Port Townsend CI Jam — December 2024

Contact Improvisation Jam at Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, WA.

December 18–22, 2024 (Wednesday evening–Sunday morning) with daily labs, jams and classes.

Full jam cost: $275 (before October 15; $350 afterwards) + housing. Day options available.

Also available: Pre-jam workshop, Wednesday December 18th from 1-4pm, $30.

For more information and to register: www.porttownsendjam.org 

July Contact Improvisational Therapeutic Dance Workshop

Contact Improvisational Therapeutic Dance Workshop w/Stuart Phillips

Sat-Sun,  July 20-21, 2024, 12-3pm both days

Hive Studio, 10632 Rhody Dr, Port Hadlock-Irondale, WA 98339

This CI Therapeutic Dance Workshop explores our potentially unexplored psycho-emotional aspects within specific interrelational connections

We’ll dive deep into our internal landscape whilst relating, our unknown, unexpected, surprising aspects of physical & energetic relating, exploring how these experiences affect and change us, as we confront the uncomfortable, yet exciting, and relieving personal mental/emotional truisms.

We’ll gently choose partners with highly intuitional guidance that potentially trigger our patterns, giving us ample chance to move through any stuck internal places with the help of exact experiential awareness.

This guided movement process is meant to enhance our personal evolution/development quickly and safely.

All levels welcome.

To hold space, send US$90-$110 to stulipss@hotmail.com using Paypal (send "friends & family") or Venmo to stuart phillips-@stuart-phillips-18, stulipss@gmail.com, 5412218062.

Canadians can etransfer to stulipss@gmail.com in appropriate correlated US/CA dollar amount.

WISE transfer available if need, inquire if most appropriate.

Stuart Phillips has danced CI as a healing process for over 40 years, teaching, performing, and researching the form worldwide. More information at Stulips.org. 

March/April Contact Improv with Sheila Skemp

March and April "Beginner's Mind" CI workshop 3-week series

AND ONE DAY INTENSIVE March 3

All levels and Beginners welcome!

2024 CI Workshops with Sheila Skemp

 2024 CI Workshops with Sheila Skemp

2024 Contact Improv Workshops with Nita Little

Emergent Practices in Contact Improvisation 2024       

for Intermediate to Advanced CI dancers

with Nita Little

14 weeks/2 sessions         

Session 1: Jan 13 - Feb 24  

Session 2: Mar 2 - Apr 13 

SATURDAYS  10-12:30 at Open Flight Studio

For more information and registration:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdyVICOa6Tg_jbJbRTnKvQUSDji0F_db-N654LlA_aNHRynhg/viewform?fbclid=IwAR2g10QJjes29faZaS-ynOSbvu0u1fBZd1vbBEtlHug061tJy_F-9BBt9uk&pli=1

2023 Seattle Contact Improv Events

May 5 – 9
Flying to Zen 3 to 5 Day Retreat with Scott Wells
Vashon Island

July 19 at 12 PM – July 23 at 2 PM
Orcas Island Jam 

July 16 – August 13
SEATTLE FESTIVAL OF DANCE + IMPROVISATION

In Portland, OR:

May 26 – 29 Jams and a workshop

In BC, Canada: 

April 28 – 30
Western Canada Contact Improvisation Festival
Vancouver, BC

May 19 at 8 AM – May 21 at 11 PM
Jam Into The Spring 2023
Salt Spring Island, BC

July 16 – 24
Material For the Spine with Nora Hajos
Lasqueti Island, BC

For ongoing jams, see 2023 Seattle CI Jam Update.

Olympia Contact Improvisation Workshop With Martin Keogh

From Martin's Seattle Workshop April 2014.
Photo by Carol Wiley

Saturday and Sunday
January 10 and 11, 2015
From 1 to 5 PM each day
Sliding scale: $95 - $185

Martin Keogh (from whom I have take multiple workshops and who I highly recommend) will teach an all-level workshop that starts with the fundamentals of Contact Improvisation: 

• the contact point, 
• weight sharing, 
• pathways into the floor and into the air, and 
• finding the root of levity. 

There will be special emphasis on releasing the neck and pelvis and surprising yourself in flight and extended follow-through.

Complete information on the Facebook page or email Rudra at ranvari0 (at) gmail.com.

For more about Martin, visit his website. 
 

CI Workshop with Stuart Phillips Sat & Sun, December 14-15, 2013

Exploring the Intuitional Body, Creating Relational Dance as Deep Personal Metaphor

What Am I Doing? Where Am I Going? What Is Happening Now?What Happens Next? Who Am I Really?

1) Guidance into where we source from.
2) How we influence our choices in the moment. What is our long range focus?
3) How does viewing perspective of the moment inform outcome?
4) How do we choose this particular arrangement? What can we get rid of to stay completely real all the time?
5) How dance informs & defines our experience, our self identity, our self empowerment.

Open to All.

Bio: Stuart Phillips is & has been devotionally performing & teaching Improvisational Contact Dance for over 26 years throughout the US, Canada & New Zealand, with a European tour in late fall 2013. More about Stuart at www.Stulip6.wix.com/Stulips.

Sat & Sun, December 14-15, 2013, 10a-3p both days

Light Center, 10609 19th Ave SW, Seattle WA 98146

To register, send $90-$100, by Paypal to stulips@hotmail.com

Contact Improvisation Workshop with Cyrus Khambatta Oct 17 - Nov 21, 2013

Contact Improv and Contemporary 6-Week Series with Cyrus Khambatta

Partnering with All Parts
Contact Improvisation
New Fall Series
Oct. 11-Nov. 15
6 Weeks in West Seattle

Each Thursday 6:30-8:30pm

MORE INFO: www.phffft.org/Fall2012ci.html

This workshop series combines elements of contact improvisation (CI) with other partnering methods to create new and activate underutilized pathways in the body-to-body dialogue that are intuitive. Beginning with Cyrus' own release-based "fitting" technique, we will work with developing an awareness of the miniscule shifts in the concave and convex surface and architecture of two bodies. The "fitting" both calms the nervous system and provides an infinitely more complex and complete sensory road map to a partner's body that we use as we learn to move through the air and surf more quickly across bodies.

Facilitated by Cyrus Khambatta

Cyrus has over 25 years teaching experience with CI and contemporary dance. This workshop is from Cyrus' latest teaching tour through Europe. A sensitive teacher, Cyrus creates a progressive learning arc, enabling students to be challenged at a comfortable pace with great skill accumulation.

Cost $100-$240 sliding scale
$25 deposit due by Oct. 5, remainder at first class.

For more information, email CYRUS (at) phffft.org. or call 206-607-7537

Make check out to Phffft! Mail to 5609 34th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98126
or call/email for credit card payment options. Series takes place at above address.

Participants also receive 10% off the Centrum jam Dec. 13-16, 2012. Inquire at www.phffft.org/centrumjam.html.

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.

Contact Improv Workshop on Whidbey Island

Contact Improvisation As Healing Art:
Workshop & Performance with Stu Philips
Friday, March 2, 2012, 6:30-8:30pm: CI Performance/Beginning Demo & Lesson
and
Saturday, March 3, 11-4pm: Workshop

Workshop consists of methods of being, particularly with self, and extending those out when “interacting” with others, by deconstructing, undermining and bypassing easily our usual or known mental and physical patterns, and allowing our true/real raw emotional energy to transform our dance movement, as well as ourselves, through behaviorally articulating who we are in aligning with how we are, perfectly.

Stu will lead an introduction with performance and participatory elements for anyBODY on Friday evening. Saturday’s workshop will go into depth researching and practicing the healing potentials of the art of Contact Improvisation: dancing in physical (and other means of) contact with others.

Stu Phillips is a Professional Contact Improvisational Dance Performer and Teacher of more than 24 years, teaching and performing throughout the U.S., Canada and New Zealand, also teaching and performing Improvisational Dance and Theater for 30 years throughout US. The focus is full expression, tuning to emotional and energetic reality constantly in personal flows, portraying that onto students with gentle psychic sensitivity. He is based in Eugene, Oregon.

Suggested Donation: $10-15 (at door) for Friday
$50-60 (at door) for Saturday
Work Exchange also available.

The workshop takes pace at Butopia and SOMA: Sanctuary of Moving Arts on Whidbey Island in Freeland, WA 98260. For more information, contact Maureen Freehill at momo (at) butopia.net or (206) 855-5836.

Contact Improvisation & Meditation Workshop

with Alicia Grayson & Greg Burdulis

October 2 & 3, 2010, Seattle, WA

This workshop offers new ways to enhance and vitalize our dancing and
meditation practices. With meditation we strengthen our ability to care for
ourselves, open to greater levels of subtlety, and refine how we use our
mental and physical energy. Cultivating the classic mediation skills of
mindfulness, concentration, right effort and metta we create an optimal
environment for creativity and connection to self and others.

With mindfulness as our foundation we explore the principles of
CI by entering into states of deep listening that give rise to safe,
spherical, fluid and delightful movement. We also cover important CI skills,
such as following the point of contact, giving and receiving weight with
ease and using momentum.

We invite you to discover how these two mutually supportive
practices generate clarity, creativity and courage on the cushion, on the
dance floor and in your life.

All levels of experience with contact improvisation and meditation are
welcome.

Workshop Schedule:

Saturday Oct 2, 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Sunday, Oct 3, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Fees for Workshop:

Register before Sep 16: $130 - $250
Register after Sep 16: $170 - $340
Registration: Checks Payable to Phffft

Contact: Cyrus Khambatta
Email: Cyrus (at) Phffft.org

Location:
Grassroots Studio 5609 34th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98126
(please park on 35th Ave not 34th)

Alicia Grayson has had a love affair with CI for 22 years and has been
teaching for 16. Her long time practices of meditation, authentic movement,
yoga and Pilates significantly influence her dancing and teaching.
Meditation and movement practices are vital aspects of her daily life. She
teaches CI, yoga and Pilates in Boulder, CO and CI throughout the US and
Europe. She is a member of Tumblebones Contact Improvisation Collective.
www.tumblebones.com.

Greg Burdulis has taught Vipassana Meditation in Burma, Thailand and the US.
After seven years as an ordained monk in Burma he returned to lay life to
share his insights. He practices CI because of its emphasis on listening,
spontaneity, and light effort. He considers it his liveliest form of
meditation. Greg holds an MA in spirituality and has experience as a
chaplain, mountaineering instructor, storyteller and performer and
mindfulness facilitator in corporations. www.gregthemonk.net.

THE SOMATICS OF CONNECTION: Fundamentals of Contact Improvisation

A Weekend PLAYshop with Nala Walla
so•ma•tic (soh•mah•tick) adj. Of or pertaining to the psycho-biological system [from Greek SOMA: "the living body in its wholeness."]

As the pace of techno-industrial society races ever faster, the needs our bodies are often overlooked, creating disconnection from our own flesh and from our communities. This class reaffirms both our basic rights and our innate capacities to feel our bodies deeply. Through a series of simple exercises and games, we will focus on the sensations of healing connection offered by partnering with breath, with gravity, with earth, and with others.

A deep exploration of fundamentals makes this class suitable for both first-timers seeking basic skills in contact dance, and experienced practitioners seeking to deepen their practice, as well as anyone seeking to feel more "in their body."

Please bring comfortable clothing (no sharp buckles, clasps, zippers or spangles) and a willingness to play.

Somatics of Connection: Fundamentals of Contact Improvisation
Weekend PLAYshop
October 2-3, 2010
Saturday 12-3, Sunday 12-3
LOCATION: Madrona Mindbody Institute, Port Townsend, WA
COST: Sliding scale $85 - $65 for weekend--trades are available (arrange with Nala)
PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED: by September 20th at Madrona Mindbody Institute

Contact Improvisation Workshop - Nov 6-8

Contact Improvisation Workshop with
internationally-renowned teachers
Eckhard Müller & Daniela Schwartz

SETTLING INTO THE CONSTANT ACT OF CHANGE
a workshop for experienced Contact Improvisors

November 6-8, 2009
Friday 6-9pm :: Saturday & Sunday Noon-5pm
University of Washington Dance Program, Meany Hall Studio 267
Sliding scale $160–180 if paid in full by October 30, 2009. After 10/30/09, $185–205 if space is available.

Info/registration: Dance Art Group

::

Engaging us at a body/mind level, this workshop invites us to embrace the unexpected with comfort and acceptance in order to inhabit our body in the present moment, allowing the movement flow to emerge from the dance as we let it take us into the three-dimensionality of space. We will develop the relationship to the ground revealing the strength and possibilities of our structure as we increase a feeling of lightness and freedom and train our ability to modulate the tone of our body as a response to the momentary needs of the dance. For dancers with at least three years' CI experience.

::

Eckhard Müller fell in love with Contact Improvisation in 1988. He has collaborated with many improvisers in research and performance groups to develop his understanding of “instant composition” as an art form. He has been teaching CI since 1994 to theatres, dance companies, schools and dance centers worldwide. As a dancer he has worked for choreographers Mark Tompkins, David Zambrano and others. He is co-founder of the dance theatre company Dégadézo in Strasbourg, France, using improvisation to create set pieces. Eckhard has been active in building “contact communities” in Freiburg and Strasbourg, and supporting others all over the world. He is co-founder of the contactfestival freiburg, a major CI event. In 2006 he developed SKIN, an interdisciplinary and interactive performance project occurring in Germany, Argentina, France, Uruguay and Switzerland, in collaboration with Daniela Schwartz.

Daniela Schwartz (Argentina/France) has been a dancer, performer and teacher of Contact Improvisation and Instant Composition since 1998. She graduated in Fine Arts from Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, and has taught with Eckhard Müller to diverse companies, festivals and institutions in South America and beyond. She has created several works as a member of the dance theater Cie Dégadézo, and has taught at Theater Pôle Sud, Ecole Municipale de Danse, Theatre National, and CIRA in Strasbourg. Years of fine art studies, video creation, installations, performances and the artistic aspects of the body inform her physical practice and intellectual research.

Beyond the Threshold - Contact Improv Workshops

Beyond the Threshold: Seattle International Dance Festival includes contact improv workshops with Mirva Birgitta Mäkinen (Finland) and Claire Filmon (France). Contact Cyrus Khambatta for information.

Contact FUNdamentals Workshop April 4-5

Contact FUNdamentals Workshop
Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask
Sat / Sun April 4th & 5th

Co-facilitated by Cyrus Khambatta and Michal Lahav


Cost: $80-$140 sliding scale if check received by March 25, $90-$150 afterwards.
Single day $50-$80 sliding scale.

Send check made out to The Phffft! Company
mail to 5609 34th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98126.
For more info, email cyrus@PHFFFT.org

Deepen your understanding of essential movement principles —
weight sharing, rolling, falling, balancing, and spiraling. We
begin to engage, explore and integrate the world of contact dance
using fun, enriching and satisfying exercises that are simple and accessible
to beginner/intermediate students. Your questions will help
form the class so feel free to write them and email them to us
or bring them with you.

Contact Improvisation with Gretchen Spiro and Steve Homsher - Jan. 31 - Feb. 1

CONTACT IMPROVISATION: Reaching into Flight
with Gretchen Spiro and Steve Homsher (CO)
Sat. Jan. 31/Sun. Feb. 1
1-5pm (both days)

Develop key principles of flight:
Extension
Timing
Leading/trailing
Dynamic support
Harnessing momentum

The two day workshop will explore the space where physical practice meets poetic states. Gretchen and Steve will focus on cultivating effortless flight and support while broadening the palette of creative expression grounded in the body.

Gretchen Spiro comes to Contact Improvisation with 25 years of experience. Her CI teaching is informed by 18 years of yoga teaching and practice, her training as a Dance/Movement therapist, and work as a Gyrotonic trainer. She is the founder of Tumblebones Contact Improvisation Collective, based in Boulder, CO. Her teaching is rich with metaphor, humor, and fiery enthusiasm.

Steve Homsher is an avid CI teacher and performer, and dances with Tumblebones CI Collective. Steve studied martial arts (Kendo) for 10 years, gymnastics, mime, ballet, and performed aerial dance for 6 years. In addition to a day job as a carpenter, Steve is a professional visual artist. Steve teaches with clarity, precision, and passion for cultivating efficient strength and effortless release.

Cost: $85-$120, sliding scale if paid by January 25, 2009; $95-$130 afterwards. Please write checks to Phffft! Company, Inc. and mail to 609 34th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98126. To pay by credit card, email for directions

Question? E-mail contact Cyrus Khambatta or call 206.935.0459.

Seattle Contact Improv Workshop with Karl Frost

The Human Contact Project
with Karl Frost
director of Body Research

Seattle, WA
February 28 - March 1, weekend workshop
March 2-4, extended workshop moving into performance research

The Human Contact Project explores the improvisational play of human contact, developing deeper sensitivities to physical detail and a sense of the poetic play of human encounter.

We look afresh at the art of contact improvisation, asking what is happening in a moment, what are the physical possibilities open to us, and what is the feeling that drives us.

We increase moment-to-moment functional awareness through tuning into proprioception - our physical experience of the body - allowing for greater ease, speed, and power. Through releasing patterns of hyper-control, we find dense, rich awareness of and participation in human interaction.

We look at our sense of meaning in movement… a sense of the poetics of interaction, whether in kinesthetics and physics or in the poetry of sensation, emotion, and experienced image.

We explore these through exercises and through an approach to the contact jam that actively invites in the sense of the collaborative poetic as well as layered awareness of self/other/group.

Fees: $150 - $250 sliding scale for the weekend and $300 - $500 for the Full 5 day workshop. Early registration discount for registration received by February 14 -- $120 for the weekend and $240 for the week.

To register, send deposit ($50 for the weekend/$75 for the 5 days) to Karl Frost 6547 Whitney St, Oakland, CA 94609 or paypal to info@bodyresearch.org

For more details, www.bodyresearch.org/humancontact