3 days of
-workshops
-happenings
-discussions
-jams
Touch&Play MANIFESTO
We are planning our first major event, a Touch and Play Festival, the 30 of April, the 1st and 2nd of May, 2010 in Berlin. During this three day exploration we hope to invite the (European) contact community to come and investigate what it means to dance fully with the emotions and sensuality that we so often hold back to focus on our physical body. Through practical and theoretical work we hope to create a safe and consensual space to offer dancers the possibility to bring out and work on this less danced side of Contact. The festival will be hosted by schwelle7 / Berlin. schwelle 7 is directed by Felix Ruckert, a well known German Choreographer and artist, who for more than a decade has been studying the relationships between art and sexuality.
For the occasion the Schwelle7 dance-studio complex in the centre of Berlin will transform into a play and research centre, inviting people to let their full chemistry into their contact games and dances. The festival space will be divided into three separate areas each focussing on one of the following: Contact Improvisation, Chemistry or the Contact & Chemistry Synthesis. The CI zone will host daily beginners and advanced contact classes as well as Discussions on themes like: The evolution of contact in Europe, Chemistry in contact past/present/future and How to deal with sexuality in class and jam settings.
The sensual space will host a wide variety of workshops on Tantra, Tantric Yoga, sensual massage, BDSM and Love, Intimacy and sexuality.
In the Contact Chemistry Synthesis area we hope to create an investigative space where one can work on the synthesis of these two inevitably overlapping worlds. Amongst other things we will setup a constellation of Contact Improv, work with elements of play fighting, martial dance and deep contact, organize a group oil action event, look at and play with power structures in our duets and analyze the sexual politics of CI. During the evenings we will furthermore organize themed contact jams, create a sensual playground and offer an open laboratory space for participants to improvise and play in a secure surrounding.
As contact dancers we feel we are free to touch and play as we like yet we often go through great lengths to avoid our deeper sensations and emotions getting into our duets. Touch & Play offers a platform where we can safely and playfully explore emotional and sensual touch under the guiding eye of individuals who bring a world of knowledge and experience in addressing these themes.
We feel Contact Improvisation is as strong and interesting as it is diverse and would thus like to invite you to join us to discover the less danced sides of contact, to open up our dances and to let in our chemistry in all its forms.
If you're dancing physics, you're dancing contact. If you're dancing chemistry, you're doing something else. Steve Paxton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Paxton> (1987)
For the occasion the Schwelle7 dance-studio complex in the centre of Berlin will transform into a play and research centre, inviting people to let their full chemistry into their contact games and dances. The festival space will be divided into three separate areas each focussing on one of the following: Contact Improvisation, Chemistry or the Contact & Chemistry Synthesis. The CI zone will host daily beginners and advanced contact classes as well as Discussions on themes like: The evolution of contact in Europe, Chemistry in contact past/present/future and How to deal with sexuality in class and jam settings.
The sensual space will host a wide variety of workshops on Tantra, Tantric Yoga, sensual massage, BDSM and Love, Intimacy and sexuality.
In the Contact Chemistry Synthesis area we hope to create an investigative space where one can work on the synthesis of these two inevitably overlapping worlds. Amongst other things we will setup a constellation of Contact Improv, work with elements of play fighting, martial dance and deep contact, organize a group oil action event, look at and play with power structures in our duets and analyze the sexual politics of CI. During the evenings we will furthermore organize themed contact jams, create a sensual playground and offer an open laboratory space for participants to improvise and play in a secure surrounding.
As contact dancers we feel we are free to touch and play as we like yet we often go through great lengths to avoid our deeper sensations and emotions getting into our duets. Touch & Play offers a platform where we can safely and playfully explore emotional and sensual touch under the guiding eye of individuals who bring a world of knowledge and experience in addressing these themes.
We feel Contact Improvisation is as strong and interesting as it is diverse and would thus like to invite you to join us to discover the less danced sides of contact, to open up our dances and to let in our chemistry in all its forms.
If you're dancing physics, you're dancing contact. If you're dancing chemistry, you're doing something else. Steve Paxton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Paxton> (1987)
To move within physics is to realize your body. To dance with chemistry is to accept your soul. Combining both could be the most exhilarating thing you have ever done.
Touch & Play (Daniel, Hayes, 2010)
More: http://touchandplay.eu/
