MR Festival 2004: Improvisation is Hard select letter from the executive director program events improvisation classes and workshops ticket sales information participating studios and locations back to Festival general info classes and workshops held in conjunction with the festival workshops Pre-registration is strongly advised for all workshops: Send or deliver a deposit of half the workshop cost in advance to guarantee your place. Be prepared to complete your payment upon the start of the workshop itself. Refunds are available, less a $25 processing fee, up to two days before the start of the workshop. Requests must be made in writing to info@movementresearch.org at least 48 hours prior to workshop start. Simone Forti November 29 - December 3 (Monday-Friday) 4-7pm, Eden's Expressway $125 Logomotion We naturally weave together body language and the spoken word in order to understand and to communicate. In this dance/narrative workshop, we will cultivate this poetic, synergistic process. The work will include a warm-up practice to awaken our kinetic juices and mindfulness, and timed writings to put us in touch with our wild thoughts and observations. We will focus on improvisation, including exercises for perceptual and compositional awareness and for developing a natural and intuitive flow between our moving and our speaking, with surprise and delight. This workshop was funded, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of our 25th Anniversary Season Celebration. Andrew Harwood and Chris Aiken November 29 – December 3 (Monday – Friday) 10 – 2pm, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church $150 Seize the Moment This workshop dives deeply into dance improvisation as a performing art. It is for the experienced improviser/performer/teacher who wants to discover new ways to integrate fully realized physical states and movement imbued with emotionality. Our approach is to develop multiple points of view towards improvisational performance that move us towards an innate sense of composition, design and theatricality. We are interested in making decisive compositional choices from within the performance. This workshop integrates and goes beyond the realm of contact, and movement techniques leading us toward the creation of environments and performance states which allow for various journeys to unfold. All interested applicants must have a minimum of two years of ongoing experience in improvisation and must send a letter of motivation via email describing their interest and experience with this work. Please send to both Chris and Andrew at: caiken@ursinus.edu and a1harwood@aol.com by Friday, November 5. DD Dorvillier December 6 – 10 (Monday – Friday) 4 – 6pm, Eden's Expressway $100 Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) Skinner Releasing Technique integrates mind and body in the creative act of dancing. This workshop is a series of guided solo and partner investigations and exercises, using poetic imagery to create a rich experience of personal movement. Alignment, balance, autonomy of body parts and economy of movement are developed as we practice releasing tension patterns, preconceptions and fixed states of being. This workshop comprises the first week in the SRT Foundational training. classes Enrollment begins 30 minutes before class begins, and is on a first-come, first-served basis. Open to people of all levels of movement experience. Payment by cash or check. Contact Improvisation Jen Abrams December 1 & 8 (Wednesday) 6:45-9:30pm, Simone Forti Studio $12 per class Contact Improvisation is a partnering dance form. Skills such as rolling, releasing, giving and supporting weight, expanding range of spatial concentration, lifting, catching and falling help one move with and through gravity, share weight in motion and use momentum and flow in physical contact. These weekly classes, open to people of all levels of movement experience, are informed variously by the individual teaching artists. The Athletics of Intimacy, Improvisations K.J. Holmes December 4 & 11 (Saturday) 11am – 1pm, Movement Research at Eden's Expressway $12 per class Classes combine skills and practices of Contact Improvisation, applications of Body-Mind Centering® and tutoring of somatic improvisational approaches in solo, duet (strong emphasis on partnering) and ensemble dancing. I am interested in the very physical, the very sensorial and the very imaginative, and in discovering new challenges and risks within our movement.