***SCHEDULE***

Monday, June 10

Monday, 9:00-9:50--Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP), facilitated by Donnella Wood
Developed by Barbara Dilly in the 1970s, CDP combines aspects of sitting meditation and dance improvisation. You are welcome to bring a pillow for sitting meditation. Doors open at 8:30am, feel free to arrive early to settle in.
~ arrival – name and CDP information
~ sitting meditation – being here and now
~ personal awareness practice – also known as warm up or time attending to self
~ open space – time to sense ourselves in relation to others, sometimes moving and other times witnessing the movers
~ group reflection – sharing experience

Monday, 10:00-12:30--Emily Jones and Hannah Krafcik, Under-Dancing
In this class, we will explore how the skills used in under-dancing translate into moments of loft and flight. We will work with structural attention, sloughing, tension, space making, and release. We will consider the floor not only as a place of retreat and refuge, but a site of power and platform for imaginative choice-making. We will prioritize returning to mid-level from floor and standing work, finding innovative transitions that do not compromise our joints all the while. This class is facilitated from a queer lens and involves rigorous consent and labbing.

Emily Jones (she/they) is a choreographer, dancer, movement teacher and bodyworker based in Portland, Oregon. Emily is an Axis Syllabus teacher and finds inspiration in the ways the application of information from biomechanics, physics and physiology can foster agency and inform movement possibilities for dancing bodies. Emily is invested in the upholding of clear consent practices in spaces of learning and collaboration.

Hannah Krafcik (they/them) is a Portland-based interdisciplinary neuroqueer dancer, new media artist and writer. They regularly facilitate Contact Improvisation and Queer Contemporary dance classes from a queer lens.

Monday, 2:00-3:30--[Al]lison Sabrie Dozet, Embodied Sound Making :: Vocal Improvisation With(in) Contact
Centering p l a y, we generate spontaneous soundscapes: exploring dynamic noise-making, breath awareness, and deep listening as practices directly expanding our capacities for improvised partnered movement. All are welcome!

[Al]lison Sabrie Dozet (all pronouns) is an E X P R E S S i O N garden(er), composer, dancer, & inter-ecstatic designer tending to ::: connection-centric sound-making, vocalization, poetics, performance, collection, & generative time/space cultivation. Existentially devoted to the record keeping of perceived reality, they prioritize metaconscious exploration, liberation movement(s), & queer intimacy with the earth as home/self/U(S). 

Monday, 4:00-5:30--Donnella Wood & Eric Nordstrom, The Ground of Connection
In Contact, we are expanding our body to include the other person through our shared experience of ground.  In essence we become a shared organism whose field of awareness dynamically influences other.  What enlivens our capacity to feel oneself through/and other?  Together we explore how gravity, touch, and experiential anatomy can awaken qualities of attention that support our ability to feel and be felt.

Donnella Wood (she/they) is a Somatic Movement Therapist, Movement Educator, Laban Bartenieff Movement Analyst, dancer, and Licensed Professional Counselor who specializes in trauma healing. For over 25 years she has supported individuals in enlivening their connection to their body. Her work is informed by her study of developmental movement, experiential anatomy, Somatic Experiencing, Gravity & Space, Authentic Movement, and meditation. She has a private practice in Portland, Oregon.

Eric Nordstrom (he/him) is a dance performer, instructor, and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He currently teaches dance at Lewis and Clark College, having previously instructed at Contact Festival Freiburg (Germany), Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, and Conduit Dance (Portland). www.eric-nordstrom.com

Monday, 7:00-9:30--Contact Improvisation Jam!!! Live music by Jetty Swart (Jet Black Pearl).

Tuesday, June 11

Tuesday, 9:00-9:50--Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP), facilitated by Mali Jarvis
Developed by Barbara Dilly in the 1970s, CDP combines aspects of sitting meditation and dance improvisation. You are welcome to bring a pillow for sitting meditation. Doors open at 8:30am, feel free to arrive early to settle in.
~ arrival – name and CDP information
~ sitting meditation – being here and now
~ personal awareness practice – also known as warm up or time attending to self
~ open space – time to sense ourselves in relation to others, sometimes moving and other times witnessing the movers
~ group reflection – sharing experience

Tuesday, 10:00-12:30--Mali Jarvis, Meditation, Unwinding, and Listening Touch
We will explore the 4 postures of meditation: sitting, walking, standing, and lying down with a focus on tuning somatic awarenesses to deepen the possibility of presence and a pleasurable embodiment experience. We will also explore “unwinding” and “listening touch”. This class is mostly a slow, solo, internal, preparatory series of guided practices helpful for creating foundational safety in CI from establishing self connection and sensitivity/listening. Could include some gentle bodywork or partner work in the later half. Influences for this class include: Zen practice, Steve Paxton, Body-mind centering, Visionary Craniosacral work, Continuum Movement, you, me, and the moment when it happens :)

Mali Jarvis (she/her) is a movement, meditation, bodywork practitioner and teacher based in Ashland, Oregon. She has been practicing Contact Improvisation for 17 years.  For more about Mali www.malijarvis.com/aboutmali

Tuesday, 2:00-3:30--Quinn Gumbiner, Landscape of Support
This workshop will integrate fundamental concepts of CI and floorwork to investigate how the forms inform each other. We will find softens in our connection with the ground and explore how this translates to our dances with others.

Quinn Gumbiner (they/them) is a dancer, movement educator and bodyworker currently based in Portland, OR. They received their BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase College and enjoy integrating their background in contemporary dance, various movement forms and other body based modalities into their teaching. 

Tuesday, 4:00-5:30--Lee Hull, Contact in translation
We spend so much of our lives moving through the world on autopilot, going through rote motions with habitual patterning. Contact improvisation is an extremely versatile movement practice that offers alternatives to this mundane programming. This workshop is a new take on some of the fundamentals of Contact Improvisation that will dive into technique and theory with a specific focus on how this practice can be translated to our lives off the dance floor and how we can use our lives outside the studio to inform our explorations. We will be working with questions like: How can we enrich our experience in our day to day lives with the tools that contact improvisation has to offer? How can we inhabit our own bodies in ways that are true to our own needs and desires and not just what is prescribed? How can we deepen our connection to the people around us when we make contact with more intention? How can we take the questions we are grappling with in the outside world and process them through movement? How can we move through spaces in a way that is allowing us to enjoy the journey and not just focus on the destination.

Leland Hull (he/him/they/them ) discovered CI in 2005 while attending Oberlin College and has been practicing ever since. He finds the richest lessons while teaching and loves to engage with the form from both a physical and psychological standpoint. He seeks to delve into the deep lineage of CI while simultaneously charting a new and evolving course for the dance form to follow.

Tuesday, 5:30-6:15--check in time
How's the festival going for you? This is a time to talk in small groups, connecting with participants and festival teachers. Then come together in a larger group to share our experiences, challenges, and joys from the week.

Tuesday, 7:00-9:30--Contact Improvisation Jam!!! Live music by Steven Skolnik.

Wednesday, June 12

Wednesday, 9:00-9:50--Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP), facilitated by Selena La Brooy
Developed by Barbara Dilly in the 1970s, CDP combines aspects of sitting meditation and dance improvisation. You are welcome to bring a pillow for sitting meditation. Doors open at 8:30am, feel free to arrive early to settle in.
~ arrival – name and CDP information
~ sitting meditation – being here and now
~ personal awareness practice – also known as warm up or time attending to self
~ open space – time to sense ourselves in relation to others, sometimes moving and other times witnessing the movers
~ group reflection – sharing experience

Wednesday, 10:00-12:30--Nathaniel Holder and Mary Rose, Action Theater: Embodied Imagination
We'll explore physical, vocal, and verbal expression, tuning in to sensation and our inherent connection with imagination in order to create improvisations that are alive with the truth and oddities of existence.

Mary Rose (she/they) and Nathaniel Holder (he/him) are long-time collaborators with shared practices in contact improvisation dance as well as Action Theater improvisation. Action Theater improvisation has its roots in physical theater, dance, and meditation. Through tuning in to sensory experience, practitioners hone awareness of the moment and respond with movement, sounding, and speech, tapping into the body’s deep conversation with the imagination. They are currently exploring the cross sections between these two favorite practices and are excited to share what they are discovering with participants in the festival. For more about them, see their website at www.portlandactiontheater.com

Wednesday, 2:00-3:30--Lui Gervais, Conscious Curious Contact
This physical workshop dives into the consciousness of contact. How do we use our minds as we dance? We float in a state of continual curiosity. We surrender our personal agendas as we listen intently to the rolling point of contact. That shared consciousness allows a source of intelligence to channel through and animate our bodies. As we evolve our abilities to listen, surrender and remain curious, our dancing also evolves.

Lui Gervais (he/him) is a somatic facilitator bridging the worlds of improvisation and interpersonal exploration. A life long dancer and improvisor, MFA in Dance from the UW and founder of the Embodied Institute, www.embodiedinstitute.com.

Wednesday, 4:00-5:30--Carolyn Stuart, WHAT IF........... ?
Improvisation is infinite. Contact is finite. We'll explore options for immediate use at the point of contact- if this, if that.

Carolyn Stuart has been following the Touchmonkey limb of CI for 40 years and counting, continually trusting the unfolding path therein. Her greatest teacher has been the immediate process of exploring with others- what are we doing, why, and what else is possible? Her current focus of interest is in Weird (non-habitual) Contact and CI as model for a new world that cares for all. www.contactgames.wordpress.com

WEDNESDAY REST EVENING / TEACHER MEETING 6:00-8:00PM, meet in front of the Village Ballroom.

Thursday, June 13

Thursday, 9:00-9:50--Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP), facilitated by Mali Jarvis
Developed by Barbara Dilly in the 1970s, CDP combines aspects of sitting meditation and dance improvisation. You are welcome to bring a pillow for sitting meditation. Doors open at 8:30am, feel free to arrive early to settle in.
~ arrival – name and CDP information
~ sitting meditation – being here and now
~ personal awareness practice – also known as warm up or time attending to self
~ open space – time to sense ourselves in relation to others, sometimes moving and other times witnessing the movers
~ group reflection – sharing experience

Thursday, 10:00-12:30--Selena La Brooy, Anatomy meets experiential curiosity…
1 part anatomy class + 2 parts improvised curiosity. In this workshop we explore anchors, levers and landing pads that support surprising opportunities. We will explore how these can help us in making dynamic invitations and lifts as well honing our listening skills to non verbal consent negotiations.

Selena La Brooy (she/her) is an anatomy nerd, certified rolfer and somatic movement integration practitioner which inform her approach to teaching. Some of her most influential teachers have been Martin Keogh, Kira Kirsch, Frey Faust, Andrew Harwood, Anjelika Doniy, Karl Frost, Alicia Grayson, Nita Little, Ida Rolf and Monica Caspari. She is most passionate about ways to make contact improvisation playful and accessible to all bodies by empowering choice, inviting deep listening and inspiring perpetual curiosity into what else is possible. She is fascinated by habits, pattern-interrupting and choice making.

She is a core member of the Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation community, Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival and the founder of Rhizome Springs, a community project hosting multi-day Contact Improvisation festivals and intensives on the unceded terrtories of the Hul’Q’Umi’Num and Sencoten speaking people where she is grateful to work, live, teach and play.

Thursday, 2:00-3:30--Aaron Finbloom, Playing with Composition & Aesthetics
We'll be playing with structures, forms and games that are all about composition, following/leading, visual dynamics. We'll make little scores/art pieces with partners and in small groups.

Aaron Finbloom identifies as a philosophical polytheist, devoted to exploring and worshipping divine frameworks related to: art, play, listening, healing, curiosity, and structure. He is the co-founder of The School of Making Thinking (SMT) and the director of The Deep Play Institute (DPI), has training in Circling, Psychodrama, Buddhist Meditation and Processwork and holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University in Montreal.

Thursday, 4:00-5:30--Stuart Phillips, knowing your bounds
This CI class sufficiently explores our potentially unexplored psycho-emotional aspects within specific interrelational movement We’ll dive deep into our internal landscape whilst relating, our unknown, unexpected, surprising aspects of physical & energetic relating, exploring how these experiences affect & change us, as we confront more uncomfortable, yet exciting & relieving/relevent mental/emotional truisms We’ll gently choose partners with highly intuitional guidance that potentially trigger our patterns, giving us ample opportunity to move through any stuck internal places with the help of exact experiential awareness This guided process is meant to enhance our personal evolution/development quickly & safely

Stuart Phillips (me) dances CI as a healing process for over 40 years, teaching, performing & researching said form worldwide. www.stulips.org

Thursday, 5:30-6:15--check in time
How's the festival going for you? This is a time to talk in small groups, connecting with participants and festival teachers. Then come together in a larger group to share our experiences, challenges, and joys from the week.

Thursday, 7:00-9:30--Kathryn Frey, Intuitive Movement
In Intuitive Movement, I bring together my training in dance, yoga, and meditation to create a space for anyone who is curious to move, likes to breathe, and become more embodied in dance and in life.

Kathryn Frey (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, dancer, writer, and teacher based in Portland, OR.

---OR---

Thursday, 7:00-9:00--Contact Improv Jam
Baker building, 5511 N Albina Ave—NOT AT THE VILLAGE BALLROOM

• This jam is led by Autumn Amor and Kris Young (drowssap@eml.cc)

• The jam is an open, informal space to which dancers of all types and backgrounds are invited to explore their bodies in a kinesthetic relationship to other bodies.

• Cost: $12, or free with your ALL IN PASS.

Friday, June 14

Friday, 9:00-9:50--Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP), , facilitated by Eric Nordstrom
Developed by Barbara Dilly in the 1970s, CDP combines aspects of sitting meditation and dance improvisation. You are welcome to bring a pillow for sitting meditation. Doors open at 8:30am, feel free to arrive early to settle in.
~ arrival – name and CDP information
~ sitting meditation – being here and now
~ personal awareness practice – also known as warm up or time attending to self
~ open space – time to sense ourselves in relation to others, sometimes moving and other times witnessing the movers
~ group reflection – sharing experience

Friday, 10:00-12:30--Marie Osterman, It’s My Party and I’ll CI if I Want To: play and “pranks” in Contact Improv
Compassionate Mischief:rascalry and againstness as tools to cultivate connection and trust. How do we cultivate compassionate mischief? We will work with elements of collision, influence, and PLAY! Comfort with falling and weight sharing is recommended.

Marie Osterman (they/she) is a performer, teaching artist, and community organizer working in intersecting fields of contact improvisation, theatre, and dance, based currently in Los Angeles. Their own teaching in Contact Improv focuses on empowerment through play, community-building, emergent strategy, and chaos. Other passions include pleasure activism, birds, Shakespeare, and pointing out the moon. (have you seen it? it's huge!!) 

Friday, 2:00-3:30--ara oshin, Experiments in Sensing with ara oshin
can you dance from the contact of your bones? can you sense the desire of the air around you? where does the floor ask you to go? we will practice deepening our attunement through guided practice influenced by the Feldenkrais Method.

ara oshin (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist and facilitator. ara creates in clay, fiber, photography, movement, shared experience, land relating and more. ara explores somatic integration and discovery at the conceptual edge between inner world and outer body. 

Friday, 4:00-5:30--Kris Young, Ascending the Human Ladder
We'll explore several steps of the human ladder, as well as different ways to adjust the height of that ladder. For those interested in seeing themselves dance, there will be a videographer joining us.

Kris has been dancing Contact Improv for 15 years, primarily on the West Coast (Boulder, Seattle, & San Francisco). Before finding Contact he studied Ballroom dance as well as Capoeira. Both his teaching and dance styles center on an understanding of basic concepts  while choosing not to be unnecessarily limited or weighed down by them. From that starting place he trains muscle memory, and listens for cues initiate unlikely explorations, like last season’s penguin inspired workshop.
He co-facilitates the Thursday night Contact Jam at the Baker building, and is an active member of the Drip & Nectar Fusion dance communities.

Friday, 7:00-9:30--Performance and Jam.
Performance with fest teachers followed by a closing night jam! Included with your ALL IN PASS, or sliding scale $30-$15.

Festival organizer: Eric Nordstrom

A BIG thank you to the PDX CI +/- Fest Steering Committee: Nathaniel Holder, Lee Hull, Mary Rose, Carolyn Stuart, and Kris Young