How do dancers touch in Contact Improvisation?
How we touch is concerned with how we relate to the world, how receptive we are to our feelings, energy and emotions and how we communicate our needs, limits and desires.
The Touch Training introduces a vocabulary of Listening, Light and Deep touch techniques, which I have developed through investigating how dancers touch in Contact Improvisation. In the training we re-apply these techniques in dance with more awareness in CI partnering, contemporary phrases, bodywork and composition play. The training covers themes of gravity, differentiating tone, fluidity, momentum, spirals, fascia and flight in which touch is explored as an eco-somatic and empathic sense-maker. We will explore the development of structural bonds that can support best alignment, balance, integrity, intimacy and sensual forms of expression. The training represents a unique opportunity to enhance your dance and communication skills.
The Vocabulary of Touch essentially represents an outcome of my background training in Contact Improvisation and Somatic practices, including Body Mind Centering, Skinner Release Technique, Authentic Movement, Axis Syllabus, and a PhD project that researched how touch enables encounters with Otherness and the vocabulary of touch applied and experienced in Contact Improvisation. Resources from these sources will be provided during the training.
This year The Touch Training will be taught as an Intensive Workshop over 9 days
1st -10th September 10.00-17.00 (with Saturday 6th as a day off)
Since the Training is seperated into 3 modules. Module 1. on Listening Touch, Module 2. on Light Touch and Module 3. on Deep Touch. You can sign up for days 1-3, 3-6, 7-9 or for the progressive journey.
Taster Workshop 14th June 10.30-13.00 followed by a Lunchtime Talk in which I will share about my PhD research findings 13.30-14.30pm.
The talk is free to attend and the workshop costs €35 which will be discounted for participants signing up to the full September training.
All at Tanzfabrik, Möckernstrasse 68, 10965 Berlin, Studio 3
Sign up below for the Early Bird €600. Offer ends March 1st.
The price includes in-person teaching, resources and personal 1-to-1 feedback sessions. Full Course (3 weekends): €660-900, Single modules: €240-300
Deposit per module: €100. Installment plans can be arranged.
September 9 day Intensive: €660-900.
Thank you!
If you have questions please also use the contact form.
Rosalind Holgate Smith (UK) is Dance Artist, Choreographer & Somatic Educator based in Berlin. As a CI teacher of over 15 years, she incorporates approaches from Body-Mind Centering, Skinner Release Technique, Authentic movement, martial arts and her practice of dancing outdoors, in water, with trees and with raw matter, including soil. Over the past 4 years she has been working on a PhD, investigating Touch as an encounter with Otherness and the Vocabulary of touch used in Contact, the touch training represents an outcome of this research.
with assisting guest teachers