Contact meets Contemporary 2017

In July 2017, I attended the Contact meets Contemporary dance festival in Göttingen, Germany. It’s a week long festival for contact improvisation with contemporary dance elements – people with backgrounds in either dance form – or both, attend the festival which gives it ‘an edge’. I kept a dance diary and recorded my experience and thoughts – presented here.

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Water Contact & Fascia Motion in a Warm Water Pool with Daniel Werner

This workshop was on Saturday 29 July; part of Contact meets Contemporary 2017.

I am suspended, weightless in the water. What a relief! It’s good to be off the ground: after five days of dancing at this festival, I have a swollen knee from the impact of the hard floor of the Felix-Klein Gymnasium!

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Dust off effort – Revealing non-doing through touch & movement with Dino Spiri

This workshop was on Saturday 29 July; part of Contact meets Contemporary 2017.

The workshop could be paraphrased as: doing more with less. Aspects of it resonate with Steve Paxton’s notion of the small dance.

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Contemporary Dance Intensive – Session 4 with Olivia Court-Mesa & Yochai Ginton

This workshop was on Saturday 29 July; the fourth of four linked sessions at Contact meets Contemporary 2017.

The final session of the Contemporary Dance intensive;  thoughts about learning; and the differences between contemporary dance and contact improvisation.

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Intertwined Marketplace Performance with Markus Hoft

This performance and its workshop was on Friday 28 July; part of Contact meets Contemporary 2017. The public performance entitled “Intertwined”, was in Göttingen’s marketplace.

This was exciting and a challenge: a two hour workshop leading to a public dance performance. Is it possible? Yes! And it was fun!

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Contemporary Dance Intensive – Session 3 with Olivia Court-Mesa & Yochai Ginton

This workshop was on Friday 28 July; the third of four linked sessions at Contact meets Contemporary 2017.

Walk awhile. Now stand. Press your hands to your face, to move the skin: feel the surface, your hair, and move your jaw with your hands.

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The Gap with Ali Schwartz

This workshop was on Thursday 27 July; part of Contact meets Contemporary 2017.

We arrive at the workshop: shake, and dance freely – disco. The song Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye is playing: Baby, I think I’m capsizing, the waves are rising, and rising, and when I get that feeling, I want sexual healing …

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