CONTACT @ the DOJO
Contact Improvisation (CI) class & jam
Mixed level, open to beginners and advanced
Photo by Emily Bowman
2023
1st & 3rd Sundays
3:00–6:00 pm
3:00 Class, 4:30 Jam.
Teachers for class:
9/17 Patrick Crowley
10/1 Jeff Bliss
10/15 Paula Choi Lionetto
11/5 Gabi Revlock
11/19 Patrick Crowley
12/3 Sarah Young
12/17 Patrick Crowley
CLASS
December 3 Gentle Power w/ Sarah Young
With curiosity and clarity, we'll explore ways to access a spectrum of force and agility through attentive use of the eyes, hands, limbs, and pelvis. Through level changes, inversions, and weight exchanges, we'll follow the delight of the dance!
Sarah Young has been dancing Contact Improvisation for 20+ years, and has been studying, performing, and teaching numerous styles of dance since her earliest days. She’s collaborated with and performed for Nancy Stark Smith, Chris Aiken, David Dorfman, Jill Sigman, Hilary Easton, Stephan Koplowitz, Alexx Shilling & Ann Robideaux, Dana Salisbury, and the Treehouse Shakers. She’s inspired by Nancy Stark Smith’s research and is part of the Northampton Underscore +/- Group, has co-coordinated the Global Underscore since 2020, and participated in the Underscore-based performance installation, GLIMPSE 2, NYC 2014. She is a former Director of Earthdance Creative Living Project, a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer/Morocco, and has a BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and Stolzenhagen, Germany.
General description of class & jam:
Once a month, I am excited to curate 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).
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, inertia of motion, solo/lead/follow, reflexes, experimentation, readiness, rigor, heart, 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. Please arrive a little early.
What is Contact Improvisation?
(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. Wear pants that are free to move in — no belts. Cut and filed toenails. Little or no jewelry, no belt buckles. Wash or sanitize hands upon entering.
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 COVID in the last 5 days. Health safety agreements
- Here is my approach to CI. https://patrickcrowley.net/whatiscontactimprovisation.
- 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