Mark Rietema has danced and studied Contact Improvisation in various countries over the last 20 years. He regularly teaches CI, and offers workshops, lectures and group facilitation around embodiment and communication in places such as King’s College, the NHS and grassroots groups. Mark works as a psychotherapist and somatic movement educator, having studied Process Oriented Psychology and Body-Mind Centering®. His previous background is in community arts projects and performances (UK, US) with an MA in Community Arts from Goldsmiths. He currently teaches as faculty for Embody Move UK, Institut Prozessarbeit Deutschland and as an Associate in Kings College.

www.markrietema.com

“The mind is like the wind and the body like the sand: if you want to see how the wind is blowing, you can look at the sand.” - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

For me CI is the perfect meeting of Somatics, listening/embodied relation and athleticism.

Asher is based in Dartington and loves being and interacting with the land and elements; he’s practised Contact Improvisation, dance, physical theatre, teaching and leading workshops for a quarter-century. These are interconnected. He's taught CI internationally since 2008.

I love teaching CI as, with a little interconnected training, guiding and focusing on the physics inherent in us all, and the myriad ways to relate, we free up a world of creativity, exploration, connecting, celebration and being together.

In CI dance, play and being, I love the practice of trusting ourselves and others (while keeping safe) – I am open to feeling creative within the context – to inhabit the realm as mine (and ours) and explore the unknown. I enjoy re-seeing the known afresh.

I focus on being off-balance - from where surprise, connection and magic can happen - and free - yet focused and caring. I am particularly interested in the interplay of spaciousness and intimacy - whole group scores and solo, the partner or trio…, within the social and physical environment.

I focus on re-investing dynamics into a dance flow – horizontal to vertical, flying to rolling on the ground. I also play (interrupting flow). I am also loving slowing down, feeling the finest vibrations and the smallest of dances – exquisite.

"Ooh, I just love it.

Muses: Travelling across space (especially doing and encouraging that with an intimate partner)- being at home being homeless, realising how much our changing relationship with the environment (from changing place), changes the dance. Horizontal momentum into ups and downs.

Intimacy and spaciousness.

Larger constellations.

Characterful Contact.

Meeting whoever I dance with. I have heard recently 'I'm increasingly discerning. I only want to dance with good dancers'. Well, that person is missing an area I love - to find where I CAN have a great CI experience with whoever I meet - limitations are a wonderful thing! The more able we are - the more able we are to adapt and be inviting.

I've also seen able dancers with big egos proving a point. Particularly man to man. It may give a little cheap thrill to show someone 'You are not able to do this, you are not able to keep up. Yet, how much more wonderful to show someone 'You are sooo able, I value what you're offering, your presence, your listening'.

Listening and being - paying attention as priority over any pathway or tricks, goals or other desires.

Dancing with the 'Judge'.

Flying techniques."

I have been dancing CI for over 20 years mostly in the U.S. One of the aspects that continue to inspire me in the form is how by letting go into uncertainty the dance has a greater capacity to lead itself and surprise us with what may unfold through uncontrolled relationships. This practice of working with a 'beginner's mind' in relationship to another, to oneself or with the land continues to be my learning 'edge' in dance and in life.

I enjoy it when people discover new embodied pathways of learning that bring greater freedom and creative possibilities that were undiscovered before. My own learning edge that excites me and has done so for many years now is remembering and allowing the body rather than the mind to lead the dance. The possibility of staying with uncertainty and finding something arising through the relationship with another that neither could have predicted.

Referred to as the ‘dancing bass meister’, by Barre Philipps, David Leahy has dedicated the last 20 years to navigating the area between music and dance. Originally from New Zealand, David works as an improvising double bass player, contact-improvising dancer, composer, educator, and researcher. He is a prominent member of the London free improvised music scene and is a long-standing member of the London Improvisers Orchestra, as well as various other improvisation ensembles across Europe.

David's PhD, Musicians in Space (2020), explores what happens when the performance of free improvisation expands outwards into space, so as to remove the physical separation between the performer and the audience. David works as both a lecturer and dance musician in the dance faculty of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, in London. For further information, please go to www.dafmusic.com.

The Underscore, devised by Nancy Stark Smith, is a framework CI that takes the dancer through many of the commonly occurring states of awareness that occur during a jam.

The Music-based Underscore is my translation of the practice for improvising musicians and I always look forward to facilitating a combined underscore where the two disciplines work through the practice together.

As is customary, I will introduce the Underscores to everyone new to the practice prior to the session commencing.

Suna has danced and taught CI for around 25 years. Other passions have come and gone but CI remains a practice she relies on physically and emotionally to make her feel both grounded and alive; and for the pure JOY of it. She shares the dance so that others can be supported through life in this way too.

Endless endless possibilities and still learning about the dance and about myself. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was initially drawn to CI and kept coming back to it over many years because it allowed me to be completely present yet in the most dynamic and sensitive way. I enter an embodied flow state that really expands and opens me up. This is what I want to share with others - feeling the joy and wonder of being completely here and now and surrendering to it completely through the dance.

Jamus is curious about our unfolding as human beings, the embodied arts are excellent landscapes in which to play and explore. In fact, exploring is deeply rooted in his teaching and inquiry work. In recent years Jamus has focused on developmental evolution through dance and anatomy. Frequently returning to a softness that we had as babies, finding a deep sense of rest and relaxation, whilst allowing our senses to reach outward and inward, letting movement reveal itself so that we are moved as much as we move.

Jamus has been dancing since 1995, initially exploring contact improvisation, Body-Mind Centering® and The Feldenkrais Technique in later years he added to this mix an inquiry into moving out in wild places and tuning into the more than human conversations there. What does the land remember and how can we participate in these older, wider meetings? In 2000 he took two years away from the UK to study somatic dance practice in Outokumpu in Eastern Finland. It was a deep and rich time to submit to somatic practice, particularly Body Mind Centering and The Feldenkrais Technique. These days you will find Jamus out on the land as much as you will find him in a dance studio, yielding, resting, playing and relating to the land around him.

I dance, I explore and I have an innate curiosity for life. Deeply influenced and rooted by the practice of embodied arts, explorations into The Land and Embodied Consciousness. Currently, I am exploring the more than-human relationship within Dartmoor and the question of what does the land remember.

Jan-Ming was born in London, UK. She is a dance artist & somatic bodyworker; and has danced C.I. for 20 years. Her background is in performance and facilitating through a somatic trauma-informed approach to care. From the age of 3, she studied dance; since 2017 she practices The Pantarei Approach; since 2020 she has been practicing the Daoist water tradition of energy arts and ancestral healing. She brings her passion to hold spaces for sensitivity, bravery, fragility and collective care. Her C.I teaching reflects the space of her practice: cultivating the courage to suggest, ask, redefine and clarify what we share.

Currently what is exciting me is the connection I feel between CI, martial arts and witnessing. For example, I’ve been using my internal Daoist energy arts practice to support me to feel the quality of connection of others, through listening and responding to the energy information through our touch. It helps to create a more consensual landscape both through physicality, emotionality, and mentality. I believe that this aspect is fundamental to CI, and believe that it can be as accessible to beginners as it is for more experienced dancers. I’ve also been exploring performance as a way for people to witness ci, sharing the practice not as a perfected external spectacle but inviting the audience into the immersive practice, from arriving to ending together.

Soledad de la Hoz trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.

She has performed extensively in opera and theatre productions (ROH, Royal Court Theatre, Glyndebourne, ENO) as well as immersive dance and screen productions, working with notable choreographers such as Aleta Collins, Anna Morrissey, Maxine Doyle, Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, Scarlett Mackmin, Jennifer White and Lisa Welham.

In addition to her professional dancing, Sole is a trained Thai massage therapist and has a deep love and interest in Contact

Improvisation has an immense positive benefit on her movement practice and well-being. She is very happy to continue developing in this field by training and teaching.

I love that it invites an immediate body presence and awareness through the connection to others. For my own practice, I find that it awakens pathways and new possibilities in my movement. I love the improvisation, creativity and playfulness side of it as well as the more physics exploration. What I love about teaching is sharing this passion with other people and offering what I find that has helped me in my journey. Also, I love watching people dance

Dancer, singer, drummer, dance and music performer, and CI teacher since 2016, teaching a weekly class in Brighton. Enjoys nature, wild swimming, theatre and comedy impro.

Performed music and dance on various stages of the world, events and festivals. Fell in love with CI and cannot stop dancing. DJ and host of World Music Dance Journeys - ecstatic dance wave with freestyle and contact improvisation.

Creative listening and being ready for the unknown. Smooth switching between deep listening and supportive leading while being open and ready for surprises. Developing practice of solo, duo, trio, and quartet movement and connection with the group.

The dance of dynamics when the tempo and speed are in constant change while being prepared for a never-ending surprise - being totally in the moment while hyper-aware bringing safety and minimising risk of contusions for everyone. Making the dance satisfying.

I love CI - truth, honesty and tenderness, they intertwine crafting a tapestry of boundless creativity. The magic unfolds when we shed our inhibitions and open our hearts embracing the unfamiliar with wide-eyed wonder. It's in those moments of pure vulnerability that my most profound dances are born, weaving tales of connection and discovery upon the canvas of the dance floor or sheltered by the welcoming silence of the underwater universe when practising water ci.

Late Night CI Jams

Stone loves hosting inspiring CI jams and playing an eclectic mix of music for you to dance with. Starting with meditative soundscapes that weave into subtle pieces with soft rhythms, all played at low volumes, allowing the dancers to connect with each other on a deep level. His 'Late Night Jam' playlist will be mysterious and magical, airy and quiet. Each jam session starts with a short gently led warm-up.

A practitioner of CI for more than a decade, Harriet has dedicated herself to the research, practice and facilitation of Contact Improvisation, artistic creation and body-based exploration. Well versed in the form, Harriet seeks to offer tools to support confident improvisation as well as clear physical techniques which open possibilities within the dance.

Dancing CI is simply my greatest interest and joy, for reasons I know logically, but mainly it is a felt sensation. My excitement in facilitating CI is to invite people into a similar experience and I truly rejoice in people meeting and engaging with the form. Right now I am excited by finding sweet spots of truly tuning in with dance partners and the 'whole' space, in facilitation I am particularly excited about offering useful tools for getting in and out of the floor, patterning softness and welcoming people to clear techniques which can support them in their jamming (physically and through perspective).

Richard has been developing his skills and knowledge as a Contact Improvisation (CI) dancer since 2006. Over the years he has extensively trained with many amazing international teachers within CI including Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, KJ Holmes, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung, Martin Keogh, Scott Wells, Benno Voorham & Joerg Hassmann.

Since 2011 he has shared his teaching of CI within Professional, Educational, Festival & Community Organisations as well as organised his own CI Festivals, Retreats and Camps.

“A true love for the form and genuine investigation is at the heart of Richard's teaching. He plans and delivers material in a thoughtful, reflective and thorough way, each exercise leading on to the next fluidly. His gentle, clear and encouraging manner gives students the confidence to push their practice further and his commitment to staying true to the form ensures that others can continue to discover and enjoy the beauty of the dance.”

I am passionate about the relational and deeply human experience that can be revealed through Contact Improvisation. My workshops are a refined balance of skills, creativity & free exploration, taking participants on a journey into the co-creative wonders of this practice, which always includes a healthy dose of safety and care for one another.

Through a grounded and easy-going approach, I love sharing both my detailed and extensive understanding of the principle movement forms within Contact Improvisation alongside the subtle nuances, helping people to truly embody the fundamental aspects of the dance. Most importantly creating a sense of relational awareness and a sense of togetherness as we co-create within the dance space.