CONTACT IMPROVISATION: practice and perFORMance
A four-day event geared towards experienced CI dancers focusing on furthering movement research and practicing CI in performance. The weekend will consist of classes, labs, compositional scores, and structured witnessing.
MAY 30TH - JUNE 2ND, 2024
CI: practice and perFORMance is organized and facilitated by Lilianna Kane and Anna Vomacka. We will also have some sessions led by guest teachers Julianne Cariño and Chris Cahoon.
The event will take place at the beautiful GROUNDWORKS space, in Gardiner, NY.
GROUNDWORKS has private rooms, shared dorms, and camping grounds, not to mention a gorgeous 1200 sq ft open hall dance studio with a sprung wooden floor.
Registration to the event includes room and board (home cooked fresh food by our chef and CI colleague, Anya Smolnikova), morning espresso, tea, snacks, in addition to usage of all of Groundworks’ amenities (wood burning sauna, hot tub, hiking trails, etc.)
Join us!
MEET THE team:
LILIANNA KANE (organizer, facilitator) is a dancer and chef, currently invested in Contact Improvisation and Collective Improvisation. She is committed to improvisation as a physical practice of asking questions and paying attention. She is curious about the disruption of normative culture through dancing and gathering. She values the interplay of rigor, rest, discipline and play. She teaches and shares her practices nationally and internationally. She is currently the head chef at The Field Center in Bellows Falls, VT, where she also has the privilege of regularly practicing, teaching, and researching Contact Improvisation.
CURIOSITIES:
When dancing Contact Improvisation, I am in a continual cycle of asking questions. The longevity of my dance relies on the capacity of my curiosity, and my willingness to be in unknown terrain. I ask questions with my body, my attention, my relationship to weight, space, my partner(s), time…
I believe that when we are dancing Contact Improvisation, we are cultivating a state of collective communication and heightened sensitivity. To develop the state of trust needed to take risks, engage in dynamic movement, and play, we must exercise our our ability to listen and speak with our bodies and our senses. We must sharpen our reflexes and deepen our understanding of our bodies’ relationship to structure and physics. We must train patience.
Can we use CI to find poetry in the mundane, to find peace within a world of war, and to learn to have fun while improvising through our lives? Can we perform this research?
ANNA VOMACKA (organizer, facilitator) is a dance maker, educator and performer from Brooklyn, NY. Contact Improvisation has been a steady thread throughout her life. As a young dancer, CI was foundational in her dance. As an adult, Anna returned to CI in 2017, where she remains engaged with the practice, continuing to explore principles of weight, risk, intimacy, surprise, and listening. As a facilitator Anna’s interest lay within the interpersonal dynamics that have the opportunity to awaken and interplay in the dance.
CURIOSITIES:
How does the way we come into initial contact share with me about you? What is transferred between us in a nonverbal yet deeply knowing state? What do I learn by watching? How can I use my connection with my partner to break out of pattern, through listening to the suggestions provided? How do I trust someone I have never danced with, never talked to, never met before? Moreover, how do I show someone they can trust me?
ANYA SMOLNIKOVA (Chef) (b. Minsk, Belarus) is an artist and educator living and working in Vermont. Her art practice spans painting, drawing, performance, installation, dance and community actions. Smolnikova has exhibited internationally in Armenia at HAYP; in Los Angeles at LAST Projects; in Chicago at Mana Contemporary, Heaven Gallery, Links Halls, No Nation, and 6018 North; in Massachusetts at the Boston Boston Center for the Arts, Piano Craft Guild, MUSA Collective, Dorchester Art Projects and Four Eleven Gallery in Provincetown. Collaborations include projects with Anastasia Tinari, Aram Atamian, Jared Williams, FAR x WIDE, Seeding Sovereignty among others. Teaching includes Northwestern University; Northwestern Prison Education Program; Chicago Art Partnerships in Education; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Brookline, Cambridge and Boston Centers for Adult Education; The Field Center and The Putney School in Vermont among others. Smolnikova has been a resident artist at the Vermont Studio Center, Boston Center for the Arts, and Groundworks Space in Hudson Valley. She holds an MFA from Northwestern University in Chicago. Anya Smolnikova is a founding member of The Field Center in Vermont, where she currently serves as Director of Operations, Residential Coordinator and Faculty.
CURIOSITIES:
Where are the pathways of connection between external and internal experience? Me and you? How can I cocreate spaces that integrate magic, connection and survival skills? When does one and one equal something other than two? What is the alchemy of refilling ones lifeforce when there are seemingly no resources left? How does the quality of focus and presence change the space? How wild can one stay in the dance while still cultivating a home, a connection? How to keep tapping into poetry while remaining a functional member of society? Where is the ground? What is a spiral? Can we grow and age more wholesomely? How to stand in the mystery? How to cultivate as much joy as possible?
JULIANNA CARIÑO (guest artist/team member) is a queer multimedia artist and performer, born and raised within Canarsie and Munsee Lenape lands. They have had the privilege of calling many lands their home and they remain critically inquisitive about what it means to occupy stolen land. Julianne’s practice is tuned through improvisation with a focus on Contact Improvisation, chronic pleasure, connecting to the more-than-human world, and the dance of self-preservation. Cariño’s facilitation work is often born from their personal experience of inaccess in both spiritual and movement-based spaces. They have guided groups in movement meditation, consent practices, ceremony, warm-up, technique class, and the practice of Contact Improvisation. Julianne has had the honor of teaching and facilitating through the Bill Young Studio/100 Grand St. (NYC), Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Brooklyn), Ponderosa (Germany), The Field Center (Vermont), and DanceNorth (Scotland).
CURIOSITIES:
What is are the pathways into deeper listening? Can we drop agendas/ambitions to show up for what is really happening? How do we fortify our bodies, and our connections to one another, by cultivating relationship to land and land memory?Everything we do is a different level of risk for each person, so how do we find out what safety could mean for each person? Can we extend our awareness to the whole room while remaining present with those we are dancing with? who is here/who is not here?
CHRIS CAHOON (guest artist/team member) is dancer, teacher and facilitator who lives in Brooklyn, New York. He enjoys approaching Contact Improvisation as “art-sport,” where his background in team sports meets his practice in Authentic Movement and Skinner Releasing. He has studied with Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, and Chris Aiken, among others. He teaches classes and facilitates jams in New York City.
CURIOSITIES:
How can we follow the rolling point of contact into an undiscovered or oft relegated part of our bodies? How can we listen to and offer redirection which takes us out of our patterns? How can we track our partners’ center so we always know where the floor is through them? How can we follow the change in direction or level of our partner’s pelvis? Can we read the floor through our partner’s structure even when not in contact? And when we re-enter contact, can we match the direction of our partner’s center so as to join the up or down and take a ride? How can we pour slowly into flying?
