Join us and create a composition for the Garden Dance on the afternoon of Saturday 29 September. We invite all dancers – ideally with some experience of contact improvisation – to participate and create a moving flowing sculpture. We’d love to work with you all on this, and offer two workshops including one for dancers with no experience of contact improvisation technique.
To take part in the Garden Dance then please attend the Garden Dance Composition Workshop on Sunday 23 September – details below. Also, there’s a Contact Refresher & Introduction to Contact Improvisation on Sunday 19 September for those with little or no experience of dancing contact improvisation but wanting to take part – details below too.
The Turrill Sculpture Garden is in the garden of Summertown Library in Oxford.
Garden Dance Composition Workshop
When: 23 September from 12:30-16:00
Where: Multi-Purpose Room (in basement), Oxford University Club11 Mansfield Road, OX1 3UB Oxford, Oxfordshire.
Cost: Free but email Oxford Contact Dance (contact@contactdance.org). Note: you must also participate in the Garden Dance.
We’ll use 1.2 meter wooden poles as a compositional device in this dance. The actual ‘stage’ is a small round area of grass so we’ll have these geometric shapes – lines and a circle – along with the movement of our dance with which to create a score/composition. The artistic director is Andrew Wood.
Please wear loose clothing and bring a water bottle. The actual performance is at the Turrill Sculpture garden (which is the garden of the Summertown library, Oxford) on Saturday 29 September (from 2pm for 1 hour).
The painting shown is by Wassily Kandinsky which we take as an inspiration. He said:
“At that time [~1904 – 1905] I tried, by means of lines and by distribution of mottled points of colours to express the musical spirit of Russia. Other pictures of that period reflected the contradictions and later the eccentricities of Russia.”
Note: If you have no experience of dancing contact improvisation and wish to participate in the Garden Dance then please join our Contact Refresher (1-4pm) on Sunday 16 September(below) which is free if you intend to participate in the Garden Dance or otherwise £10 if not.
Contact Refresher & Introduction to Contact Improvisation
When: 16 September from 13:00-16:00
Where: Multi-Purpose Room (in basement), Oxford University Club11 Mansfield Road, OX1 3UB Oxford, Oxfordshire.
Cost: Free if you intend to participate in the Garden Dance or otherwise £10. Note: Experience dancers may attend without charge to assist with the teaching and learning.
Class for beginners in dancing contact improvisation or those wanting a refresher (1-3pm with dance session ‘jam’ 3-4 pm).
Contact improvisation is a dance which originated in the 1970’s and which has now spread throughout the world. It’s often taught in university dance courses but it’s easy to learn and fun. It’s an improvised dance – a dialogue in movement – which has a fluid and dynamic form.
If you have little or no experience of dancing contact improvisation and wish to participate in the Garden Dance then please join this workshop. You’ll also need to attend the Composition Workshop(see above) to dance in the Garden Dance.
Please wear loose clothing and bring a water bottle. The teacher is Andrew Wood.
Facebook event for this: https://www.facebook.com/events/2243080609309577/
Notes
Top/ Featured Photo: Painting by Wassily Kandinsky (from pixelsnipper https://www.flickr.com/photos/89375755@N00/ under a Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) licence)