The Netherlands
11-16 July 2023
4th Contact Improvisation Festival
SUPPORT/SELF-SUPPORT
PREPARATION FOR LIFTING
In CI "sharing weight" is an often used teaching. It helps to communicate to our partner(s) where we are, how we move, etc.
In this class however, we'll practice to support our own weight most of the time - and still communicate and coordinate with our partners where we are. Supporting our own weight while dancing together.
Once we’ve learned this, we don’t have to lift all the time to still have a rich and meaningful dance. But if a lift occurs, it will be more naturally, easily, surprisingly. And: Joyfully!
SEBAS VAN WETTEN
Sebas likes to inspire others to find new possibilities and expression in their dance. With inspirations like images of nature or the musicality/poetry of movements. He dances CI over 20 years, and teaches it about 15 years; he graduated as Creative Dance teacher at Voortgezette Opleiding Docent Dansexpressie, Amsterdam, 2002.
As he is also a Physiotherapist, he uses his knowledge of moving and healing bodies to teach safe and healthy dancing; learning to sense anatomical details through inspiring images to expand and fine-tune your movements. Learning to sense all the details in our body can make our dancing a very rich experience.
"What I love about CI is its playfulness and diversity. I enjoy the spacious journey of a dance and the rich and subtle communication in our touch that leads to unexpected movements and joyful encounters."
Micro communication
Subtle Suggestions - Possible Reactions
Although CI-dances sometimes seems to be very acrobatic and wild, I notice that even in my wild dances, there is still running along our dance a lot of subtle communication with my partner through our touch.
This touch-communication can be in a direct way, like with pushing, pulling, supporting, giving weight, etc. But the signals are sometimes also very delicate, subtle suggestions, rather than "leading" our partner. And then the responses can also be more than only "following": it allows us to explore all kind of possible reactions: directly at the place where we're touched, or even with our whole body. Allowing all our creativity to merge into our dance.
In this class I'd like to sensitise our bodies for these subtleties.
Let's explore this microcosmos in between our dancing bodies To meet each other in our dance.