Upcoming Events
For dancers, actors, choreographers, CI practitioners, teachers, healers, coaches, martial artists, and anyone else curious about the LBMS system, becoming more literate with your own body, and more capable when working with the movement of others.
This intensive will provide an introduction to the LBMS system with a spotlight on one of the most expressive aspects of the system: Shape - how the body changes, and expresses through, its sculptural form. We'll start each session with a warm-up based on Bartenieff Fundamentals, establishing connectivity through improvised movement using developmental patterns. Then, we'll explore the aspects of the LBMS Shape category: Shape Qualities, the Modes of Shape Change, Shape Forms, and Shape Flow Support. We'll distinguish their unique qualities, explore their associated meanings, and practice specific applications. We'll work solo and with partners (touch optional).
By the end of the intensive, you'll have a solid understanding of Shape and where it fits within the LBMS system, as well as new tools for bringing the richness of Shape to your moving life.
Open to all experience levels. No prior training or skill is required.
Info/registration: https://tinyurl.com/LBMS-intro-shape
The West Coast Contact Improvisation Jam at the Finnish Hall in Berkeley.
Class: Origins of Impulse
How do we make decisions in a dance? Are we driven by the memory of a past movement or shape? A feeling? A desire? Something that intrigues or amuses us? In this class, we'll bring awareness to what lies underneath our impulses in order to expand beyond our habits. We'll also play with the rhythms of conscious and subconscious control, and their relationship to the receptive state of following.More info: https://www.wccijam.org/
The California Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange (CalCITE) is an annual gathering of experienced and aspiring teachers who are invested in teaching, researching, sharing, and developing Contact Improvisation (CI) and related practices. It is held over 3 days at the Finnish Hall in Berkeley, California.
More info: https://interkinected.org/calcite/
This incredible festival offers a week-long dive into the dance form of Contact Improvisation, featuring intensive workshops, classes, labs, and jams, led by 15 international teachers.
Intensive: Where to Go from Here
This intensive assumes that participants are already comfortable with the fundamental techniques of contact improvisation: maintaining a point of contact, entering and leaving the floor, supporting and being supported, and sensing weight and momentum. It then builds upon these techniques to explore three topics that can greatly increase the level of detail in one's dancing: full body/mind availability, impulsive decision making, and options for interaction.More info: https://www.contactfestival.de/english/festival/festival.htm
The complex movement of contact improvisation is supported by developmental movement patterns, templates for efficient activation of our neuromuscular systems. When these patterns function well within us, our dancing is fluid, strong, and effortless. When they are missing or underdeveloped, certain movements feel awkward, unstable, or risky. And since movement is a psychophysical process, weak patterns are often associated with aspects of our personalities or identities that could use support.
This workshop will explore the Patterns of Total Body Connectivity (PTBC's), developed by Peggy Hackney out of Bartenieff Fundamentals and Laban Movement Analysis.
Understanding these patterns provides the "secret sauce" to delicious dancing, allowing us to tap into the right pattern at the right time to support whatever movement we're doing. With practice, it becomes subconscious and automatic.
In addition, the patterns serve as a kind of map, helping us understand what we do really well and revealing patterns that are less familiar, so that we can eventually integrate them into our repertoire and reclaim abilities (and movements) that might have been previously unavailable to us.
Each day will start with a warm-up using the PTBC's, then progress into playing with the patterns and learning how to identify them within ourselves and others. Finally, we'll explore how we can use the patterns functionally and creatively within our dances in and out of contact.
More info: https://motionlab.cologne/brenton-cheng