TEACHING
I approach Teaching and facilitation from a perspective that focuses on deep listening and attuned sensitivity. Paying specific attention to how correct alignment and an embodied understanding of biomechanics can deepen the understanding and enjoyment of the body in movement.
Presently, what interests me most about teaching and facilitating movement is how to create and hold space for others to find a deeper connection within themselves through playful exploration. Whether it is Improvisation, Contact Improvisation, or a Floor-work class, the focus and intention lies in finding the joy and power of a movement practice connected to presence, awareness and breath.
FLOOR WORK
From my own experience of training the body throughout my career, I offer classes that are predominantly focused towards finding efficiency and economy in movement pathways. Drawing on Somatic practices, developmental movement patterns, Floor-work and breakdance techniques, and working with a combination of choreographed exercises & improvisation. Allowing the dancing body to deepen its own innate intelligence. This helps greatly with expanding creative enjoyment of moving and also with building strength, stamina and resilience. Additionally, I find this approach helps with injury prevention and finding a deeper source of creativity.
The principle aims of the training are:
-
To cultivate awareness and intelligence in the body/mind.
-
To provide tools to help the a mover deal - both physically and mentally - with the intense stresses of working as a professional within the dance and movement education world.
-
Softly but deeply warming the body from the core to the extremities to prepare for personal or collaborative creative processes.
Developing an inquisitive mind and body.
The idea is to ask questions in movement such as - How can this fit my body best? How can I find the easiest or most efficient way to achieve the proposed movement material?
The classes can Dynamic, highly physical and technically demanding, whilst encouraging freedom of movement.
Sessions can be delivered singularly, but are best experienced as a series of five 90-120 minute sessions.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION
Contact Improvisation is a movement practice in which the point of contact between two or more people forms the basis of a movement exploration.
The practice explores the moving body in relation to weight, momentum and gravity (amongst other things).
Rolling, falling, pouring, suspending, spiralling and a multitude of other movements arise and are explored in a dance in which listening and awareness of sensation are central themes in which the form arises from the content.
Contact was ‘pointed out’ (his words) by Steve Paxton in 1974 whilst working with a group of gymnasts at Oberlin College in the U.S.A. and has since been developed around the world by the people who dance it.
Each person brings something new to it and its development has, been spread from person to person, each adding something to it and passing it on to the next.
I have been practicing Contact in different ways and forms since I began dancing, and I have been teaching, facilitating & organising events focused on the practice for the past 10 years.
My approach
In Contact my approach is 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.
HUGH & VEGA
CO-TEACHING
With Vega Luukkonen
For the past 9 years I have been Dancing, collaborating and co-teaching with my dear friend and colleague Vega Luukkonen. Our approach and methodology has developed gradually, and we have formed a very clear communicable way to share the specific principles that underpin our dance.
We met in 2014 in Goa and began dancing together in a jam at the Goa Contact festival. It was love at first dance! From that moment we began jamming and dancing everyday for about a month. These first dances were the beginning of a creative journey that developed into a deep and ever ongoing research of how to share the rich and beautifully diverse practice of contact improvisation.
Noticing the differing skill sets we both have developed throughout our artistic careers and the striking similarities, and how these complemented so well in the dance, we wanted to find a way to communicate and share with others in a fun, explorative and accessible way this clear, natural way to move together that we were having so much fun exploring together.
Our first collaborative classes were at the Berlin Contact festival that summer, and from there we began to offer intensives at festivals to develop our work.
Our pedagogical approach began to take shape and become clearer with each project, and in 2019 we decided to offer our own week-long intensive in Portugal to go deeper into our practice and how we hold spaces for learning and improvisation.
We have now been collaborating for 9 years. Over this time we have created a very clear lexicon that is unique to our approach to the form of C.I. And we are now offering a year long modular training to go into more depth and detail of our approach.
As well as the interest in the practice of C.I. We both also have an interest in Bodywork and somatics that serves to find ease and softness in the dancing.
TAI CHI MOVEMENTS FOR WELLBEING
Movement is the key to Wellbeing
A unique movement, meditation and self-care practice for life-long health and wellbeing
TMW is an easy-to-learn sequence of movements, the culmination of decades of experience, in one proven, simplified package.
With origins in both Tai Chi and Qi Kung the TMW sequence distils elements of these arts into a simplified and accessible form.
Founded in 2009 by Richard Farmer and Dr David Quinn, TMW is a sequence of movements drawn from the core principles of Tai Chi and Qi Gong. The sequence provides an accessible vehicle to promote wellbeing, vitality and health.
TMW’s approach uses movement to put participants in touch with the fundamental qualities, which aid wellbeing; Presence, relaxation and flow, connection to the self, and an understanding of body/mind mechanics.
“TMW offers a unique embodied approach to gentle exercise, mental wellbeing and health related goal setting. Its modular style means that it can be adapted to any group or individual programme with a clear and immediate benefit.”
Dr David Quinn.
