Seattle Contact Improv Workshop:March 17-18, 2012

Human Contact: Explorations in the art of Contact Improvisation
A weekend workshop with Karl Frost
March 17-18, 2012 at Grass Roots Studio, 5609 34th Av SW in West Seattle

Contact Improv is an open ended investigation of bodies moving through contact. There are no rules and no one technique defines the practice, but within it are a plethora of techniques, practices, and studies. This workshop looks at the intersections of the emotional body and the physical body and of solo movement exploration and contact improvisation. We’ll borrow perspectives from somatic-psychology and paratheatrical work to explore

• moving from the emotional body
• mindfulness in movement
• personal and transpersonal material
• letting go of the ‘social self’ to move deeper layers
• the balance of using the mind and letting go of the mind
• cultivating supportive presence that allows us all to get a bit more vulnerable and exposed in our movement explorations
• taking everything that inch farther that turns it into something new
• looking into the self for an embodied poetics that transcends self

Warm ups will be based in a fusion of chi gung, simple yoga asana and mindfulness practicesto help us drop in. We’ll also mix in a bit of contact technique to support our explorations of an embodied sense of meaning in movement.

Mind work, Body work, and some sweat!

Saturday 12-6 / Sunday 2:30-8
$150 - $250 sliding scale
**$110 early enrollment by March 9**
to register, visit the web site at http://www.bodyresearch.org/workshops/seattlefeb.shtml or email Body Research at info (at) bodyresearch.org

Karl Frost, director of Body Research Performance, has been exploring and teaching Contact Improvisation since the late 80s. His teaching and performance work has been showcased in over 20 countries on 5 continents. His work focusses on the somatic experience of life and incorporates postdramatic performance works for the stage and participatory performance events that question who we are and how we choose to live with each other. His performance work, Axolotl, in which the audience is blindfolded for 2 hours, has been performed over 70 times in 20 cities. He is currently a grad student at UC Davis, where he recently completed his MFA in Choreography and where he currently pursues a PhD in Ecology, with an emphasis in Human Ecology and Cultural Evolution.