28/08/2023
🐹🐹🐹“Within-Without”
2023 Contact Sharing & Gathering (Beijing)
Contact Sharing & Gathering will be held in five different cities and communities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Dali. From Sep. 30th to Oct. 5th, Beijing Contact Improv BJCI will start this journey first. Under the title “Within-Without”, we will have Contact Improvisation intensives, workshops, labs, jams, Underscore, morning practices, and more. Over the course of a week, both international mentors and local practitioners will delve into the process of learning Contact Improvisation as an open-source art form.
🦌🦌🦌“From its early days on the East and then the West coasts of the United States, Contact Improvisation has spread to studios, schools, and art centers around the world. Many thousands of people have experienced this ‘shared moment of movement’ and passed it on through teaching, through direct physical transmission, or just by example. Thousands have performed and demonstrated Contact and applied it to choreography; to dance training: to their work with children, seniors, disabled populations, therapy, visual art, music, education, environmental work, social activism, and on and on. Meanwhile, hundreds of new exercises, scores, theories, words, principles, formats, and performances have been created. There is no official certification for teaching Cl; pedagogies have been constructed and reconstructed many times over in many studios around the globe. CI's influence can be seen throughout modern and postmodern dance choreography and performance worldwide.
Though its applications are constantly expanding, Contact Improvisation continues to be most vitally exchanged and developed in the dancing itself--in classes and jams, partner-to-partner, body-to-body.”
--Nancy Stark Smith
In 2023, we mark the 51st anniversary of the international launch of Contact Improvisation, and it has been over a decade since the inception of the Beijing Contact Improvisation Upon revisiting a passage from Nancy Stark Smith, one of the founders of Contact Improvisation, it becomes evident that many local CI practitioners have already encountered numerous facets of what she described. Contact Improvisation, as an open-source practice, is inherently inclusive and readily integrates with other fields. Simultaneously, the dissemination and development of this form continue to flourish.
🦊🦊🦊BJCI is thrilled to invite Anjelika Doniy, a first-generation CI practitioner based in Russia, Nitipat Ong Pholchai, an interdisciplinary CI practitioner based in Thailand, BJCI's team of regular facilitators based in Beijing, and Viktor Schramek, a musician from Taiwan/Slovakia. Together with all participants, we will celebrate a time of sharing and gathering, with a particular focus on the following themes:
-to deepen the understanding of the ongoing development and evolution of Contact Improvisation;
-to share the interdisciplinary connections between Contact Improvisation and other fields of study;
-to explore the internal logic and pathways underlying CI as a non-traditional systematic learning mode;
-to provide a space for contemplation on the independence and coexistence of music and dance.
🦉🦉🦉The Structure of 2023 Contact Sharing & Gathering (Beijing)
Morning practice 8:00-9:00am
Contemplative Dance Practice, Feldenkrais [Awareness Through Movement]
Morning Intensives 10:00-12:30pm
Contact Improv intensives, Underscore
Afternoon 3:00-5:30pm
Workshop, Lab research group, outdoor activities
Evening 7:30-10:00pm
Jam, discussion, performance
🦀🦀🦀Workshop introduction
🦀1-six days intensive
DIVINE TRAJECTORIES OF THE BODY
with ANJELIKA DONIY (Russia)
To feel our temporary bodies as divine, we need to take a step, to make a
jump, to be curious about how nature works.
We have the capacity to be both a microcosm and macrocosm, to discover the interplay of water, air, earth, and fire elements. To join them in their unfolding and have them expressed in our bodies, in space, in dance.
We can manifest our shamanic aspects, we can shake, vibrate, dance the power animals, allowing the force of elements and archetypes to flow through our body.
All practice in this workshop is about giving care to the body and receiving secrets of movement and self-expression in exchange.
Several ways to develop our dance, to make it “advanced”:
• Coordination between the center of the body and its extremities,
awareness of the body in its wholeness
• Integration of spiral movements into our dance, using three-dimensional
multilayered, constantly changing space around us
• Conscious interest in upside-down positions. Including the "space
behind" into the dance
• Relaxation, letting go of tensions in the body. Understanding the tone of the body, capacity to flow over, pour, move the body as WEIGHT
• Practice of “small dance”
• Interest in the meaning and application of the point of contact
• Including composition and improvisation into the dance
I will take one of those ways as my main focus: developing the vision of myself as a 3-dimensional moving spiral body.
It is not only the physical body, but also it is about the space around me, that I consciously or not--rotate, turn, roll out. It is also the body of my partner whom I involve in my play, into my movement, to whom I show the way, from whom I learn the way.
It is also a group, "jamming" involvement into movement taking shapes of
acts of nature, such as a vortex, tornado, snail house, grape tendrils grasping support.
Recently I became interested in Integrative Bodywork & Movement Therapy (IBMT) and I am studying it. I am curious about the way through which we came into this world, from the time of birth until the moment that I am dancing now.
Within our theme of spirals, I will use bodywork to bring our consciousness into a flow state and our body to new trajectories—through exhaling, letting go of our thick boundaries/membranes.
We will do detailed and intentional work to multiply our possibilities in lifts with spiral additions, carefully dosing tone and effort.
We will use feet as hands, sensing our way in space, rotating into support of the body, of the floor and air, experimenting with it, integrating new pathways on different levels.
Together, we will study compatibility of trajectories with a partner and in a group. We will be finding and losing each other through spirals. We will practice CI in relationship to the composition of the space, time, and place. We’ll work with attention, understanding the principles of movement. We will be developing our capacity to be clear in chaos and spontaneous in a clear framework of a particular form.
Research is a necessary condition for contact improvisation:
• What does it mean to be here?
• Where does childhood go?
• What is an empty space and what is a dense space?
• How do we know where is up and down?
In a certain sense, I propose co-creation, a laboratory where we can have a level playing field with nature to use our divine body, to open and dance its trajectories in the most innocent and clear manifestation.
The very first relationship of a child with the world starts with an embrace.
The cleanest entrance into dance happens as an embrace, making peace with one’s thoughts, body limitations and fears.
We will embrace ourselves and expand the territory of our movement, trajectories of our dance and our perception of ourselves.
My strengths as a teacher come from research of movement and consciousness.
I use an optical view of the world and dance. I like to look from a big, juicy dance onto the small world of events.
To see a dance from a big, live space of vital forces flowing through me.
I like to create a place where they—life and dance—meet, spirit and matter mix their qualities, and we come to know something that cannot always be expressed in words. As if we all have one common secret.
🦀2- Thematic workshop:
Dancing Space and Time: The Poetics of Embodied Physics
With Nitipat “Ong” Pholchai (Thailand)
This dance workshop is created under the premise of inclusivity/accessibility, welcoming both beginners as well as experienced practitioners with curiosity about artistic and/or phenomenological approach to contact improvisation. Drawing from my intersectional background in physics, education, community dance, contact improvisation, q***r activism and disability arts, I aim to bridge my curiosity about body, life art, and community into this class series about experiential learning through movement. There will be plenty of space for personal reflection and communal sharing/harvest.
- Is space empty or full of things?
- How does our body make spaces?
- How do we meet support and make spaces of ‘possibilities’ for each other?
- How may we experience the ‘times’ of our life?
- How may your dance mean for you and how may we share our dances together?
Participants will be guided into a somatic exploration around these questions about space and time. Tuning into our body perception, we hope to uncover its innate dance of freedom, which may simply be about how we can “authentically meet”—with our inner animals, with another body, with other nature and whatever else that is present and available in the here and now.
Touch is relational. Touch is unfolding, giving space. While the mind can help us notice the becoming of spaces as much as creating them. And dance is what turns all of this into an embodied journey.
You may expect a space of meeting with others, of getting to know more intimately about yourself, of joyful dancing, together with a rejuvenating rest, of fun interactive learning with others.
Exercises inside this workshop are drawn from these materials
- Classical contact movement principles of small dance, rolling, inertia, momentum, liquid spirals, and textures of touch.
- Drawing, writing, notating and its anthropological implications, including the research on embodied drawing practice of the contact improvisation pioneer Nancy Stark Smith
- Blind rituals, which is my dance research with a Thai blind dancer, about blind perception of space-body, and dancing as inclusive healing rituals and multi-modal communication.
🦀3 - CI Lab
Happy Falling Together
With BJCI Facilitators
Falling, as a significant idea in Contact Improvisation, will be the focus of the Lab. Embracing the fundamental principles of physics, grounding through falling can be considered as part of the essence of CI 101. While falling might at times be seen as a failure, particularly when we foreground too much the way one is lifted or flying to the moon, it is essential to remember that our takeoff is also greatly predetermined by the way we fall.
Through a series of games, we will move into the practice and principle of the “six-inches safe landing.” With a sense of softness, fearlessness, and playfulness, we will embrace the momentum of falling to initiate a new flight. Throughout this Lab, the BJCI facilitators will create a safe space for exploring falling, allowing us to experiment while respecting each individual’s body-mind boundaries.
🦀4-"Touch the Sound"
With Viktor Schramek
We will explore how to listen sounds through our body and also how to express and create with sound. I want people to play become like a child, forget about time.
Core of Viktor's playing is in the ability to focus on present moment with most seriousness, yet with child-like playful quality. Improvisation is the ideal setting for this playground to unfold. Besides drums and all sort of percussions which he has played since early childhood, he likes to use “non-musical” daily objects such as kitchen ware, trash or natural objects to create completely new sounds landscapes. Aim is to push the boundaries for listeners as well as for his own beyond expectations, so every performance is original and unique experience. You will get a sense of his approach to music and sound in the course.
🐥🐥🐥Facilitators
🐥1- ANJELIKA DONIY (from Russia)
Anjelika Doniy is a dance improviser, choreographer and teacher focused on contact.
After 5 years of formal studies of choreography, ballet dance and other stage disciplines at the Higher School of Culture (St-Petersburg), she worked for 10 Years as a theater choreographer. Until…
“In 1997, I was at the Impulse Dance Festival in Vienna. There, I saw a wonder of CI, watched Steve Paxton on stage, flew into Andrew Harwood workshop where some 70 dancers were rolling over each other. This was unbelievable, the earth was becoming alive. I saw a realization of my dream of the world growing from connection, interaction, harmony between one and many.
It was love from the first sight. From 2002 I started facilitating first jams and CI workshops in Russia and initiated International Contact Improvisation and Performance Festival in Moscow in 2006–2010.
My path in Cl as a teacher began as long journey of workshops for beginners. I love to guide people into the dance, inspire them with their own body, and awaken to what is already there. I love to surprise long-time dancers with secrets of the body as little keys opening a familiar dance into new spaces. This year, I am following a program of the Institute for Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy to go deeper into the body and its anatomy, to touch the cells, to breathe through the navel, and to use this resource in my practice.
My special interest in contact improvisation is clarity. Clarity towards the practice. Honesty towards how I move my weight in the space of Gravity. Attention towards clearing the dance from the personal. Letting things happen as they go. I am grateful to have met and studied with such teachers as Regine Chopinot, Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Benno Voorham, Lisa Nelson, Esther Gal, Yaniv Mintzer, Martin Keo and many others.”
Anjelika taught over 200 workshops around the world for all levels from complete beginners to professional dancers. Her teaching is rooted in many years of work of acquiring and transmitting technical skills and equally long path of meditation and mindfulness practice. She blends them into a life dance, contact improvisation.
🐥2-Nitipat “Ong” Pholchai (from Thiland)
Nitipat “Ong” Pholchai (Spine Party Movement) is a dance artist, physicist and educator from Bangkok, Thailand. He discovered contact improvisation and contemporary performance while studying Physics in the San Francisco Bay Area during 2012-2014. Currently, his practice lies at the intersectionality of dance, healing, social activism, communal rituals and emergent collaboration. Ong views life and art as intertwining forces that nourish and inform each other in a becoming flux of his being and environment.
Professionally, Ong has gathered more than 10 years of experience teaching creative physics and improvisational dance in multiple platforms including universities, alternative schools, meditation centers, social activism spaces and international dance festivals. He has enjoyed leading artist communities and giving consultation to teachers/facilitators. He has choreographed works, curated activities and directed many community-based artistic projects in Thailand and internationally. He has received institutional support from Dance Nucleus (Singapore), MyDance Alliance (Malaysia), Asian Cultural Council, Kelola Foundation (Indonesia), Wanny Angerer’s Moving Cultures, Alliance Francaise Bangkok and British Council Thailand.
Among his most influential dance teachers are Kathleen Hermesdorf, Sarah Shelton Mann, Augusta Moore, Lizz Roman, Daiane Lopez Da Silva, Karl Frost and Katie Duck. Since 2015, he has enjoyed collaborating and building a soulful network with many Asia-based dance artists. Since his pioneering work “Blind Rituals” with Thai blind dancer Toffee Sopon Tubklong during 2017-2022, he has grown a strong interest in activating collective discourse about art and spiritual accessibility in society. When it comes to the art of dance, it becomes clear to him the saying “sharing is caring.”
🐥3-Liao Shuyi (Candy)
CI and Feldenkrais Method teacher，theatre director，"Beijing Contact Improvisation" BJCI / "Touch Contact Improvisation Art Festival" co-founder.
Her exploration as a CI practitioner began in 2009, and she learned CI from different generations, including participating Nancy Stark Smith January Intensives in 2017 and 2018. In recent years，she develops materials with her Lab group partners, performing and teaching regularly in the community and public.
Also as a theatre director, she works with people from different communities，focusing on how somatic experience could interact with social issues.
Her main works include “Still Here"，“Miss Understanding”; "Moving without a background"，etc.
🐥4-Chen Xindi (Cindy)
A choreographer, dancer, and dance\movement teacher from Beijing, China. She directs in "Dinosaur and Whale" Creation and Dance Lab. As a core member of Beijing Contact Improvisation Team, she teaches CI regularly. The way of her creation and teaching is influenced by the wisdom of contact improvisation, and she has long explored the connections and thinking of modern and contemporary dance, movement improvisation, creation, performing arts. Her main directing and creation of dance theatre works are "Upside-down", "In Parallel-We will meet again", "Whale Fall”.
🐥5-Wang Xuanqi
A Beijing-based movement and performance artist, currently an instructor at BJCI (Beijing Contact Improvisation). Formerly a dancer with Beijing Modern Dance Company, she joined Gu Jiani in Untitled Group in 2016 as co-facilitator and performer, presenting works including Transition, Exit, Right & Left, etc. In 2021, she initiated the Crossing Project. Drawing from her background in performance, teaching, and training, Wang uses her body as a conduit to grasp the nuances of the everyday and experiment with movement. Inspired by interpersonal connections and body-mind practices, she has become deeply engaged in the BJCI community and teaches regular CI classes. Post-pandemic, she co-founded the Thursday Afternoon Movement Lab with friends, delving into improvisation, body-mind awareness, and somatic philosophy, as well as their integration into everyday life.
🐥6-Kang Tongge
Currently an instructor at BJCI (Beijing Contact Improvisation), Kang Tongge (Tong) is an actress, CI dancer, and a member of the Body Nomadic Project. In recent years, Tong has been experimenting with various artistic mediums for creative expression. Joining BJCI in 2018, Tong participated in the Goa Contact Festival (2020) in India and the Towards Thailand Contact Improvisation Conference (2023). Starting from 2021, Tong began experimenting with CI teaching.
"I fell in love with communicating with others through this non-verbal way, which opens up more pathways for exploration. I enjoy the process of receiving, sharing, and experimenting with others."
🐥7-Yi
Zhang Yi is a BJCI (Beijing Contact Improvisation) instructor, CI dancer, and yoga practitioner. She has a profound love for sunlight, people, and nature. With a background of five years as a road bicycle athlete in her childhood, she later became active in fitness education, sharing her practices in various ways. She has worked with multiple sports brands including Nike, Adidas, and Lululemon, and has participated in international exchanges as part of the Chinese team. As both a mother and a child, her curiosity about human life, relationships, and existence keeps driving her exploration of the realm of the body and relationality.
🐥8-Viktor Schramek (from Slovakia)
A drummer, percussionist, improviser, session and recording player and music educator who was born in Slovakia, is currently based in Taiwan. After studying classical music in State Conservatory in Bratislava, Schramek studied jazz performance under the tutelage of Professor, Martin Sulc, at VOS of Jaroslav Jezek in Prague. Since 16 years old, he started to play in professional Pressburger Klezmer Band and toured in nearly all European countries for 3 years. While studying jazz performance in Czech Republic in 2009-2012, he had a chance to visit Taiwan with KJJ Big Band, which was conducted by Milan Svoboda, in 2010. In 2010-2015 Schramek worked mostly as session jazz musician and fusion drummer in many formations, such as La3no Cubano, Gonsofus, and Campanha Batucada. Since 2016, he moved to Taitung, where he started collaborating with numerous indigenous artists, music bands, and dance crews including Ilid Kaolo, Balai, Panai Kusui, Anu, Kaying No Makerahay, as well as Bulareyaung Dance Company.
In 2022 and 2023 he was invited to join International Contact Dance Improvisation Conference in Thailand (Towards), where he depended his understanding and collaboration with improvised dance community. Currently preparing more collaborations of dance-music character, in Taiwan and Internationally.
🦆🦆🦆2023 Contact Sharing & Gathering
Beijing Theme: “Within-Without”
Time: Sep 30th-Oct 5th
Location: Fangshan district, Beijing
(* if you need any help about the visa, tuition fee or accommodation, please feel free to contact us)
Beijing Organizer:
Beijing Contact Improv (BJCI)
Music Support /Sharing:
Viktor Schramek
Community partnership:
Hangzhou Contact Improv、Shanghai Contact Improv、Dali Contact Improv、Chengdu Contact Improv
Happenings in other cities & communities：
Shanghai：Oct 4th-6th (with Nitipat Ong Pholchai)
Dali：Oct 9th-11th (with Nitipat Ong Pholchai)
Hangzhou：Oct 13rd-15th (with Angelika Doniy)
Chengdu：Oct 20th-22nd (with Angelika Doniy)
Gathering & Sharing Committee Group：
Liao Shuyi, Chen Xindi, Yan Weixu, Jie Xiaofeng, Kang Tongge, Wang Xuanqi, Wu Zhangxin'an, Yi, Luo Yingshuo, Wang Andy, Tie Yannie
🦄🦄🦄About Beijing Contact Improvisational Community BJCI
Beijing Contact Improv has been a member of the global contact improvisation community since 2012. Our non-profit and volunteer-based organization chiefly explores the relationship between improvisation and physical activity. We mainly host regular workshops, contacts jams, labs and other activities.
Beijing Contact Improv classes aim to establish an open environment to:
• Explore contact improvisation with ease and safety
• Develop as dancers and members of the community
• Experience a creative process while learning/sharpening the vocabulary of CI
We work with one another, learning to establish connection through physical touch and partnering exercises, exploring the anatomy of the body and functional ways of moving. Dancing in contact enables us to move together through space, being supported by the physical structure of a partner.
On the basis of regular activities every Sunday, domestic and international CI workshops and teacher exchange meetings are also held regularly. Host/co-host TOUCH Improv Art Festival (2017-2021), TOUCH Community Conference, Urban Body Nomad Program and other events.
