The Netherlands
11-16 July 2023
4th Contact Improvisation Festival
WAYS OF SEEING
In this workshop we will work a lot with our eyes, to practice seeing all the beautiful views that Contact Improvisation offers us. Going in close, looking far, seeing upside down and while moving around.
I’m curious about what it means to really witness, and to hold space for each other. I use the word witness because it evokes the responsibility of really seeing and being seen. What do we see when we witness each other dancing, and what does it do to our state of attention when we know we are being observed?
We will also consider what we understand about composition and the ways in which we see things. I understand composition as that which we notice, about how things come together, and this can also be experienced while we are dancing.
I’m interested to explore this further - ways of noticing composition while dancing. Developing our capacity for reading complexity and subtlety. With our eyes guiding us to notice; distances, spaces, forms, textures, perspectives, and how our dancing can offer a richness to what and how we see.
We will also work with the concept of being a witness - for ourselves, our dance partners, and when observing others dancing. We will take composition as an individual responsibility - to enjoy what we are seeing while dancing and to be able to notice composition in anything we choose to see.
THALIA LARIC
Thalia is a dance artist and Contact Improvisation teacher from South Africa. She lives between Cape Town and Amsterdam where she regularly teaches Contact Improvisation classes and workshops.
She has studied Contact Improvisation with Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, Lucia Walker and Jori Snell, amongst many other wonderful teachers. She has also studied dance at the University of Cape Town and completed a Masters in Choreography at Rhodes University. She has worked professionally with various South African theatre companies and has founded several dance platforms including MusicDance Cape Town.
Thalia’s main interest is improvisation and embodiment. She loves collaborating in performance projects, co-creating with dancers and improvising musicians towards real-time compositions. She has followed the work of Katie Duck, Julyen Hamilton and Lily Kiara in this area. More recently Skinner Releasing Technique has taken a central focus of study, which has also begun influencing her approach to teaching Contact Improvisation.
