Description du stage

What’s this skin we are in? When we touch - and are ‘touched’ - what kind of intensity is created? 

How we respond, or how much our physiology is able to respond, to sensation and to proprioception, is often due to what we call “tuning.” Is the body ready to receive? Curious? Playful? Contact Improvisation is a meeting between bodies that are dancing with the kinesthetic sense - tuning it, playing with it, and creating with it. 

Sometimes at jams, I look around and find myself wondering where the dancing is. Sometimes I see it, but often I see a lot of lifting and lying around. In these moments, I wonder, where is the dancing? For me, CI is an expansive creative and playful research ground for performing and practicing improvisational dance, either as a solo dancer or with others. CI gave me a whole new world of possibilities when I began practicing it as a young dancer and for the last 18 years dancing while improvising has been an ungoing study. Contact can be a way to deepen the art of improvisation. Contact taught me about kinesthetic states - the ability to use kinesthesia (our felt sense of movement) to  inspire different ways of moving, and to be in a state of flow while dancing. That moment when you feel like your sensations are leading you, and everything in the dance begins to make sense? That’s what I’m talking about. Tension masks sensation - so working with sensation can open many doors. Sensation can also free up creativity, tune us to the previously unperceivable, keep us safe(r), and be a great source of communication. 

In this intensive we will spend time tuning our sensation though solo dancing, turning on the sensitivity of our skin. We will then look at ways that contact with a partner can be a great creative source for movement creation, and how the meeting and working with sensation supports, provokes, and inspires solo and partner dancing.

Laura HICKS 

Laura Hicks (1979) is a Canadian living in Germany, working in performance, choreography, and education.

Her choreographic practice is an exploration of kinaesthetic states, affects and intensities that are constructed through improvisation. Creating several works as part of the duo Hicks&Bühler, “Der Klumpen" a work for 5 women moving in close contact was remounted for  the Tanz Festival Rhein-Main 2022. “Der Klumpen” and “Making Impressions and Other Failures (a collaboration with Ilana Reynolds), were also selected by jury and performed as part of Hessische Theatertage 2019 and 2021 respectively.

Her work Dritter Raum, looking at the relation between contact improvisation and the concept of 3rd Space was awarded the #TakeAction, Neustartkultur funding and a residency with CC Heidelberg and premiered in 2022. As a choreographer she has also worked with Schauspiel Frankfurt and company LIGNA, and Matter of Facts Studio. She teaches anatomy for dancers and scenic body work for actors at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, holds a masters in Contemporary Dance Education, and has practiced CI since 2004, being greatly influenced by her teacher Peter Bingham, as well as Andrew Hardwood, Chris Aiken, Ray Chung, Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, and others. 

Instagram @laurahicks_projects

www.laurahicks.net