Kirstie Simson is an internationally renowned Master Teacher who draws from her knowledge of Contact Improvisation, dance techniques, the Alexander technique, Aikido, meditation and her extensive experience of improvisation in performance.

In her classes Kirstie shares the movement practices and underlying philosophies she has developed over forty years of practicing Dance Improvisation. Working from a place of interconnectedness with ourselves, others and our environment can give us the resilience and skills to face into life’s complexities and challenges.

Kirstie engenders her work through facilitated exercises, open time for play and exploration, movement scores, observations, discussion and humour. Much of the work is experienced through partnering and connection with others, balanced with solo time for processing and reflection. Weather-permitting there will be an opportunity to explore scores outside. In nature

Kirstie Simson (UK) has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation.  Called “a force of nature” by the New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has “immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance” according to Time Out Magazine, London.  Kirstie is renowned internationally as an excellent teacher, a captivating performer and a leading light in the field of Dance Improvisation.  For the past thirteen years she has been a tenured professor in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois, USA. In August 2020 Kirstie returned to her home base in Wales UK from where she continues to explore and share her work as an Independent Artist.  She is excited to begin an involvement with the Black Mountains College in Wales. As a member of their Academic Advisory Board she is helping to design an innovative degree course in ‘planet-centric education for building a better future’ that will be launched in September 2022.

22 – 24 / 07 / 2021, Sanvicenti

I want to explore short stories of people in my local community and my student base, specifically through writing on topics that are global, universal, family, personal, private and focused into vignettes that are healing driven – thus not performance driven but performative, private and personally driven as public healings. Each image/dance acts as a willingness to be a surrogate for the collective. Lightning and thunder are simultaneous it seems, yet the gap occurs with light traveling faster and heating the air. This is cause and effect – that which comes around goes around – cliché yes – but here we are at death’s door due to greed and sleepiness while as always, the poor suffer, and the natural elements of the earth are squandered for a moment of a gold toilet.

My performance work has now become the same thread in that what I teach, I perform, and my students work with me to create the work. I work through writing, technical improvisation and choreographic puzzles and healing modalities to create a full platform of possibilities.

We will make offering of these short stories through writing and performing:

1. Teaching how to write from interim space as a shamanic portal
2. The exploration of turning them into spoken word, images, small theater pieces – states and sound work as performance, dance as performance
3. Cultural pictures and warps of where we live and who we are, and do we remember our essence and what is the job now?
4. The collective holds the key so as individuals share truth and stay present and, in the body, the collective moves together – say we have forever so all time is now

Specific skills taught that may and can be directed toward and organized around goals of social and political and human interactive exchange:

1. A study of being grounded deeply in the body as a soloist and then as a follower and then as neutral. A study in choice and a study in patterns – what movitates one to move? Nervous system ready – fight or flight, the send wave which is a stroke in space, and end point or a period?

Space and geometry – organizing movement and space as a series of intersecting lines from tiny to touching the ends of the universe. Space moving through the body and moving the body thus the body becomes transparent – and much less heavy.

Writing for scenario – using the imagination muscles to create – movement, images, songs, stories, thought forms and all manner of trauma drama quick fleeting and dissolving.

Healing as an act of intelligence and surrender. Holding sacred space and working with form so that the content of movement acts as a surrogate of healing for the collective.

Sara Shelton Mann has been a choreographer, performer, and teacher since 1967.  She was a protégé of Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis in New York City before moving to Canada where she met Andrew Harwood and fell in love with Contact Improvisation.
In 1979 she moved to San Francisco to work with Mangrove, now Mixed Bag Productions, for which she serves as artistic director. One of its early manifestations was the company Contraband, launched as a performance group and research ground combining the principles of contact, systems of the body and spiritual practice into a unified system of research.
Among her awards are 7 Isadora Duncan Awards, including a special achievement award for “erasing time: celebrating 30 years a radical dance legend” (Sara Shelton Mann with David Szlasa and Norman Rutherford), Lifetime Achievement Bay Guardian Award, 10 Women Who Made a Difference, Bay Guardian “Goldie” Award.
Her Movement Alchemy training is an ongoing teaching project and is influenced by certifications and studies in the metaphysical and healing traditions. Sara’s performance work is a platform for collaboration and research in consciousness.

 https://www.sarasheltonmann.org

04.-07. studenog 2019., Plesni centar TALA, Odranska 1

Radionica istražuje sjecište između praksi dviju umjetnica: Improvising While Black  i FAILURE Lab. Riječ je o dvije suvremene plesne, improvizacijske i izvedbene prakse koje raskidaju s normalnim.
Improvising While Black mayfield brooks radi s dahom, govornim iskazom (utterance), drhtanjem tijela, glosolalijom; istražuje mjesto između govora i ne-govora, plesa i ne-plesa. Kako pristupiti neizrecivom u plesu? Intervencijama u očekivano, IWB istražuje procjepe unutar plesova, pjesama ili priča, kao i improvizirani ples kojeg pokreće dah te jezik kojeg pokreće govor.
FAILURE Lab Mary Pearson razotkriva naše fizičke navike i misli koje smo upili iz popularne kulture. Stvarajući apsurdne slike pomoću tijela, predmeta i različitih materijala, on propituje mizoginiju, konzumerizam i eksces.  Možemo li remetiti ustaljene načine gledanja na sebe i tijelo kao na proizvode koji se prodaju? Kako sebe možemo u potpunosti uvesti u ovdje i sada, ne isključujući svoje složene identitete i neugodne prošlosti?
Mayfield i Mary u ovoj radionici istraživati će načine izokretanja dinamika moći kroz pokret i transformiranja tjelesne napetosti naslijeđene iz trauma povijesti. Postavljat će pitanja poput: Tko ima pravo ne uspjeti, a tko ne? Kome je dozvoljen smijeh ili slobodan govor? Koliko prostora tvoje tijelo smije zauzeti?
Propitivati ćemo vlastitu prošlost, priče i očekivanja, stvarajući improvizirani ples i izvedbu.
Gostovanje i radionica mayfield brooks podržani su od: GPS / Global Practice Sharing of Movement Research programa koji financira Trust for Mutual Understanding

20. 20. i 21. listopada 2018., ADU, Frankopanska 22

Što radimo u trenutku kada shvatimo da nije stvar u ideji? Kako možemo kultivirati usmjerenost naše pažnje na različite želje, impulse, sjećanja i senzacije? Koja praksa pomaže izoštriti tu pažnju i koji je okvir podržava? Kako naša pitanja i sumnje postaju predložak za činjenje? Kako misao i osjećaj dobivaju oblik i radnju? Gdje se naša iskonska potreba za komunikacijom odmiče od stvaranja smisla? Kako možemo prihvatiti ne-znanje i ne-još kao generativna stanja bivanja / činjenja? Kako se možemo otvoriti prema polju htijenja i empatije? Kako naša tijela mogu postati radikalna i esencijalna sila za izražavanje potencijala, neizrecivog? Kako se možemo usredotočiti na bivanje /činjenje, prije nego stvaranje/proizvodnju? Polazeći prvenstveno od prakse koju nazivam nonstopping (nezaustavljanje), upogonit ćemo ova i druga pitanja kroz i tijekom kretanja, pričanja, pisanja i svjedočenja.

Jeanine Durning je umjetnica iz New Yorka koja radi s plesom i izvedbom. The New Yorker njen je rad opisao kao istovremeni ‘potencijal za filozofsko otkrivenje i kazališnu katastrofu’. U svom istraživanju kontinuirano se bavi praksom koju naziva ‘nonstopping’. Iz nje je proizašao niz radova, koji uključuje njen solo ‘inging’ (temelji se na neprestanom govoru) i grupni rad ‘To Being’ (temelji se na neprestanom pokretu). ‘Inging’ je izveden preko 40 puta u SAD-u, Europi i Kanadi. J. Durning, između ostalih rezidencije pri Seulskom plesnom centru, te Rauschenberg Foundation Residency, gdje razvija svoj novi solo projekt ‘tamna tvar’. Kao izvođačica, imala je privilegiju Od 2010. do 2013. bila je uključena u rad Debore Hay s Motion Bank (projekt sa Forsythe Company). Posvećena je pedagoškoj praksi, te gostuje kao predavačica na SNDO/Amsterdam, HZT/Berlin, Movement Research, New School/Lang koledžu i WAC/UCLA, među ostalima. U planu su joj narudžba koreografije za Toronto Dance Theatre (2019.) i Candoco/London (2020.) te kreacija grupnog rada s Deborom Hay.

Solo improvisation with the body and voice 26th and 27th of November, 2016 from 11 am to 5 pm Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb, Frankopanska 22. Improspekcije2016  

Andrew uses a skills approach to improvisation. You will develop your skills of generation and shaping content whilst working between vocal and physical modes. His work is further fueled by the spirit of communication and shared pleasure. Participants will be encouraged to become their own editor in performance, by developing skills of shifting their point of attention, developing texture and maintaining clarity. It is suitable for people interested in deepening their understanding of themselves as a performer at any level, and finding resources that will enrich their improvisational performing. Participants should come expecting to enjoy themselves.

Andrew Morrish has over 30 years of experience working as a freelance performer, teacher and researcher into improvisation. He has worked internationally in theatre, dance and opera. He was an original member of Al Wunder’s “Theatre of the Ordinary” in Melbourne and his own improvisation practice was fostered by 8 years in Theatre of the Ordinary and 12 years working in close collaboration with Peter Trotman. He has developed his personal approach to teaching improvisation in the last 17 years and teaches extensively in Europe and Australia. In 2016 he will teach and perform in Zagreb, (Croatia), Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich (Germany), Vienna,(Austria), Paris, Bouxwiller, (France), Goteborg,(Sweden), Melbourne, Sydney, Orbost, Adelaide, Canberra (Australia), London, Bristol, Huddersfield, Falmouth(U.K.), and Poznan, (Poland). In 2016 he was granted a 2 year Dance Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts.

http://www.andrewmorrish.com/