Message to teachers on this site: If you are unhappy with the bio or photo here, simply send a new one to webmasterciuk@gmail.com . It would be great to credit the photographers so if you haven't already done so, please tell us. Let us know if there are other CI teachers to include.make sure to include any blogs, weblinks and contact details as well. Thanks! Please send all info regarding the website to the webmasterciuk@gmail.com address.
TEACHERS BIOGRAPHIES (uk)
Simonetta Alessandri
Dancer, choreographer and teacher that lives and works in London. She obtained the PG Diploma in Choreography at LCDS, the T.C. at R.A.D® and she is a qualified teacher of the Feldenkrais® Method. Simonetta teaches at Laban Center,Goldsmiths University, London Contemporary Dance School, Independent Dance
and Birkbeck University. She collaborated as a dancer and choreographer with manyCompanies in Italy for Dance, Theatre, Site Specific and her work has been show in Italy, UK, Turkey, Colombia and Japan. Since 1999 MDA has been produced her choreography. She taught for more than 20 years in Italy and kept C.I. alive in Roma for 10 years with her classes and jams. She founded the organization Roma contact and she supported the development of CI in Italy. She has been a guest teacher in Germany, Colombia, Norway, Israel, France, Italy,Taiwan and in well-known dance institutions such as Tanzfabrik Berlin, CNDN Angers and IALS Rome. She is a member of S.o.F.T., a collective researching and creating improvisedperformances. |
Robert Anderson
Robert Anderson is an independent dance artist based in London. He teaches improvisation and contact improvisation at Rose Bruford College and in a variety of settings in the UK and abroad. Robert has been passionately involved with contact improvisation since 1996 studying with leading teachers from the US and Europe (including Kirsty Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Martin Keogh, Ray Chung, Andrew Harwood). Since 2001 Robert has been teaching and facilitating contact improvisation classes, jams and workshops in London. Robert has taught at international contact festivals in Germany, Israel, Poland, Russia and Italy and participated in co-teaching gatherings in Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Scotland and Austria. He has performed in work by Jia-Yu Cortes, Joe Moran, Adriana Pegorer, Kate Brown, Tino Seghal, Jovair Longo, Meghan Flannigan, Magdalena Radlowska, Lalitaraja and Sarah Shorten. He is currently performing with Touchdown Dance and with improvisation ensemble SoFt.
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Tamara Ashley
Tamara has pursued her passion for improvisation around the world having studied with teachers such as Nancy Stark smith, Susan Schell, Andrew Harwood, KJ Holmes, Nina Martin and Jennifer Keller. Other studies include body mind centring, yoga and contemplative movement. Tamara has taught and performed at Earthdance, the Nordic New Year Jam, Contact Improvisation's 36th Birthday celebration, Manchester Contact Improvisation, Nott Dance and at other schools and festivals nationally and internationally. In 2006, she undertook the entire 260 mile Pennine Way as a performance and is currently researching improvisation as an ecological practice.
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Angus Balbernie
ANGUS McLEAN BALBERNIE
Angus McLean Balbernie has made around 75 pieces, taught and performed accross Europe, N+S America, Canada and Asia. For many years taught choreography, composition and directing at the EDDC and artEZ Arnhem, Scottish School Of Contemporary Dance and Dartington College (where he origionally trained in Contact with Steve Paxton and Release with Mary O’Donnell Fulkerson.) He was also a guest professor of choreography at KNUA, S Korea. Still teaches a bit at LEM Buenos Aires and Falmouth University College. Nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award in the US and the Kolner Tanz Prize. A lifetime of mountains questions how perceptual systems, embodied compositional structures and choreographic forms are shaped and exchanged with environment. If you need more information / loads of reviews / any more blah, please email me. abalbernie@aol.com or call 0044 07825 538402 / 0033 4 92 73 71 6 |
Jo Blowers
awaiting revised bio
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Colleen Bartley
Colleen has been dancing contact improvisation since 1994. She first studied with Leah Stein in Philadelphia and since then has studied with teachers all over Europe and at Earthdance. Her main influences involve the work of Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton's Material for the Spine, Scott Smith's approaches to teaching, Lucia Walker and Kirstie Simpson. She is part of a team that facilitates the Underscore in London on a regular basis. She has a background in Embodied Anatomy and Authentic Movement. She holds a diploma from what is now Trinity Laban. She is developing a body of work that focuses on freedom in movement, skills for jamming , CI as performance, and embodied presence in dancing. She also documents dance and maintains this website.
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Andrea Buckley
Andrea Buckley works as an independent dance artist, whose experience extends over 20 years, performing teaching and creating work in various professional contexts to include the wider community.Her primary research draws upon an extensive range of improvisation and contact skills as a way to continue to develop an awareness of the moving body and expand a repertoire of composition.
She has performed with many independent artists touring UK, Ireland, Europe and parts of America. These include; Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark–Smith, MacLennan Dance & Company, Rosemary Lee, Gill Clarke and Deborah Hay. Committed to work happening in the North West Andrea is part of an artist led initiative, Liverpool Improvisation Collective (LIC) - initiating workshops, festivals and performance projects - they have a designated artist led space at the Bluecoat, Liverpool. |
Janice Claxton
With more than 25 years of International experience she has worked both independently and with companies and organisations in several countries. She has performed with The One Extra Company (Australia 84-86), Michael Parmenters’ Commotion Company (NZ, 90) and her work is strongly influenced by Erick Hawkins who invited her to join his company in New York (1992).
With an on-going passion and commitment for movement research Janis’ reputation as a teacher traverses the globe. She has taught extensively in professional, community and educational dance settings including Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Beijing Dance Academy, Dance Academy Arnhem, London Contemporary Dance School and Scottish School of Contemporary Dance. http://www.janisclaxton.com/ |
Lucy May Constantini
Lucy May Constantini first encountered CI in 1997 and started teaching it the following year, mostly in London, at some of the leading drama schools, but also in Asia and South Africa. She is lucky enough to have studied with some of the pioneers of the form, including Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Kirstie Simson. She works as an independent dance and theatre artist, is a qualified yoga teacher and occasional writer and journalist. lucymayconstantini.wordpress.com +44 (0) 777 335 1812
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Vanessa Cook
Vanessa completed an English/Philosophy degree at Leeds University and travelled the world before she decided to pursue a career in contemporary dance. After a year's training at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Vanessa freelanced with a number of companies including Phoenix Dance Company. Her next five years were spent touring and teaching in the UK and Europe with Motionhouse Dance Theatre.
Vanessa has a keen interest in developing her skills when travelling abroad. She has taught dance and literacy in South Africa, trained in Vienna at Impulstanz and recently trained with Damian Munoz in Barcelona. She has been awarded the Lisa Ullman Travel Scholarship to travel to Israel to hone her contact skills at an international festival. |
Kathy Crick
Kathy Crick teaches Contact and Improvisation at Laban Creekside, London. Previous work has included: Dancing with choreographer Yolande Snaith and Motionhouse Dance Theatre; collaborations with Theatre Directors Richard Gregory and Tim Wheeler to create performances with and for young people and adults with learning disabilities; devising and performing with choreographer / composer Sarah Goldfarb; site specific work with composer Charles Hayward; lots of teaching and choreographing in educational and community settings; studies in shiatsu, psychology and education.
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Jocasta Crofts
I am a human animal. I like to squirm, wriggle and roll around with other human animals. It feels real and makes me feel alive and three-dimensional. My reflexes sharpen and my senses are brighter. I can express my playfulness, my madness, my non-rational being as well as being meditative and more conscious through my movement exploration. I need to be in contact with myself, the floor, and with others. It’s very intimate and a way to share that nurtures and nourishes me.
Whatever I am learning about in life, I bring to my dance and to my teaching. The last 11 months I have been conceiving, growing, birthing and mothering my baby boy. The journey has been intense and healing, this is the material I teach from now – How to dance when you are pregnant and can’t offer your centre? How you dance when you are lactating and have very sore boobs? How the movement qualities and life experiences of my child inspire me. This is my material right now. email: jocasta@contactdance.co.uk |
Rachel Dean
Rachel Dean is a contemporary dance artist based in Leeds who performs, teaches and choreographs. She has a particular interest in Contact Improvisation and collaboration with other artists and art forms and is part of improvisation performance collective Mathilde.
Rachel graduated from The Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2006. In 2007 and 2009 she was selected for the International Danceweb Scholarship at Impulstanz Festival. She has a BSc in Psychology. http://racheljanedean.wordpress.com/racheljanedean@yahoo.co.uk |
Kathleen Downie
I'm interested in the roots of contact improvisation. What happens when two bodies jump at each other, collide and fall? Interested in the solo study of this work as developed by Steve Paxton and seen in his DVD Movement for the Spine. What happens when our bodies meet each other/floor/wall on a structural level? Energetically, emotionally, at speed and in slow motion, with various bodies’ physical abilities, degree of training and desire?
Sharpening the tool of our bodies to make an informed choice at such a high speed that it does not feel like we are making a choice. To go with, against or not. To be taken by surprise. I love improvisation as a vehicle for creating to be part of what is happening in this moment in this group, switched on, full of energy, full of force, moving with complicity together. I aim to have an inclusive teaching approach, to reach people of all different backgrounds and abilities, through clear communication, boundaries and encouragement to gently push the edge.I teach from a level of learning, not mastery. Passing on and sharing what I find useful to work with and what interests me. email: kathleen@contactdance.co.uk |
Jo Dyer
I have practised Contact Improvisation for a number of years. It has inspired and challenged me and enriched the scope of my movement practice. After taking a break from Contact when pregnant, I returned to it with a renewed appetite for its playfulness and surprise. My classes reflect the playfulness I enjoy in CI, but they are also rigorous and energetic, grounded in my training in release-based contemporary dance. However, I feel that my teaching is still developing, and in February this year I am undertaking a residency at Newington Dance Space to research aspects of teaching Contact Improvisation. I will be teaching some CI workshops at Newington Dance Space following the residency. I also currently teach ‘Jammy Dodgers’ a dance class for 2-4 year olds at the Centre for Better Health in Hackney.
http://josephinedyer.wordpress.com/ |
Katy Dymoke
Professional dancer / improviser, working nationally and internationally she has also worked in collaboration with Julyen Hamilton, Angus Balbernie, Ray Chung, Lisa Nelson and Steve Paxton. Dance Film maker, (including a major Capture award to make a 10 minute film of contact improvisation called SENSE-8) she established the NW digital dance forum in 2002. A dancer and company director with Touchdown Dance, BMC practitioner and Teacher, (setting up the BMC school program in the UK in 2007 as well as a performing arts program with Mark Taylor (U.S.) in London. Katy is a registered Dance Movement psychotherapist, and 3rd Dan in Jujitsu.
touchkate@aol.com www.embody-move.co.uk Photographer: Eric Richmond |
Agnieszka Grenckowska
Agnieszka currently cooperates in the creation of this year's ECITE event that takes place in Poland 24-31 August 2013. For further information please turn to www.ecite.org
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Itta Howie
Itta Howie is a movement artist specializing in cross-disciplinary improvisation and site-specific performance. Her background is in somatic and non-stylised movement. She also draws inspiration from release-based contemporary dance, contact improvisation and Butoh. In 2010 Itta graduated with an MA Choreography (Distinction) at Dartington College of Arts. She teaches in university and community settings.
Itta trained intensively with Helen Poynor, Dorset who introduced her to Movement Ritual. This summer Itta studied with Anna Halprin (now in her 91st year) on Anna’s famous outdoor dance deck at Mountain Home Studio, California. email: ittahowie@madasafish.com www.ittahowie.madasafish.com |
Suna Imre
About Suna: Suna Imre is a dance artist and senior lecturer at Winchester University. Specializing in improvisation that comes from the application of somatic dance practices, Suna creates inter-disciplinary performances and projects that are often site-specific. She has had a passionate curiosity for Contact Improvisation for over twenty years, learning from many great teachers including Nancy Stark Smith and is constantly surprised and excited by its potential for helping us connect with ourselves, those around us and the world we live in.
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Merav Israel
Merav Israel is a movement artist and performance maker. She is a teacher of movement, improvisation and the Feldenkrais method. She has been initiating programmes and events and teaching CI in Edinburgh since 2002. Her work is somatic based and is interested in the dialogue between the internal and the external with a sense of investigation and discovery. She organised large Contact Improvisation events called: Mid-day to Mid-night Duet and looking to make this a score that repeats itself annually.
Contact Merav via: www.lanua.org or mirabailos@yahoo.co.uk |
John Korajitis
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Karl Jay-Lewin
In 2000, Karl moved to the Findhorn Community in NE Scotland, after several years living and working from London as a professional choreographer/dancer with his dance company, m.e.parker, and as a freelance teacher. He formed his company in 1995 on receiving a BA (Hons) degree in Dance and Independent Learning from Middlesex University. Karl now works under his own name. He has studied and practiced Contact Improvisation for 10 years and has taught for 7 years. Karl is a co-director of BodySurf Scotland, that exists to provide ongoing professional dance training, and study of movement practices, by producing residential dance and movement based workshops and events in Scotland. Recent events include European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange (July 2003), Bodysurf Findhorn New Year event (2003/04 CI, 5 Rhythms, Feldenkrais).
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Thomas Kampe
Thomas Kampe has worked with dance, theatre, and movement for the last 25 years. He worked as performer, choreographer and director in Germany and Britain, and works as Senior Lecturer for Dance at London Metropolitan University. He has taught somatic approaches towards movement education, dance theatre, and Contact Improvisation in different settings around the world. While working as a free-lance choreographer and dancer he collaborated with director and writer Julia Pascal as a performer, choreographer, director, and designer since 1990. During the early 90's Thomas collaborated with Rosemary Lee for several years in large scale site -specific dance theatre creations. In 2003 he co-directed Urban Rituals, a site-specific dance theatre event with 150 performers and 1 dog in the St.Pauli Football Stadium in Hamburg Germany. His teaching of contact improvisation has been informed by extensive studies in explorative and somatic disciplines including Holistic Massage, Traditional Thai Massage, Cranio Sacral Therapy and Laban Movement Analysis. He is a qualified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method ®, which forms a foundation for his teaching of dance and movement.
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Miram Keye
Miriam teaches dance to professional dancers, as well as in community and educational settings. Specializing in Early Years and people with Special Needs she was dance lecturer for Loughborough College New Pathways programme. In 2005 she attended the International Study Week at Reggio Emilia, Italy, with Second Skin, Creative Partnerships Coventry. She is a resident dance artist with Bamboozle Theatre Company (Leics), a regular choreographer for the So….Dancers and Dance Dangerous (Northampton). In December 2005 she was artist in residence at Earthdance Centre for Contact Improvisation, Massachusetts, USA where she returned a year later to live and work for 6 months.
http://www.strandlooper.org |
Lalitaraja
Lalitaraja (aka Jo Chandler) spent his early career working in major ballet companies. Subsequently he has danced for Michael Clark, Adventures in Motion Pictures, David Massingham Dance, Laurie Booth,Yolande Snaith Theatredance, Rick Nodine and Fin Walker. He is the director of Oracle Dance Co and choreographs and performs both improvised and set work. Lalitaraja has been teaching contact improvisation and improvisation for many years. Lalitaraja is his Buddhist name, given when he joined the Western Buddhist Order. He teaches meditation and Buddhism in London.
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David Leahey
David's long interest in movement has led him to extending his creative practice to incorporate Contact Improvisation, an improvised dance style created in the 1970's, and David has performed as a dancer/musician throughout Europe. Some of the artists and groups that he is currently involved with include; the London Improvisers Orchestra, a number of smaller groups containing members of the orchestra, Lode (improvisational string duo), Dha (Indian/European Improvisation ensemble), Deirdre Starr (Irish vocalist/pianist), Geraldo Si (dancer) in SichtLautTrio and with Frey Faust and Mirva Makanan (dancers) in the Balance Project.
http://www.dafmusic.com/ |
Asher Levin
Asher Levin studied Contact Improvisation on the floor in workshops and jams in London and Berlin, in international festivals & courses with inspiring CI teachers. He has researched intensively with chosen partners and alone. He has performed CI in various settings and contexts - including a circus big top, backed by punk music. He has taught at several international festivals and local weekly classes at all levels. In his practice he’s interested in opening up and delving into the full range of experience offered by Contact Impro: physical thrills and the pleasure of a shared virtuosity; the free joy of dance; the sport - full of wonderful riddles to solve; playfulness; surprise; emotional intimacy; performative moments; magical partner and group experiences. He loves the simplicity of being rich together or alone with only our own bodies. CI practice involves meeting himself as he is today.
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Jovair Longo
Jovair longo is a dance artist originally from Brazil. His work involves both performing and teaching. As a dancer, apart from developing his own work, he has worked mostly with Yolande Snaith. He has taught his work to dance companies, schools and in festivals both in the UK and abroad. He is currently a lecturer in Partnerwork and Improvisation at London Contemporary Dance School.
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Daniel Mang
Contact improvisation has been my primary movement practice since 1986. I also practice aikido and am strongly influenced by the Feldenkrais method and Body Mind Centering. I have studied with Bruno Stefanoni, Dieter Heitkamp, Ka Rustler, Kurt Koegel, Howard Sonenklar, Nina Martin, Benno Voorham, Nancy Stark Smith, K J Holmes and many others. I have been teaching the form since 1990 - at first mostly in Berlin, from 2005 on primarily in the South West of France, but also in Belgium, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the UK. I am fluent in English, German and French and regularly teach in these three languages. I was one of the organisers of the "European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange" (ECITE) in Potsdam in 1999 and participated in ECITEs in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Spain. From 2005 to 2011 I was part of a small network of contact improvisation teachers in Toulouse that organized jams, classes and workshops locally. Since my move to the UK in July 2011 I have been teaching mainly in London, but also in Brussels, Paris and Toulouse. I was one of the organisers of the first week-long international contact improvisation festival in London 26 Dec 2011 - 2 Jan 2012. I am involved in making CI available as a way of exploring body politics, as a tool for communication and personal change, to radical left, feminist, queer and antiracist activists. I see my interest in radical social theory and my love of contact improvisation as two aspects of the same desire.
http://www.danielmang.com/ |
Malcolm Manning
Malcolm is a somatic movement researcher, educator and performing artist. He became interested in physical theatre at the age of 24. A couple of years later in 1991, he discovered the Feldenkrais Method and Contact Improvisation within a month of each other, two practices that have consistently informed his work ever since.
After being introduced to post-modern dance by Mary Fulkerson, he went on to study at the SNDO, Amsterdam 1993-95. He followed that up with independent studies with many leading teachers including Simone Forti and Julyen Hamilton and began teaching in 1996 at the suggestion of Nancy Stark Smith. He finally qualified as a Feldenkrais teacher in 2005 after a long long apprenticeship. Over the last five years, he has developed a class called Awareness Perception Presence which combines the Feldenkrais Method, experiential anatomy and associated material that aims to make Feldenkrais more useful and accessible professional dancers. He teaches similar material to a wider public in a more dialogical form called BodySchool, he teaches an improvisation/composition class and continues to be fascinated by and to develop his teaching of contact improvisation. Since 2001, Malcolm has been based in Finland. He is currently a part-time senior lecturer in the dance department of the Theatre Academy of Finland where he works around five months a year. He has helped to develop the one-year Dance And Somatics education in Joensuu, Finland, where he teaches around six weeks a year. More info at http://www.movetolearn.com |
Jacqueline McCormick
Jacqueline has been teaching, performing and making dances for over twenty years. Directing and performing in her company DanceAbout, works that take a dancing journey through the outback of the self. She is fascinated by creating movement from sensation, especially in natural environments. Her dance film Settle captures her impulse to improvise as a contactor. She has a B.Ed from Bedford College of Higher Education in Human Movement Studies, an M.A in Dance from Mills College California, USA and has been, Associate Professor in Dance at Western Oregon University (1985-1996) and Connecticut College, USA (2000-2004). Since 1990 Jacqueline has taught Contact Improvisation at numerous Contact Festivals and workshops throughout the USA and Europe, and from 1997-2000 she co-led the CI Teachers Lab in San Francisco, California. Alongside Contact Improvisation her curiosities lie in Authentic Movement, and the methodology of delivering dance where participants feel safe to explore their own movement freely. All of her work is informed by her extensive knowledge of anatomy and kinesiology of the body. Jacqueline is in her 8th year as Co-Director for Cheshire Dance, UK. Her role as Dance Director is to lead the artistic direction of the organization. As a practising artist she is working alongside a core team providing the artistic direction, guidance, and input into all aspects of Cheshire Dance’s operation. Most recently Jacqueline was Artistic Director for The Moment When… Cultural Olympiad project 2012, involving over 900 performers.
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Charlie Morrissey
Charlie Morrissey is a performer, teacher, director, researcher and organiser.
He has been working in the UK and in many other countries around the world for over twenty years.
He creates large and small-scale site-specific and theatre and gallery based performance work in diverse contexts working with set and improvised materials.
His teaching is informed by his own research and by ongoing and long-term collaborative working relationships with dance makers such as Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Scott Smith, Kirstie Simson, K.J.Holmes, and many others.Charlie is part of the trio Moving Men with Jean-Hughes Miredin and Adrian Russi who have been teaching and performing together across Europe since 2007. They have performed in Rome, Bern, Brighton, Moscow, Rotterdam, Warwick and Freiburg.
He co-organises a group called Movement 12 in Brighton – a group of dance artists who curate an international professional development programme.www.movement12.org
More information at www.charliemorrissey.com
The picture is from one by Pari Naderi |
Rick Nodine
After completing a degree in Biology, Rick Nodine went on to study Contact Improvisation with the pioneers of the form. He began a performing career in the early 90's, and has appeared in many dance contexts including theatre, dance theatre, digital media, television, mixed ability, site specific and pure dance.
In 2001 Rick became a member of staff at London Contemporary Dance School where he teaches Composition and Improvisation. For the past 15 years he has collaborated with many dancers, actors and musicians to create improvised performance (Jovair Longo, Kate Brown, Gaby Agis, Lalitaraja, ESP, 5 men dancing, Jamie McCarthy and Neat Timothy). Since 1997 Rick has created is own work and his most recent program of choreography and improvisation will premier in the Spring Loaded festival in April 2010. rick.nodine@theplace.org.uk |
Mary Pearson
Mary Pearson is a performance maker, improviser, dancer, teacher and organizer currently based in Liverpool, UK. In 2005 she co-founded Fool's Proof Theatre company, which has toured nationally internationally in the UK/USA with devised pieces The Eagle Has Landed, Je Suis Dead and It?s Uniformation Day.
She has organized interdisciplinary laboratories, performance platforms and festivals in the independent arts sector in Liverpool (UK) and Berne (CH), guest taught CI and Improvisation at Liverpool Hope and John Moore?s Universities, and leads ongoing classes in association with Liverpool Improvisation Collective (LIC). http://www.foolsprooftheatre.com |
Adriana Pegorer
Adriana started CI with Jackie Adkins in 1996, the same year in which she started Tango Argentino. She trained with Thomas Kampe (during her BA at University College Chichester) and has taken workshops with Rick Nodine, Scott Smith and KJ Holmes amongst others. In Tango she mainly trained with Carlos Gavito, Junior Antonio Cervilla and Pablo Veron. Adriana uses the intricacy of Tango's leg work and the intimacy of the stylized poses in her improvised dancing and is interested in fragmenting the 'verticality', the 'embrace' and 'lead & follow' traditional of Tango by using the spiralling dynamics and sharing of the weight of CI.
http://www.tangorelease.blogspot.com http://www.adagioconbrio.co.uk |
Lilly Picts
Lilly Picts performs and creates kinesthetic, experiential performance utilizing the human form and moving body. Research interests include exploring architectural space; performativity; the gallery context; audience's perception, expectation, and interaction with art; as well as what includes, excludes, enables, and invites audience participation towards co-creating, as active contributors, a participatory role within the creative process. As a performer, Lilly works with directors exploring similar interests and she remains curious in being seen, not seen, understood, misunderstood, heard, not heard, documented, perceived, and interpreted. As an internationally respected teacher, Lilly has worked extensively with dancers of all ages with and without disabilities in dance and contact improvisation festivals and events, and in professional, community, academic, and teacher training environments. Lilly has an MA in Choreography from Middlesex University, UK, and is currently completing her PhD in Dance at Texas Women's University; she has studied extensively with Nancy Stark Smith, and has an ongoing relationship with Earthdance retreat center in Western Massachusetts.
http://lillypicts.tumblr.com/ |
Mary Prestidge
Mary Prestidge
Originally an Olympic gymnast in the 1960’s, Mary's first professional work was as a contemporary dancer with the dance company, Ballet Rambert. In the mid 70’s she co-founded the radical X6 Dance Space and its successor Chisenhale Dance Space, in London. She has continued to evolve new work through collaboration with other artists and art forms in a variety of performing contexts. She has been a lecturer in dance at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts since 1995 until 2008. She currently shares a studio in Liverpool with dance artists Andrea Buckley and Paula Hampson. email m.prestidge@blueyonder.co.uk photo by; Esko Koivisto |
Malaika Sarco-Thomas
Malaika Sarco-Thomas, MALS, MA, is a dance artist whose research spans dance improvisation, ecological philosophy, site-based performance, tree-climbing, guerilla tree-planting and community practice. Malaika studied dance, theatre, biology and improvisation at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Hollins University, Kyoto Art Centre, Dartington College of Arts and PARTS in Brussels and was awarded a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Fellowship in support of her postgraduate research.
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Oliver Scott
Oliver trained at Coventry Centre for the Performing Arts, and independently in London. He continues to study with Julyen Hamilton, Steve Paxton, Kirsty Simpson, Sten Rudrstrom and Nancy Stark Smith, and other international teachers through residencies and workshops
Passionate about Improvisation as performance Oliver continues to explore this genre through the Coventry Wednesday Group and performing with Making Space (2009) Without Planning Permission(2008) Julyen Hamilton Company (2006), and the London Improvisers Orchestra at the Shifti Festival of Improvisation 2006, ESP’s Defenceless (2005) and other improvised performances with Fluxx http://www.mercurialdance.co.uk |
Kirstie Simpson
Kirstie Simson works internationally & has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called "a force of nature" by the New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has "immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance" according to Time Out Magazine, London. Kirstie's eternal subject is freedom, as she dares to go beyond the boundaries of form and structure to create movement out of the rhythm of life itself.
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Scott Smith
Scott Smith started his dance studies in 1977. Originally from the American mid-west he has lived and worked in New York and Seattle., and is currently living in the United Kingdom.
He teaches dance, makes performance, composes music for live performance and film/video. Scott studied and performed for several years, with Steve Paxton via contact improvisation and material for the spine, and was a founding member of ‘Image Lab’ with Lisa Nelson, KJ Holmes and Karen Nelson, developing ‘tuning scores’, researching the realm of the senses and perception as foundational to form and composition. His initial training's and professional performance experience included modern and classical dance forms, and he has worked for dance companies in Kansas City, New York, Berlin, and London. Since the early 90’s, Scott has been focusing his practice in new dance and improvisational work, and maintains ongoing collaborations and performance/video making with Lisa Nelson, Charlie Morrissey, Becky Edmunds and others. He plays American folk and roots music in the band Porchlight Smoker, and is a member of movement12, a dance advocacy organization based in Brighton. http://www.scottsmith.org.uk/ ssmith8309@googlemail.com |
Irmela Stone
Irmela Stone (Wiemann) has been involved in exploring and performing Contact / Improvisation for over twenty years, teaching it for fourteen years. When in full time study as a musician in Austria she discovered her passion for dancing, causing her to change gear in training and study with the pioneers of Contact / Improvisation, such as with Steve Paxton, Mary Fulkerson, Barbara Dilley, Eva Karczac and others. Since then she has performed and created work - both as a musician and a dancer - in Austria, Germany and Holland before moving to London in 1998. Collaborations in England include work with Tadashi Endo, Kirsty Simson, KJ Holmes, Gaby Agis, Jovair Longo, Rick Nodine, ESP and a production for the BBC4. She is currently a member of the performance collective SoFt. Irmela has taught for a wide variety of educational settings and in numerous institutions across London, with her work spanning from training actors and dancers over circus artists to senior citizens and kids. Currently she is teaching Contact, Improvisation and Composition at the Laban Centre, Tower Hamlets Life Long Learning Service and The City Lit, where she runs open classes in Contact Improvisation.
email: irmela@talktalk.net |
Anne-Gaelle Thiroit
Anne-Gaëlle grew up in Burgundy, France. She started getting involved in dance and performance in 1999 while studying Geology in Jussieu (Paris). She went on getting
an MA in Movement Education in Bologna, Italy. She worked as a movement therapist and a dance teacher alongside her studies of contemporary techniques, Instant composition, yoga and Body Mind Centering in Paris, Italy, Israel and the UK. She met Contact Improvisation through the work of Didier Silhol, Kirstie Simson and MarkTompkins in 2001, and she kept studying with them and Lisa Nelson, Simone Forti, Julyen Hamilton, KJ Holmes, among others. Graduated from Laban in 2008, she is currently attending a 3y. specialist programme in Choreological Studies there. She is interested in the way we embody dynamic, relationship, spatial and social structures and how we develop our sense of empathy through movement awareness. As an improviser and dancer, she has worked with H2Dance, Giannalberto De Filippis and Michal Mualem (Sasha Waltz and Guests), Joe Moran, Plan B, Tadam/Noa Zamir, and she regularly teaches for City Lit and Candoco. Currently based in SE London. Contact: agaellica@gmail.comphoto by Giannalberto De Filippis |
Lisa May Thomas
Lisa May Thomas is a contemporary dance artist working with improvisation and choreography for live and filmed performance. Her award-winning work has been presented internationally at film festivals, broadcast for television and the web and presented within community and education sectors.
Contactemail: lisamay.thomas@mac.com |
Caroline Waters
Caroline Waters is an international dance/theatre practitioner dedicated to the craft of improvisation in performance and the study of contact improvisation. Originally trained by Steve Paxton, Mary Fulkerson Kirsty Simson etc she has over the past 15 years been developing her collaborative practice with artists from many continents and art forms. When not travelling, teaching and performing internationally she is as associate lecturer at Dartington College of Arts UK.
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Lucia Walker
Lucia Walker (teacher and workshop facilitator) has been practicing and teaching Contact Improvisation since 1986. She first encountered the form in workshops with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark-Smith and Kirstie Simson. In 1987 Lucia qualified as a teacher of Alexander Technique and teaches the technique to individuals, groups and on teacher training programmes in England, Germany, US and Japan.
Lucia worked for many years with Jointwork Dance Group exploring improvised performance and continued this research with Telling Times International Theatre project. She also works on performance collaborations with other artists and dancers Attention, vitality and curiosity are central to her work as a teacher and a performer. |
Jamus Wood
Jamus Woodíhas an interest in the quality of touch, the textures of the dance and how we inhabit this body of ours; exploring intimacy with ourselves and then meeting another from this place.
He has trained at the Outokumpu Oppimiskeskus Vocational School for New Dance, Finland in Contact Improvisation, Body Mind Movement and Feldenkrais. Jamus currently organises Contact Improvisation classes in Bristol and has an ongoing involvement with Touchdown Dance. |
