The ART of Listening, 3-5.4.2015

Menneet, Yleinen

EASTERdance workshop/Intensive in TAMPERE/ Finland,
with Bernd Knappe /Germany (Facebook)

including:
Magic Public EASTERSaturday-JAM
with introduction and instruction (focusing the underscore)
open for guests, visitors, musicians and dancers
with all kinds of abilities and disabilities

Dancing contactimprovisation starts
inside the body we have,
 with the floor we are on,
with the air touching our skin,
with the rhythm that´s inside you and me,
with the sounds and people around us
or the pattern we notice in the space.
 Let´s take it as a beginning and a listening
to what is already there.
How to make relations to others with and without touch,
how to create non verbal talk, a curious conversation
and finally abstract contemporary art?

Focusing:

~ Time, space, distance,
~ Instant composition, framework,
~ shoals and other formats.
~ In silence – or in coexistence with musicians, that do the same in their spaces…

The classes, discussions and jams are open for everybody – including every kind of restriction or disability.

Schedule

Day Time Topic
Friday 3.4 14:00 – 17:00 1. Session
Saturday 4.4 11:00 – 13.30 2. Session
13.30 – 15.30 Break
15.30 – 18.00 3. Session
18.30 – 20.00 Jam
Sunday 5.4 10:00 – 11:00 Dance Dates
11:00 – 13.30 4. Session
13.30 – 15.30 Break
15.30 – 18.00 5. Session

including:

classes, laboratories*, dance-dates**, dance-discussions***, one2ones****, performance-scores, video-lounge, jams and body-work sessions….
bring food to share for lunch and dinner picnic-breaks

*    small group research
**   relate 1 hour with 1 partner
***  your questions and statements about contact improvisation
**** individual or small-group coaching with Bernd

The intensive will happen at Johanneksen koulu (Erkkilänkatu 10), Tampere, Finland.

Prices

Early birds prices (until 15.03.2015):

  • 100€ (employed, the non-members of Tampere Contact Improvisation Association (TreKi)
  • 90€ (employed, the members of TreKi)
  • 50€ (unemployed, students, artists)
  • 40€ (10 ”low-fee-tickets” for people with financial problems)

After 15.03.2015, the prices will go up by +20€.

You can join also single session, 25/15€ per session (each session is about 3h and can be attended separately, payment in cash before each session).

Registering

To register, fill out the form  and pay the applicable fee to:

Account holder: Tampereen kontakti-improvisaatio ry
Account number: FI92 1146 3001 1435 41 (Nordea)
Message: Your name

EveryBODY is invited – whether you are an advanced dancer or a curious beginner.

About the Intensive

For me contact improvisation is a contemporary dance-form, generated in the 70s as a movement research to discover the opportunities of abstract movements and physical communication between two or more bodies, without gender roles or hierarchic attitudes.

Every body is dancing and is able to meet for a ”talk” with an other body. Therefore we need all those abilities that are helpful in a conventional talk as well: Attention, awareness, simplicity, clarity, mutual interest, and a minimum of a shared language.

In the first hours we will collect a ”technical vocabulary” and come into motion. We will understand and grasp the main principles of contact improvisation and we will become familiar with our individual abilities. Don´t worry: you do not need a trained or even muscular body. Special focus will be on backspace-, upside-down-, and lift-techniques.

The second part is more about improvisation, intuition, choices in dance:
What is interesting for me in my motion?, What happens in this moment?
Do I follow an inner or external impulse? Can I include the whole space?

Bring knee-pads if you have those, comfortable clothes (without zip), long-sleeved T-shirts and a water bottle as well.

In contact improvisation I am mostly interested in following movement impulses which are created by the unpredictable connection with dance partners.

We do not intend to achieve a beautiful form, to design an interesting show, to deliver a choreographers dream, nor do pretend to dance.

I am inspired by the special you-and-me of this dance form: It is an amazing feeling to be aware that we need each other to play around and to create movement together!

It is not about two solos side-by-side. It Is communication in a dialogue, it is connection, comparable to a piece for two or more voices.

We take images to get a sense for the mental and physical tone that is helpful to sustain trust, become aware of a body alignment to give and receive weight.

We will focus on listening and timing, leaning and reaching, push and pull.
We will discover ways to act and react, learn to use eyes, arms and legs, spine and center, body weight and body tone, momentum and relaxation in both solos and duets.
We start to read our partner`s body as a landscape for a playful dance.

Teaching language will be English.
With Translation.

Video example:

About the Teacher

Bernd

Since a few years Bernd Knappe (Ger) is exclusively engaged in contact improvisation, after freelance work as painter, musician and architect.

He joined countless workshops, trainings and festivals in Europe and is mainly influenced by Jörg Hassmann, Angela Dony, Martin Keogh, Ray Chung, Alitop Alessi and Eszter Gàl.

He is especially interested in the question, how people without a specialised dance background can find an easy, effortless and playful way into a physical improvisation.

Feedback

”Bernd Knappe is a rare teacher, I met him in dance, and what i experienced it got me totally. He is full of ideas, he surprises himself and dance partner in the same time, he is very precise and sensitive. So in the end everything works and you float, you feel exactly what is happening.
You feel safe while you get into situations that are truly new and at the same time you wonder how playfully your body seeks balance and strength. You wonder how he is perfectly grounded, how his body is perfectly connected.
He has a clear grasp of what they are doing and knows everything you do. And moreover he spreads around infectiously good mood…”
–  Zita Pavlistova (DRUNA movement center, Prague, Czech Republic)

”The soft, gentle approach and sharing of Contact Improvisation of Bernd Knappe brings together in a harmonious way softness, strength and precision. His teaching is sensible and caring that nobody is excluded.
A playful pleasure to be, learn and dance with Bernd.”
– Prem Jivan (Studio Experimental, Bucharest, Romania)

”….What a really admired was the way he integrated people, while meeting each of us in contact, jam sessions, welcoming us with all that we are ”inside” and ”outside”, in a very respectful manner….”
– Dora Deac (Psychotherapist, Romania)

Traveling to Tampere

Flights:

  • Ryanair has an airport in Tampere and flights starting from 20€ can be bought from different European countries.
  • Other affordable airlines: Norwegian, airBaltic, SAS and airberlin.

Public transportation to Tampere, within Finland:

Alternative cheap ways to get to Tampere, within Finland:

Accommodation in Tampere

Accommodation in Tampere: A low price hostel nearby the Johannes school http://www.dreamhostel.fi/. Please check couch-surfing opportunities in Tampere: http://www.couchsurfing.com.