Human Moves. Berlin Workshop

Human Moves. 

20/01/2024 13.00-17.00

Contact Improvisation. Open level workshop.

This workshop will be both technical and experiential - concentrating on building up a functional understanding of underlying physical principles and structures of contact improvisation whilst also widening the trust to ones instincts, impulses and intuition. ��The principal themes behind the work are organic, fluid and functional movement. Effortless transitions. Efficiency. Sequentiality. �

The sessions develop slowly from inside to out, heading towards more technical material. Often starting with individual floor-work, offering particular principles and tasks, and then gradually build up to standing using the natural spirals of the body.  Material alternates between contact and solo tasks and exercises that connect the group as a whole, creating an open, safe environment to explore. The focus is on cultivating a deeper awareness of listening, breathing, giving, receiving, and timing.

Within specific exercises we explore tools that are helpful to work in contact: sharing weight, center-to-center, leaning and supporting, rolling point of contact. Also using ideas around momentum, suspension, inertia & falling. To find effortless ways into weight transfers and lifting, leading and following, falling and spiralling...�Time is also given towork with dance-scores, which allows participants to get into the flow of their own movement, giving time and space to integrate the learnt technique into their dance.

Biography:

Hugh is a Contemporary Dance Artist specialising in Floorwork & Contact Improvisation. He has over 15 years of  teaching & performance experience. He began dancing when he was 15, training in Break dance and Contemporary. He went on to train at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2008. Since then he has worked with companies such as 2Faced Dance, Tom Dale, STAN Won’t Dance, and Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez. 

He has taught internationally at the Goa Contact Festival, Goa Dance residency, Thailand Contact and ecstatic arts festival, Berlin contact festival and Portugal Contact festival and for National Dance company Wales (NDCW) as well as organising his own workshops and retreats in Portugal, Germany and Israel. 

Within his teaching practice he combines his experience in Breakdance, Contemporary and Contact Improvisation to create a highly physical, technical and intuitive  approach to movement exploration. 

He is also a qualified TMW (Tai Chi Movements for Wellbeing) facilitator. The principles of Tai Chi and Qi Kung underpin his approach to teaching and sharing movement.

Workshop price: Sliding scale 30-45€