Contents
of the Easterimprofestival 2005
INTENSIVES
„Improvisation as performance art“
In these classes we will practice, play and explore in field of
improvisation as performance art.
We will focus on four main aspects of the work:
Space, Musicality, Group work and Composition.
Participants will be given specific tools that will allow them to train and
embody physical and compositional skills through self creativity.
We will support participants who would wish to practice with an audience at the
evening performances in the festival.
This practice increases,
Awareness in relation to action
Decisions in relation to freedom
Creativity & responsibility in relation to performance
As performers and audience we share one wish, for the art to be alive.
Shahar Dor
and Ilanit Tadmor
are two Israeli based artists. In the last six
years their work is deeply collaborative, practicing and exploring
improvisation as performance art. Their practice and art draws on a verity of
schools as movement and contact improvisation, physical theater,
aikido, music, text and video and is based on their shared interest and love
for live art. They lead various dance & theatre projects, teach in diverse
programs and perform regularly together and separately on international bases. Shahar and Ilanit accompany the 'Osterimprofestival' since it has begun.
Shahar Dor (
performer and teacher
In the last 10 years Shahar has been deeply
involved with improvisation,
exploring it through Dance, Theatre,
Music and Video, and through various
collaborations with artists from all over
the world. His work as a
performer, teacher and producer in
other people to explore and discover the uniqueness
of the art of
improvisation. Currently he is forming the
experiential Art of the Moment
school, in Israel.
Ilanit Tadmor (Israel)
choreographer and dancer
Artistic director of Ilanit's
Tadmor dance company.
Winners of the excellence of performance prize at the Shadows in Dance
Festival 2001. Co-founder
of Improbiza Ensemble. In 2000 she took part
in an
artist exchange between
and gave workshops. She collaborates regularly with
artists from
“Theater into Contact”
I am interested to step the way from deep solo-monolog into the free dialog in
duet, trio and more partners.
Three circles of attention through Mikle Chekhov will
be the thread for all intensive days.
We will use different theatrical frames and limitations to open a new
unrespectable
physical and emotional space in us.
Contact improvisation will be our common ground to come into a physical and
playful dialog with others.
We will spend time deepening our skills in CI and use them in different scores
for our improvisation.
This workshop is meant for those who are working in the field of the performing
arts or have the basics of Contact Improvisation.
Andjela Doni
(
Dance improviser, choreographer and teacher. Oriented towards
CI and
contemporary dance, with extensive experience in theatrical choreography.
She was born in
Part of her Education was at the
She has been teaching CI composition to professional dancers, actors and
amateurs in a wide range of backgrounds since 1997.
Since 1999 she lives, works and teaches in
concerning improvisation and contact include:[NL]Regine Chopinot (
Eszter Gal (
Since 2000 - member of Yearly European Contact Improvisation
“just contact...”
Working technically with ideas of simplicity; Softening,
breathing into moving. Finding the coresspondence
between emptying the body and the best moments to refill the body. We
will invest time for clear alignment practices
and more efficient ways of carrying and lifting our partners
body and limbs.
Learning to collapse the body to save time, energy and as a guick safty measure in moments of
falling. Extension is used to expand ourselves from the inside to
connect with the space and beyond our partners size
and wieght. We will lengthen the bones, open the
joints, tune the mind in this dialogue used for sudden reflexes. We will WORK
on doing less, finding the still point so we can fly and unwieght
more easily. Lastly we will break down how to
invert, conquer our upside down fears and ease into the chaos of three dimensionallity in space and in our senses.
Stephanie
Maher (
is a dancer, choreographer, improviser and
teacher. She spent 10 years in San Fransisco after
her NewYork modern/ classical training studying
deeper and wilder the many forms of multi-disciplinary forms of motion,
improvisation, the voice and image making in performance and community
based art.
She relocated to
She has created/ collaborated and performed works with Kathleen Hermesdorf, Ka Rustler, Jess Curtis, Ray Chung, David Hurwith, Sten Rudstrom,
Stina K. Bollman, KJ Holmes
and Howard Katz Fireheart.
Improvisation lies at the
heart of her work. Bringing a body based approach to express an intimacy,
sensitivity and a wild humor
to her choreographies. As a teacher she works across the
“Talking Space”
In "Talking Space" we use the body as a means whereby we allow
space to
express itself. The awareness of
form, feeling and intuition will
become the director of our performance.
By expanding our conciousness on different
systems of the body we
beginn to dialogue with
our themes, with space and our partners in a
different way. We arrive on the
ground, in our movement, in contact, in
our time, and ourselfs.
Using the Alexander-Technique to experience
each moment as a new beginning and to become
familiar with the
principle of "non doing" (to
stop doing what you habitually tend to do
and give consent to what wants to happen according
to your true
nature). In close contact with the our expressive
processes we reduce
the identification with our habitual movement
patterns and discover
freedom of choice in our
performance.
Torsten Konrad
(
is working as a freelance coreographer
and dancer since
1993 in Northrhine Westfalia and abroad. He is teaching movement
studies and body conciousness
to the performing arts department of the
Folkwang-Hochschule
in
the german modern dance
in the tradition of Jooss-Leeder-Bausch,
Kinomichi, Yoga, and the "Amerta movement" work by the Indonesian
Artist Suprapto Suryodarmo. He did his Alexander teachers training
course with Dr. Christopher Stevens PHD and Prof.
Nadia Kevan and is
teaching in the training course in
Köln. He is also a coach in
Psychosnthesis. His coreographies are dealing with the embodyment
of
inner processes and have been awarded amongst others
the first
Kurt-Jooss Award for coreographie by Pina Bausch.
Workshops
"ContACT Games"
We will use theatre tools which are aimed at freeing the imagination,
ability to play theatrically and ability to transformations. We will develop
dance dialogue from being awake personal creativity, using real life
communication, humor, emotion and playful bodies fight.
Ilya Domanov
(
is an actor, performer and teacher from
***********************
“Fooldance”
In this workshop we try to expand our bodily and creative borders. After an
intensive warm up, we use exercises from theatre (physical theatre, action
theatre) to combine and mingle with contactimprovisation. For me “Fool” means
to open up your personality. How can I create poetic images? What is boring,
what is interesting to watch for the spectator? This workshop addresses to all
who want to “show themselves” in front of an audience
Markus Hoft (
Dancing since 1993, New Dance, Contactimprovisation, Body Work. Trained at Moving Art/Köln and SSCD/Scotland. Theatre
training at ecole philippe gauliere/UK and Ruth Zaporah a.o../
********************
“Voice from the center"
The voice is an inner movement; it travels in the body and extends us
from the inside.
In this class we will create a dialogue between movement and voice.
Connecting to the breath, simply allowing the air to go out of the body
as a sound, we will make a place for intuitive movement to arise.
We will play and communicate with voice and movement.
The dance of the voice is the song of our body and soul.
Orly Portal (
teaches movement and voice
improvisation and belly dance. She has developed a unique approach to teaching
the art of belly dance. She danced in two of the famous contemporary dance companies
in
************************
“Empty-Space-Theater”
Entering the stage without knowing what to play?
We play in the empty space. We play out of the moment with everything,
which is there right now. By dance and play and by sharing our experiences we
are going to learn to identify our masks (feelings, inner voices, architypes) and to perform them –
no matter what it is. Even the fear of being on stage is welcome to be
played....
Turid Müller
(
I had an ordinary childhood. Everything has been normal – except the
stuff in my inside.
And so it became an important part of my life to express these things
transformed into movement, dancing, theatre and music.
I have experiences in many kinds of theatre, but what I am really crazy
about is „Fool“, a sort of improvisation-theatre. Meanwhile I am player in a
foolish ensemble.
My life as a fool offers me the possibility to express everything what
is inside of me, instead of performing, what a script or a director wants me
to. However – in my point of view - this work, which I
learn from Franki Anderson, is not only an
improvisation-technique. It is also a way of living: Fooling frees me – on
stage and in addition to that on the stage of life.
Daniela Schlemm (
What shall I write down about me? I got the chance to make a lot of
experiences on stage.
I did an education as a clown, I was working as
an undercover comedian for some time,
I played Theatresports with Inflagranti
I learned a lot but there was none who could teach me about the most
important thing.
What I mean is the play which is coming directly from the heart and
which is honest without any mercy.
In Workshops with Franki Anderson I learned
more about the irrelevant being relevant and the relevant being irrelevant.
I learned to be and suddenly my play worked ???
In the past I could never say:” I am a clown!” Today I can say:” I am a fool
!”
********************
Music
improvisation- Breathcomposing
Music and Movement workshop
”Music already implies movement and movement already has music “- the tools to recognise
this and to work with it are not particualrly specialised: we just need to
learn to see and hear what is already going on around us and inside us. Timing,
resonance, listening, rhythm, articulation, silence, space, shifting,
transforming and devloping are basically no different whether one is
improvising with the body, with voice or with a musical instrument. This is the
basis of my teaching: learning to breathe, learning to listen, learning to respond.
My workshops are intended to help contact dancers and other movers
develop this creative immediate and spontanious
relationship with music. Through a series of simple exercises and performance
scores we focus on breath, voice and body and experience the power of listening
and playing. (Musicians are very welcome to attend, but no musical experience
at all is expected or necessary in order to participate)."
My specific approach is to explore specific tasks which may be derived
from music, movement or theatre and to leave the connections between and implications
of these tasks for each individual to discover. Of course we come to work with
different experiences so our discoveries are always different, but I believe
that if the dancer has the experince of functioning as musician, and the
musician ihas the experience of exploring movemnet then both are enriched.
Listening, copying, responding form the bulk of the material I teach with. No
special skills are required but a deep and serious interest and preferably
involvement in a performance discipline using improvisation/instant
composition. The general nature of the principles I work with enables me to
work especially effectively with mixed disciplinary groups and also with groups
of people with radically mixed musical abilties.
Richard Scott (
I am a composer, performer and visual artist living in
My involvment in improvisational performance
stretches back 20 years to my first encounters with musician/teacher John
Stevens in
I am very much engaged in personal research into movement for musicians
and in music for movers (dancers, actors etc). I believe the principles and
practise of improvisation are essentisally the same whether one is dealing with
a body of music or with the orchestra of the body. In the past 20 years I have
had invaluable guidence from such inspiring teachers of improvisation, music
and movement as Julyen Hamilton, Steve Lacy, Sten Rudstrom, Jos Houben, Barre
Phillips and John Stevens, as well as teachers of chi kung, Feldenkrais method
and buddhist meditation. All have greatly influenced my perspectives and my
work. In my own composing, performing and teaching I hope I can do justice to
at least some of the knowledge they have shared with me.
********************
Ta Ke Ti Na – borne by
rhythm and voice
How can I cope with a complex situation without stressing me out?
With the Taketina Rhythm Pedagogy everybody
can learn to be borne by rhythm and voice in a playful and serene way. In this
workshop we are not learning random rhythm patterns, it’s a matter of
reconnecting us with our innate knowledge of rhythm, of experiencing rhythm
archetypes. Through falling out and inside a rhythm we can become aware of the
simultaneousness of different rhythms, time and again more profound, and
develop our musical creativity.
In Taketina our voice is the tie in the
polyrhythmic of stepping and clapping. Our body itself becomes a musical
instrument. Everybody can learn in his or her own pace. The rhythmical play of
the berimbao stimulates our singing,
the surdo bass drum supports our basic steps.
Taketina combines playful easiness
with high concentration, deep relaxation with revitalizing, trance with
increased awareness, chaos with order. Musicians, actors, theatermakers
and performing artists can enlarge their creative competence and open new
spaces between inside and outside, thinking and feeling, active acting and a
passive “let it happen”.
Previous rhythmic knowledge is not required since Taketina
assumes that primordial rhythmic knowledge is innate in everybody. Thy body
remembers how rhythm bears
and happens.
Lothar Berger (
is taketina® rhythm
teacher, performing overtone musician and choir leader. He got his three year
vocational training as taketina® rhythm and
percussion teacher from Reinhard and Cornelia Flatischler. And he was also trained in vocal and choral
improvisation as well as overton singing from Michael
Vetter, Daniel Diestelkamp, Reinhart Schimmelpfeng and Christian Bollmann.
As a long standing member of the „Diaphonisches
Vokalensemble“ he took part
in numerous concerts. He understands his vocal art as a cross-cultural and
performing work, which is reflected in his collaboration with different
musicians, theatre projects and performance artists.
Since 1999 Lothar Berger is leading his own
overtone choir („Bonner Obertonchor“), which evolved
from his courses in overtone singing and vocal improvisation. The „Bonner Obertonchor“ uses the human voice as a „transverbal“
medium of expression (in the sense of Michael Vetter) and links harmonic
singing with verbal and experimental sounds as well as with polyphonic and polyrhythmical singing.
Lothar Berger gives taketina®
rhythm workshops and
teaches overton singing and vocal improvisation.
Hanspeter Pelzer (
TaKeTiNa-Rhythmuspädagoge
Studies of movement theatre (play/music/dance) and longtime freelance musician (mostly percussion).
Multiple experiences as a teacher for youth- and
adult-education.
************************
„Dancing with colour“
Let us find the interaction between the dancer and the „catcher“ on paper. What is the information I get to bring the
movement onto the dimension paper to be still seen and understood? And what is
the influence to the mover to be watched that way but stay with its dance? This
will be our exploration including the jump into both roles…
Azriel Cohen (
is a painter who recently fell in love with
dancing.
Contact improvisation is one of the forms he enjoys a lot, but painting
the daily improvisation in life in various cafes of
************************
“Tree root and water”
This class is about increasing trust and skill in giving, supporting and
transporting weight, falling and rising together with ease, and about bringing
these skills into dancing.
We will
- explore the
state, the movement quality and the rhythm that come out of the images of being
tree root or water (stone? spider?)
- dance solo to duet
and trio with these images, movements and qualities, shifting easily and
intentionally between them
- use this as a
basis to learn some techniques of sharing weight, supporting riding and
floating up
- make a very
physical journey supported by our imagination. It will lead you from sensing to
dancing to exercise and to more dancing while sensing and shifting qualities…
Gesine Daniels (
is a choreographer, dance teacher and performer.
She has been dancing since her childhood and practicing many forms of
dance and movement from Ballet and Gymnastics to Contactimprovisation.
Since 18 years, CI together with improvisation is her passion; which
influences her teaching and artistic work as well as her daily life.
Her style of dancing and teaching Contactimprovisation is energetic,
playful and sensitive.
Exploring the physics of the human body in movement fascinates her and
the question of “how do we communicate in and through dance?“
is a big issue for her.
Gesine has been dancing and creating in a wide range
of events and places from opera to street performance, solo and group works; as
a teacher she has been working in social ghettos and theatre schools, she
taught children in primary schools as well as educated dancers;
Since 1986, she makes up and dances her own choreographies in addition
to her work as a free-lance artist.
In 2000, she founded the SomeBodyElse Dance
Company, which uses improvisation and Contactimprovisation in their
site-specific dance pieces.
With her artistic work she aims at showing the poetry and the depth of
the ordinary, banal, everyday life.
************************
„Dance-improvisation & Speech“
How can I involve my voice in a casual way for Improvisation which is
mainly ruled by movement? Less thinking, but increasing our
dance with speech.
How can it be combined to support each other?
We will experiment with different possibilities of using the
voice/speech in our dances: emotion & speech, to dance text etc.
Sabine Simon (
is a teacher for sport, dance and theatre.
She teaches newdance at the ILK
Her dance-education is mainly influenced by the dance-educational
programs of Bewegungs-art
************************
“Awareness theatre an öffentlichen
Plätzen”
text follows
Lior Ophir
(
text follows
************************
“DANCE OF THE HEART”
There is something that touches us deeply...
By a subtle motion we are truely moved.
This movement became the pervading dance for Garita,
in her heart, her body
and in her life.
To share "this common place" we come together.
„Tuning in“ in silence with music, meditation
and dance.
Garita C. Stieber
& Michael Sapp (Germany)
The longing and hunger for truth carried Garita
C. Stieber from her study of
modern dance via continuous furthering education
deeper and deeper into the
practise of meditation.
Since winter 2003 the musician and composer Michael Sapp put himself out
for
the "Dance Of The Heart" and many joint
and wonderful danceritual concerts
and workshops came into being.
(for more information; LINKS; www.tanzdesherzens.de)
************************
“Contact-Stories”
In this class we will search for the story in the
improvisation. After a common beginning, we will
spread up into groups, using with different movement
ideas. Over giving feedback, about what do I feel,
what do I see, where does the story goes, we will find
the essence of the meeting in improvisation, including
the influences of space and circumstances. Every group
can decide to find a special place, inside or outside
the building, work with props or costumes, to give
their story another layer.
Gaby Koch
(Germany)
is dancing since she was 5 years old.
She is movement pedagoge. After Ballett, Gymnastics
und Modern Dance, she discovered her passion for
Contemporary Dance and Contactimprovisation. Since
1995 she worked as a free-lanced dancer an sd
choreographer in many productions. She teaches
Contemporary Dance and Contactimprovisation since
1997.
***************
Attila DÓRA (
Composer and performer
Why search in Plato, if saxophone can reveal another
world? (Cioran)
I had studied math and philosophy and graduated ’buddhist teologist’ in ’The
Gate of Knowledge’ college in
tenorsax, prepared trumpet and build recycled sound
installation with low-fi
electronics.
Some people call my style ’free improvised music’,
others say it’s
’conceptual noise structures
using chance-operations’. As in the concept of
’no-self’ from buddhist
tradition, I say thinking of categories makes
trouble. I say both notations depending on different days. I
focus on
stepping across a border, or standing on the borderline. I
improvise.
In recent years I often work and perform with dancers Eszter Gal, Daniel
Lepkoff (usa), Oleg Soulimenko, Angela Doni (rus), Eva Karczag (nl), Benno
Voorham and Sybrig Doekter (S), Szilvi Szephegyi; with fine artist Zsolt
Koroknai and video artist Jozsef
Bartha (ro).
I was invited by Eszter Gal
and conducted a ’dance and music’ workshop with
Toshi Makahira and Zsolt Sores in Contact-Budapest-2004 festival.
***************
„Dance in Colour“
(translation follows)
Es wird durch die
Bewegung in eine Visualisierungsübung hindurch Bewegungen auf Papier und Board
umgesetzt.
Eine Auswahl von Musik
bringt die Tänzer zu sich in ihre Körper und den gewohnten Umgang mit der
Sprache,
dabei werden dann
durch Pinsel und Farbe die Bewegungsimpulse weitergegeben und somit
langfristiger erlebbar gemacht.
Experimentell wird
neben einer Einführung in die Materialien und Malgrundlage gleich in einer
spielerischen Sprache
Weitergemacht, um
vom Körperbewusstsein gleich ins Bild zu sprechen.
Vorkenntnisse über
Farbe sind nicht erforderlich nur der Mut zum eigenen Statement kompromissloser
Ausdruck im Reich der Farbe .
Ein Kreis … in
Bewegung … Ausbruch ... Leichtigkeit ... sich tragen lassen ... eigenen Impuls
oder des Partners folgen.
Malerei ist - Contact - der Tanz sichtbare Spuren in Farbe
.
Ich freue mich auf Euch.
Susanne Rikus (Germany)
Bildende Künstlerin…
Dipl. Ing Architektur(FH), Studium der Geomantie
Axis Mundi,
Studium der
Hawaiianischen Körperarbeit bei Kahu Abraham, Kauai, Hawaii und im Institut Hawaii,München
Contact & Edam dance , Vancouver
Studium
Ausdruckstanz bei Ursula Wagner, Hannover
Studium bei Maria
Fisahn, Bundesakademie in Wolfenbüttel
Seit 1994 als
freischaffende Künstlerin tätig in Malerei und Events, internationale
Vertretung durch Galerien,
über 70
Ausstellungen darunter Peru, Lima, Vancouver und Hawaii. Ich lebe in der Mönchemühle in Höxter
(weitere
Informationen: www.susannerikus.de)