5th Annual
Philadelphia Contact Improvisation Weekend
February 15-16, 2003
Featuring
Chris Aiken, Eric Schoefer, Leah Stein, and Yvonne Meier
Presented by Philadelphia Dance Projects
Classes Performance Jams

Classes and Jams on Saturday and Sunday. Performance workshop and showing on Saturday. The weekend is open to all dancers; no experience is necessary. The Christ Church Neighborhood House has two large spaces suitable for CI. It is located in Old City, a lively downtown historic district of art galleries, restaurants, theaters and stores. For registration and housing information, see below.

Schedule of Events

Saturday, February 16, all events at Christ Church Neighborhood House, Old City
10:00a Registration and Opening Circle
10:30a - 12:30p Eric Schoefer “before we fly ,we have to land”
This class focuses on the basic practices of break-falling, weight sharing, practicing techniques for rolling, starting from Bartenieff Fundamentals of release and horizontal initiation. The class will move through classic Contact rules progressing through some Akido and Capoeira movements beginning to apply these and rolling techniques to the Contact duet.

Chris Aiken "Diving In/Opening Out"

This class is for dancers who have been practicing contact for awhile and would like to find ways to deepen into the form and to join this practice to the art of improvising. We will look for ways to stretch ourselves both physically and emotionally working towards being more present in our dancing.
2:30p - 3:30p Chris Aiken Contact/Improv and Performance

How does contact improvisation inform our performance
practice? How can we integrate our sensing, our feeling, and our poetic imagination while dancing in relation to one another, the audience, the space and the unfolding composition ? We will practice the cinemagraphic use of the mind as a way of cultivating the aesthetic experience of ourselves with the audience. Participants will perform (informally) Saturday evening before the Jam.

Leah Stein Anticipating the Unknown
(for all ranges of CI experience) Further adventures in the culture of freedom, exploration and physicality - seeking the limitless discoveries to be made through directed and non-directed dances with another person. The weaving of known and unknown in Contact is to be able to begin to tap into the unknown with focus and intention and openess all at once, sparked with energy and playfulness.

3:30p - 5:30p Open Jam
7:00p - 9:00p

Informal showing of Chris Aiken's Workshop Group
Jam with the guest artists
Sunday, February 17
11:00a - 12:30p Skinner Releasing Workshop with Yvonne Meier
(Susan Hess Studio, 2030 Sansom St. Center City)
A great way to recupe from Saturday and prep for Sunday’s Jam. Using special Skinner Releasing designed imagery, participants will work in stillness and movement releasing extra tension and aligning their bodies with gravity and counter balance. This process allows one to see into the body, the very essential tool for improvisation.
2:00p - 5:00p Jam with the guest artists & Closing Circle
(Christ Church Neighborhood House)

CHRIS AIKEN is one of the leading teachers and performers internationally of dance improvisation as a performing art and the practice of contact improvisation. He has been presented by many of the major dance presenters in the United States including the Walker Art Center, Jacob’s Pillow, and Dance Theater Workshop. He is a 1999 Guggenhiem Fellowship recipient and is currently on Faculty at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

ERIC SCHOEFER co founder of Scrap performance collective and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival is a dancer/choreographer based on Philadelphia. Winner of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (’99) he has studied Akido,Capoeira and Yoga and improvised in performance with Andrew Hardwood and Simone Forti among others. He teaches CI at Susan Hess Modern Dance.

LEAH STEIN is co-founder of the PDP Contact Improv Festivals. She is known for her unique site specific dance work which was cited in 2001 as “Best of the Festival” Edinburgh Fringe. Director of Leah Stein Dance Company she also teaches CI and modern dance at Swarthmore College and UArts.

YVONNE MEIER was born in Zurich, Switzerland. Since arriving in NYC ‘79 she has shown work at the Kitchen, Danspace Project, PS 122, PS1 and Lincoln Center, as well as across the US and Europe. She won a “Bessie” New York Dance & Performance Award for her work “The Shining.” She has taught Skinner Releasing work for 20 years through Movement Research, NYC and at other major dance centers in Arnhem, Chisenhale and London among others.

Registration/Fees

Full weekend $40
Classes and Jams $10 each

To register, please contact Terry Fox by email, pdpproject-at-aol.com, or phone, 215-676-1540.

Housing

If you would like to stay with local contact improvisers who are hosting visitors from out of town, please let Terry know when you register.

Philadelphia Dance Projects
c/o Philadanco
9 N. Philadanco Way
Philadelphia PA 19104 USA
215-676-1540
fax 856-697-4364
pdpproject@aol.com

Philadelphia Dance Projects gratefully acknowledges support in 2002-03 season from funders: The Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, The Samuel S. Fels Fund, The PA Council on the Arts, the GPCA 5 County Arts Fund, Dance Advance Program of the Pew Charitable Trusts administerd by Drexel University, The Vineland School District and our partners Philadanco, Film at The Prince, Olney High School and Susan Hess Modern Dance.

Philadelphia contact jams are the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of every month, 3:00 pm - 5:00pm. For more info, click here. This page is maintained by Chris Deephouse, deep-at-contactimprov.net.