europe. Major influences in the form include Martin Keogh, Nancy Stark Smith, Martin Hughes, Patrick Crowley, and Helen Clarke Lapin. She is now based in Berlin.
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Ray Chung has a passion for dancing which he likes to share with other people. His main focus is improvisation. He works as a teacher, researcher, performer, and engineer. Interests: See Interweave Intensive Description -----------------------------
Ronja Verkasalo is a dancer and an artist, with a strong focus on research in both performance work and teaching. She lives on a small island in the Gulf of Finland, surrounded by the sea. The sea and the weather conditions in the Finnish archipelago, while being the main source of her aesthetic, also teach perspective for her work as an artist in this time and age. Her work consists of choreographing and dancing, as well as writing, performance and conceptual art. She is currently a freelance artist, with previous posts e.g. at the National Theatre of Finland and the Riitta Vainio Dance Company. She began dancing after studying and writing much theory about the body and the politics of the body in the University environment. She still works with these same issues, but through the physical approach has come to a wider understanding of the work. She is continually in awe of how the body learns and teaches the mover. -----------------------------
Ulla Mäkinen graduated as dancer in Outokumpu/Finland, 2004. Currently she lives in Frankfurt/Germany working on her MA in dance pedagogy, focusing on CI. She keeps on exploring and studying different dance forms and somatic methods worldwide and teaching contact improv in festivals and communities. She is also a certified Pilates teacher, wannabe ideokinesis instructor, dedicated organizer and endlessly inspired by the richness and beauty of life.
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Vitali Kononov is a contact improvisation facilitator, bodyworker, somatic movement educator and movement artist working with improvisation as a performance discipline and as a contemplative practice. He was born in St-Petersburg, Russia, in 1966. In 1996 he joined an experimental physical theater Forest House (Saint-Petersburg, director - Olga Sorokina). After he moved to Moscow in 2000, he performed and taught with Angela Doni. He studied dance, physical theater, contact and improvisation and somatics. He studied Somatic Movement Therapy with Martha Eddy and Bodymind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. He has been teaching contact improvisation since 1997. After he moved to USA in 2001 he dedicated himself to bodywork and somatic movement studies and further investigation of contact and improvisation. He has been teaching at Moving On Center - School for Participatory Arts and Somatic Research since 2002. He was a faculty member of ADF (2003-04). He participated in European and American Contact Teachers Conferences and co-facilitated the 1-st Russian Contact Improvisation Exchange in Moscow (2006) and the 1-st Authentic Movement Labaratory in Minsk (2008).
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