CONTACT @ the DOJO
Contact Improvisation (CI) class & jam
Mixed level, open to beginners and advanced
Gabrielle Revlock and Kristin EttingerAikido Dojo, Florence MA 2024
2026
1st & 3rd Sundays
2/15 Neige Christenson
3/1 Patrick Crowley & Erica Skye Roper
3/15 Lani Nahele
4/5 Patrick Crowley
4/19 Sarah Young
5/3 Patrick Crowley
5/17 Rythea Lee
3:00–6:00 pm
3:00 Class, 4:30 Jam
Feb 15: Creaturely Curiosity! w/ Neige Christenson
We will focus on waking up receptivity in our legs and explore how they can be as useful as our arms in tracking and connecting with our partner. This often leads to duets that are refreshingly whimsical and surprising. What wonderful things can this marvelous eight-legged creature do?!
Neige Christenson, MA has enjoyed over 40 years of exploring, teaching and performing Contact Improvisation, supported and enriched by the practice of Authentic Movement. She holds an MA in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University, and is a graduate of the National Theater Institute and Smith College. She offers workshops and private coaching in Contact Improvisation; for many years she supported the CI
dance events in Boston and the CI programming at Earthdance, and has recently moved to Montague, MA. Central to her approach to teaching is an appreciation for the way a Contact Improvisation duet can be a metaphor for human relationship, yet also be an abstract expression of life-force energy. Her teaching encourages opening the improvisational mind and body to full presence and connection with self and other. Performance and dance portraits can be found here: Her writings on the improvised life and our relationship to this earth have appeared in Contact Quarterly; The Sun magazine; Fire in the Womb: Mothers and Creativity; and Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring our Place in the Natural World.
CONTACT @ THE DOJO
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 twice a month on Sundays.
Dojo comes from “Do-”, a variation of Tao/Dao (the way) and “jo” (immersive learning space)
Teachers: Aaron Cantor, Chisa Hidaka, Chris Aiken, Danny Lepkoff, Erica Skye Roper, Frieda Kipar Bay, Funda Gul, Gabi Revlock, Jeff Bliss, Lani Nahele, Lilianna Kane, Neige Christenson, Patrick Crowley, Paula Choi Lionetta, Rythea Lee, Sarah Young
3-4:30 pm 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 weight, 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 the mats as our floor.
The slow and subtle brings us to the big and enthusiastic, and vice versa. Center, perception, integrated body, solo/follow/lead/3rd entity, reflexes, experimentation, readiness, rigor, heart, awareness, and enlivening will all be in the mix.
Please arrive a little early. Most people who come for class stay for the jam.
January Workshop 2012 © Emily Bowman4:30-6 pm JAM
The jam will be open space to play and practice — with some music and possible structure/warm-up.
For those experienced and new to CI, honoring different abilities. ~10–25 people. BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ welcoming. Please come w/ no symptoms: Health safety agreements.
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.)
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.
Aikido of Northampton Dojo © Emily Bowman