C o n t a c t  I m p r o v i s a t i o n  I n t e n s i v e
 

Laura says:

We are falling, always, through space. We are also convincing ourselves that we are not. That there is stability and permanence. We fear that when we fall we might not be able to catch ourselves. 

What would it be if we were to find ourselves falling and catching - physically and metaphorically. How can the act of catching become a stability, a responsiveness we train and that we create with each other, for each other and the environment we are in? A process that embraces fragility and the honesty to see things as they are, not as we will them to be. 

 

Cultivating this as practice, with an emphasis on collective negotiation and witnessing to affirm this as shared experience; this is the intention behind this Intensive by resourcing from dances in and out of contact and conversations, also stillness that brings into the foreground what is moving already and the suspense in between which may shape dreams, rituals or actions to gain a visibility of something that is newly unfolding, unbeknownst to the future and most likely, non-linear.

 

The retreat seeks to draw parallels to how we engage with life overall. How the social relationships we build, support or limit our freedom to move and feel supported. How our relationship to land and sky may be strengthened to tap into alive and energising connections that nourish both human and earth. And to consider the systems we are part of, serve, support or seek to exit not (only) because they are systems we want to renew but by cultivating presence for self and other to then, un(human)systematically or naturally, build connections and refine processes rather than outcomes and products, staying malleable, adaptive and bodily mindful.  

 

​

​Asaf says:

Exploring co-precarity through improvisation, using movement and somatic awareness to engage with the interdependence and vulnerability inherent in our collective existence. Drawing from the writings of Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, and Steve Paxton, to investigate how precariousness—often framed as instability or weakness—can instead become a generative force for connection and transformation. Precarity not as a problem to be solved but as the very ground of improvisational world-making. Through guided exercises inspired by contact improvisation and embodied inquiry, we will experience how improvisation can serve as a practice of co-precarity: an attunement to the ways we are always already vulnerable to and shaped by each other. 

Structured around movement scores that cultivate sensitivity to gravity, support, and disorientation, the workshop invites us to relinquish control, lean into uncertainty, and experience the ethics of mutual reliance. By engaging in collective falling, shifting weight, and destabilizing normative concepts of autonomy, we will reflect on how improvisation can train our capacity to respond to crisis—not by seeking stability, but by embracing adaptability, responsiveness, and co-creation. 

​

Harriet says:​

I am drawn to the improvisational space - where time dissolves, and the familiar contours of togetherness shift. The socialised body can fall and the jam, in its unexpectedness, can hold a pure, silly holiness - vital for our return to somatic-centred being. Us – sharing a commitment to the practice, a scent of form; the fleeting clarity of contact improvisation.

I believe CI’s deliverance; its lessons can expand far beyond the dance floor and yet we must start and return there - always. And so, we will dance, lab, listen and find places to teeter on edges, attune to weight - poised for the unexpected from every angle. Testing our agility, resilience, absorption, and rebound, our readiness for the unknown.

What if we welcome every layer of ourselves—physical, psychic, spiritual, martial, the being, the doing, the creator, the warrior, the child, the soft stuff and the bones too. Attuned listening -this is what we are finding - yet it will always take us elsewhere. So, collectively we will play with trust, belief, and acceptance; a radiating practice, perhaps compositional, maybe just human?

Articulation of choice within our own body, discerning how much effort to use as well as within the collective, playing with precarity.

I think we will have fun.