2024
1st & 3rd Sundays

9/1/24 Joint Spiraling, Tracking, & Trios w/ Patrick Crowley
Beginning with deep somatic nourishment through releasing neurological tension in the joints, we practice tracking in various ways and explore a few lifts. We accumulate our skills into…TRIOS!

9/15/24 Falling Behind w/ Sarah Young
Supported by a Feldenkrais®-based beginning, we'll delve into the vast space behind us. Relieved of a reliance on visual input, we will tune our back surfaces for orienting. When not expecting to recreate forward motion in a backwards direction, what becomes interesting? What becomes possible as we access more of the spherical space available for dancing? 

Sarah Young is a dance artist living in Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S. and at Ponderosa Tanzland in Stolzenhagen, Germany. She has collaborated and performed with Nancy Stark Smith, David Dorfman, Jill Sigman, Hilary Easton, Chris Aiken, Stephan Koplowitz, Alexx Shilling & Ann Robideaux, Stefanie Nelson, Sidra Bell, Paul Singh, Shura Baryshnikov, Janice Lancaster, and the Treehouse Shakers. In recent years, she’s been most engaged in research inspired by Nancy Stark Smith, especially the Underscore and Nancy’s “States of Grace.” She has been a coordinator of the Global Underscore since 2020 and part of the Underscore +/- research group in Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S. since 2013. She participated in the Underscore-based performance installation, Glimpse 2, at 92nd Street Y, NYC in 2014. She is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner, former director of Earthdance in Plainfield, Massachusetts, and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Morocco. She received her B.F.A. in dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2003.
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Once a month Patrick Crowley teaches the contact improvisation class, and once a month he curates other teachers who hold and convey Contact Improvisation with a comprehensive depth. Contact @ the Dojo began in Oct 2021, meeting 2 Sundays a month.

Dojo comes from “Do-”, a variation of Tao/Dao (the way) and “jo” (immersive learning space).

CLASS  (general description)

A broad range of Contact Improvisation will be explored — states, skills, scores/Underscore, artistic practice, life learnings.

In Contact @ the Dojo, dancers play with movement pathways in contact with a partner — in relationship with gravity, momentum, inertia, and friction. We work with ease and natural tone in our tissues and neurology. We explore rolling, falling, and flying in CI with the safety of mats as our floor. 

The slow and subtle brings us to the big and enthusiastic, and vice versa. Centering, perception, integrated body, solo/follow/lead/3rd entity, reflexes, experimentation, readiness, rigor, heart, awareness, and enlivening will all be in the mix.

January Workshop 2012 © Emily BowmanJAM
The jam will be open space to play and practice — with music and possible structure/warm-up.

For those experienced and new to CI, honoring different abilities. ~10–25 people. Please read Health safety agreements: gist — come w/ no symptoms. Please arrive a little early.

What is Contact Improvisation?

WHERE: Aikido of Northampton 30 N Maple St, #14, Florence, MA 01062
(Park in parking lot to right of building. Come in entrance in parking lot. Go in and upstairs to right.)
 

REGISTRATION & PAYMENT (sliding scale: abundant–regular–low) 

Class & Jam (3:00–6:00 pm): $35–$30–$25 

Just Class (3:00 pm) or just Jam (4:30 pm): $25–$20–$15

If unemployed or student, please contact Patrick about other discounts.

Make Payment

Dojo Etiquette:

• Take shoes off outside the door
• Bow to space when entering & exiting.
• Hygiene & what to wear: bathe that day. Clean feet, cut & filed toenails. Wash or sanitize hands upon entering. Wear pants that are free to move in — no belts. Little/no jewelry, no belt buckles.

Other Info:

• Please come early (5-15 min) to leave enough time (for finding the Dojo, parking, settling in the space, and making payment if you haven’t).
• The Dojo is in the center of Florence: 30 N Maple St, #14, Florence, MA 01062. Upstairs.
• Health safety: come with no symptoms; no exposure to someone with illness in the last 3 days. Health safety agreements
• Here is my approach to CI. 
• Be ready. The class can be quite physical and there is a lot input, in a number of ways. You may not be able to do everything so you can always modify and/or witness/take breaks. 
• Bathrooms are downstairs to right.

INFO & QUESTIONS:  Email, (617) 320-9792
 

Aikido of Northampton Dojo © Emily Bowman