ALL CLASSES ARE OPEN LEVEL FOR ALL BACKGROUNDS AND ABILITIES

monday

CONTACT IMPROVISATION TECHNIQUE CLASS

Time: Monday 18-20.30
Date: January-July 1st & August-December (summer break in July)
Location: Alma Söderberg Studio, Bergsgatan 29, Malmö

Teachers during the spring are Tuva Hildebrand, Katarzyna Paluch, Aurora Westfeldt, Emelie Bardon, Lone Havemosse and Benjamin Lindh Medin.

Warmly welcome to a weekly drop-in class in Contact Improvisation (CI) Technique training that will happen all year around with rotating teachers!

During 2.5 hours you will be guided through technical exercises and BodyMind (Somatic) practices in Contact Improvisation that will be taken into further explorations through jam-like moments. We will practice elements of CI such as how the use of breath, weight and skeletal alignment supports your movement; how to follow a point of contact; how to take, give weight and lift one another in a safe way; how to be comfortable being a state of not knowing and listen deeply to the subtle impulses of the now without anticipation, as well as philosophical and relational aspects of CI.

This is a class for both beginners and experienced. Before each new teacher takes on their block of four weeks we will post about their practice. Some teachers practice might be more directed towards beginners or experienced. However, in Contact Improvisation you will most likely be able to practice any exercise on your level of experience that day.

The classes are taught in English or Swedish depending on teacher and the needs of the students.

Contact Improvisation is a dance form developed in the 1970’s in the US by Steve Paxton and fellow dancers. It has its base in the martial art Aikido, Zen meditation and post-modern dance and improvisation but has evolved since then until today into different forms. The core of contact improvisation is to investigate how to allow yourself to be moved by gravity, while listening to the contact point between you and the floor, wall or another body.

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tuesday

RELEASING INTO MOVEMENT – SKINNER RELEASING TECHNIQUE & OPEN SOURCE FORMS

Time: Tuesday 17.30-19.30
Date: April 14, 21, 28 – May 5, 12, 26 – June 2, 9, 16
(Please note: no class on May 19th)
Location: Alma Söderberg Studio, Bergsgatan 29, Malmö

Teacher: Tuva Hildebrand

In this class series you will experience playful poetic imagery and touch to bring you into presence and dynamic movement. The class atmosphere is gentle, interweaving guided imagery and a few hands-on partner exercises with a variety of musical environments that support and propel us into movement in a comfortable, safe atmosphere. The practice offered is inspired by the somatic dance techniques Skinner Releasing Technique and Open Source Forms.

Through the use of poetic imagery, guided touch, specific movement pathways and movement improvisation we practice letting go of unnecessary tension, discovering new possibilities to express oneself, effortless strength and an unlimited world of creativity.

Emslie, M.A., who wrote the book “Skinner Releasing Technique: a movement and dance practice”, describes SRT as “a somatic movement, dance and creative practice with a core underlying principle of releasing blocked energy, held tension, and habitual patterns of body mind.” Open Source Forms is an expansion of SRT by one of J. Skinners apprentices, Stephanie Skura.

Besides body-work based touch and poetic images that one embodies through movement, the class includes learning a few specific forms of movement patterns to practice ease, strength and coordination. During a session there is also time for improvisation where one explores and integrates the kinesthetic and verbal information through your own rhythm, pace and physical expression. In the end of a session you process your experience through drawing and writing.

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sunday

MOVING FROM TOUCH – IN-DEPTH EMBODIED ANATOMY & SENSORY AWARENESS THROUGH GUIDED TOUCH & IMAGERY

Time: Sunday 13-16.00
Dates: April 19, May 3, 10, 24, 31, June 14th
Location: Alma Söderberg Studio, Bergsgatan 29, Malmö

Teacher: Tuva Hildebrand

How are you listening? Are you thinking or actually listening to what is there – allowing it to move you? What is knowledge? How do we learn about ourselves, each other and the world through our sensing body?

In this slower in-depth workshop we use guided touch through hands-on partnering to bring you into a meditative state of deep presence through movement and dance, relating to other humans and the more than human. We listen to and follow our breath, weight, cells, organs, skeletal landscape and senses. We listen to the materiality of our body and the environment it relates to on a micro and macro level.

Methods we use are embodied anatomy, visual imagery, poetic verbal guidance, hands-on (bodywork inspired) partnering, solo and group dance improvisation, reflecting and conversating – inspired by the work of somatic dance pioneer Eva Karczag, BodyMind Centering, Contact Improvisation and Alexander Technique, among other techniques.

Through touch and movement, we practice shifting our experience from analytical and word-based thought into an embodied perception of the materiality of yourself and your surrounding. We practice listening deeply to what is there and daring to be in a place of unknowing and unpredictability; of allowing more possibilities for learning, moving and choice-making – for dancing – to be available. We listen and trust the body’s intelligence, archive and process in intimate meeting with the world it is being formed by and forming all the time.

The exercises offer tools to release unnecessary tension, access strength and move effortlessly in a physically and psychologically sustainable way. You will notice how you use your attention and how it affects all of your cells in all of your body. Releasing tension and listening deeply to what is there can open up an unrestricted creativity, a playfulness, a language, ideas and images that are sitting deeply in your subconscious – as well as a more non-violent way of relating.

Please note:
Every other Sunday our exercises will lead into solo movement explorations and every other Sunday our explorations will be integrated with contact improvisation inspired forms of moving.
Solo/no contact improvisation: April 19 – May 10, 31
In touch/contact improvisation: May 3, 24 – June 14th