EMPATHIC CONTACT
Deepen your listening and sense of self for more attuned connection on and off the dance floor.

How can we use Contact Improvisation to cultivate a deeper sense of kinesthetic awareness, and expand our empathic sense and deep listening? This class, open to all levels, is an opportunity to explore what happens when we deepen into subtlety in our contact dances. We’ll be playing along the spectrum of where somatics meets energetic frequency, and how an expanded awareness of these interrelated realms can aid us in accessing more fulfilling and dialed-in CI dances.

Combining conventional CI exercises with energy healing techniques, we first get grounded in our own bodies before exploring the realm of contact with others. Using solo, duet, and group scores we explore such questions as: What subtle changes do we notice when we dance with another? When we begin a dance with someone, is it possible for us to feel ourselves, feel others, and then feel the combination of both fields as we dance?

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RELATIONAL CONTACT
Moving toward secure attachment through contact improv

Employing subtle & basic Contact Improv principals, we let our bodies tell us more about how, when & why we move towards & away from connection. We’ll explore how to cultivate a deeper relationship with our ground & center through all of our relating, using movement & somatic exercises as ways to address & repair old body-based attachment patterns. Will include some neurobiological education about how attachment wounding is held in the body.

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CONTACT IMPROV PRINCIPALS
Beginner through Intermediate 

Contact Improvisation is a dance form in which points of physical contact provide the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation. It is also a lineage, a community and a body of knowledge that has intentionally avoided codification, and in doing so has allowed for a wide range of interpretations and styles to be expressed through the form. So instead of teaching steps, phrase work and traditional “technique”, we teach principles, best practices, physics, and safety.

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THE SPIRALING CORE OF CONTACT

Drawing from modern technique and Bartenieff Fundamentals, we explore the equal importance of the body’s core and limbs in CI. How does initiating movement from the center or periphery effect directionality, momentum, and balance in your dance? In this class we learn about landing gear & safety, the spiraling body, body halves, orientation to the floor when upside-down or in a lift, finding your way to the floor safely and risk taking. This class can be applied to all different levels of experience in CI.

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INVERSIONS AND PATHWAYS IN AND OUT OF THE FLOOR

The floor is your friend! In this class we explore all the many fun ways to dance on our hands, travel upside-down, and create pathways in and out of the floor.  We start with a warmup that draws on modern dance release technique to assist the dancer in floor work. We then learn a variety of handstands, inversions, and other ways of traveling on our hands, and dancing on the floor with more than just our feet. This is a great class for the beginner as well as the intermediate/advanced dancer wanting explore new movement pathways.

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CONTACT MASSAGE

Create a yummy, somatic dance and massage experience with a partner. Learn a sequence of therapeutic floor work designed for the perfect warm up or warm down using massage and contact improv. Improve your somatic sensitivity and kinesthetic listening skills and expand your floor dance.

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WHERE HAVE THESE CLASSES BEEN OFFERED?

Odessa has offered classes and workshops at the following festivals and venues:

• Ecstatic Dance Oakland (Wed nights)
• DNE Dance Camp (Dance New England)
• NCDC Dance Camp
• SoulPlay Festival
• HoneyRoot Summer Retreat
• Enchanted Forest Gathering
• Nevada City Contact Improv Jams and Intensives
• Convergence- Ecstatic+Fusion Dance Camp
• Ecstatic Dance Campout
• Moon Mountain Gathering

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header photo credit: Cole Hatcher