The core of this contact improvisation workshop is a queer love centered survival practice of time travel/communion/habitat/performance/ritual where everything deserves to breathe. Drawing from our individual and collective identities, CI research, and choreographic research we dive into the possibilities of what rigorous and playful contact improvisation can be. We will work with different qualities/types of touch, intention and impact, technical skill building, falling and falling together, bonding/grappling/napping/fainting, soul shaking practices, professing love, failure, and hot sweaty dancing. We will work in different constellations including solo, duet, trio, small group, and whole group. We will take on contact improvisation as a generous and high-risk practice. We will build skills for navigating around that which has potential to be fatal. We will work with a kind of bonding that is only possible through bathing in one another’s sweat. We will keep re-inventing ways to be wet and pleased. The central questions of our research are: What can we do together that we cannot do alone? How many ways can we move – move with – be moved by – each other? What is possible when love is stronger than fear?

We will practice taking care as we traverse the complex realities of being racialized and gendered bodies in relationship with one another. This will be a queer, trans, and BIPoC centered space.

Photo of the artists by Tim Richards

Within our own creative process, how can we attune to our personal inspirations and impulses without all the noise? I’m finding the importance of rigorous mindfulness, relating to how our internal landscape supports our external landscape as well as our physical body. In this workshop we will be focusing on the creative process as enhanced by mindfulness, meditation, play, and present moment possibilities. We will debunk predictions, pull some tarot cards, laugh, eat a snack, talk about our obsessions and our intrigues. We’ll move somatically, improvisationally, rhythmically, and experimentally with and without noise. We will discuss recent developments in neuroscience that help us to understand how the brain processes pain and anxiety through the body. This scientific knowledge helps reinforce the power of mindfulness practices and lays the groundwork for self-compassion to enter one’s practice. If we intentionally create a state of wellbeing this week, what kind of work is possible? In this workshop there will be room for solo investigation and time to create some material to take with you.

Photo of the artist by Jenny May Peterson.

The political, cultural and social temperature of the present, together with elements such as personal history, that of the performers, human behavior and everything else, converge in my dances to shape the dense choreographic constellations I create. The nature of consciousness is unruly and fragmentary yet in our daily lives we are fueled by an unrealistic organizational mania. My work harnesses both qualities and favors neither. I make dances to advocate for the interrelatedness of all things and to give vision to the specific music of their relativity. I look to dance as a location of freedom, where specifics are melted into the illusory and dogma is eroded by the unending fountain of pluralism at the center of dance. The capaciousness of dance has taught me how to learn.
In this workshop, we will consider how movement and its manipulation can bring us to meaning production. What lurks behind the sign systems of body and shape that we can use to create layered choreographic statements? We will make work daily and use the material to examine foundational questions about where information emanates from in movement-based choreographies. What are we “reading” from a dance and how can we shape this? Central to this examination will be the use of time-sculpting, using velocity as a tool for making.
How can meaning be stable when time is constantly running forward. We will apply these questions into our work.

Photo of Tere’s choreographic work by Maria Bartanova

In “not about thing,” we will move, write, watch, listen, and probably have some discussions sitting in a circle–as happens in workshops, unless we figure out how to break the circle, if we feel it needs to be broken. We will look at how language and movement come together to create multiple layers of identity, resisting the constant pressure to have to be one thing, to work in one lane, or be limited by how we are categorized. We will unpack histories, put disparate things next to each other, and be kind to our discomfort and playful with the parts that don’t fit. We will “solve” some problems through sweating it out together, potentially lip syncing riot grrl songs, recreating post modern dances described by chat GPT, or whatever else is called forth into the space.

Photo of the artist by Jingzi Zhao

Each day of the Physical Education Workshop will be taught by a different member of P.E.

MON, Aug 5 | Curiosity Collection

with Allie Hankins

Allie is invested in the non-linear development of ideas when it comes to making performances. She tries to stay present with desire and dive into whatever strikes her fancy in the moment. So, let’s gather in a studio and briefly celebrate studio practices. We will likely dance/improvise, sing, write some things down, document things to revisit at some future time, and have some conversations. The workshop will continue to take shape between now and August and will be informed by Allie’s experiences dancing with ensembles, her step-aerobics expertise, her recent singing lessons, and her curiosities and where they meet yours.

TUE, Aug 6 | ~intricate tension~

with Lu Yim

In this class you can expect something slow, specific, and introverted as we explore a threshold between practice and performance. I will be guiding the class through somatic scores and pathways, based on an interest in experiencing time as a spatially dysphoric/dynamic entity.   

Together, we will take on the shape of an inverted funnel, attuning to almost-imperceptible expressions. We will play in a performative range that exists half-way under water.  

Most of class will be performed at ground level, with touch and non-touch options available for each score.

WED, Aug 7 | Surrender and Agency

with Takahiro Yamamoto

This workshop introduces breathing exercises and solo and group improvisational movement practice that utilizes metaphysical/spiritual trust and the commitment to surrender. At the end, group discussion will be held to explore participants’ physical experiences in relationship to their personal backgrounds. The idea of ‘post memory’ will be discussed – delving into the interconnectivity of things that we don’t know, things that we physically experience, and things that we don’t articulate. 

FRI, Aug 9 | divergent strategies 🙂

with keyon gaskin

Through guided personal explorations, group movement exercises and discussion; we will play with practices that explore the usefulness of our neuro/emotional-divergences, in our lives and performance making. Attempting to develop strategies that reframe our relationship to oft negatively coded aspects or hindrances like: anxiety, embarrassment, depression… Can we play with these aspects of our being and practices to use them to propel rather than stifle us and our making? All people interested in movement / performance welcome.

Photo of the artists by Mario Gallucci

This class will hone attention deep into the body’s interior and we will learn to work with the states that emerge.
We will explore what it means to be moved when we let go of our individual will to manifest outer shapes and tune into our dances using the tools of somatic awareness.
It will explore what it means to be moved through deep listening and to
be guided by sound and specific imagery. We will surrender ourselves to the richness of our present moments. My training
is rooted in butoh dance, physical theater, improvisation and music.
We will practice tuning into how the space, our body’s subtle energies and our  physical memories can move through us, heightening our internal listening and discovering what instincts we can entrust to go deeper.  We will practice both playfulness as well as pushing ourselves to our edge.We will hone our embodiment and observation, bearing witness to each other’s discoveries. In addition to dancers and performers, creative and curious people from all walks of life are welcome  including those with no movement experience.

Photo of the artist by Maria Baranova

During this workshop, participants will be introduced to the physical and archival research from the creative work of Black Collectivity. The workshop will begin with exercises to activate the senses and warm the body, including movement meditations, task based and improvisational exercises, as well as rhythm centered explorations. Class will be informed by Black archival practices within the performance project A Practice of Return. Participants will use movement to investigate their responses to these practices. Finally we will experiment with collaborative choreography as a tool to hold stories and memories that live within the body.

Led by Black Collectivity Artists: Nia-Amina Minor, Akoiya Harris, marco farroni

Photo of the artists by Chloe Collyer