As of Aug6th, there are 6 spots available for this workshop.

Contact Improv Intensive, 5 day week, with Jennifer Mcleish-Lewis and Yves Candau, Aug 11-17, 2013.

$395 ($270 if doing Elsewhere festival too) includes tuition, all meals, camping and transportation on Lasqueti. Arrive Sunday for orientation and first jam. Class begins Monday morning. Departure is Saturday morning after breakfast.

To register go to Contact Us on the right side of the screen and send us a message. In your email say which intensive you are registering for.

Yves Candau

Yves’s teaching has been nourished by a number of past and present practices: Aikido, Vipassana meditation, and most importantly Steve Paxton‘s Material for the Spine and the Alexander Technique.

As dancers we are privileged to experiences that are both holistic and multi-layered. One could say that our dances take place simultaneously in the mind, in the body and in the world. We will use these complementary and interconnected points of view to explore and articulate the reality of our living moving beings in Contact Improvisation.

Internally we will develop our awareness, clarity of intention, and refine our use of the foundations of movement in the body: such as the structural support provided by the skeletal system, the connectivity of the fascia, or the flow of muscular tone that creates movement. Externally we will explore and strengthen specific movement patterns, such as the helixes manifested in walking, that can be expanded to take us in and out of the floor, and through space. We will aim to expand our perception and physical possibilities towards a spherical appreciation of space, where movement can take place in any direction.

These points of view will integrate as we practice working both internally and externally, through overlapping cycles of attention, intention and action, creating a rich place from which to meet one another. There is for me a deepening of experience to be gained here, which supports my exhilaration of exploring movement and the joy of dancing with a partner, as a conscious as well as physical being.

Links: Material for the Spine, Alexander Technique

Bio

Yves Candau has a background in science (MEng in applied mathematics and MSc in cognitive sciences). He was doing a PhD in cognitive sciences when he discovered dance. Gradually his interest shifted from the abstract to a more embodied research, which he has been passionately pursuing ever since. He trained with several teachers in Paris, went to Pina Bausch’s Folkwang Hochshule in Essen Germany, and deepened his practice of Contact Improvisation and Improvisation studying in Europe and North America, in particular with Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson and Daniel Lepkoff.

Yves has been teaching Contact Improvisation since 2001, giving classes and workshops in France, Italy, Germany, Canada and the USA. As an interpreter he has had the pleasure to work with a number of choreographers in Toronto: Rebecca Todd, Eryn Dace Trudell, Malgorzata Nowacka, Newton Moraes, Holly Small, Kathleen Rea, and most frequently Peter Chin, for whom he has had the pleasure to dance over a span of 10 years and six different pieces.

For his own performance work Yves is particularly interested in solo improvisation, a minimalist form which he has been exploring for several years. In September 2012 he was invited by Steve Paxton to perform a solo piece at Saint Mark’s church in New York. This was part of an event Steve organized for Danspace Project’s Judson Now series. Yves is also an overtone singer and a teacher of the Alexander Technique.

In Jennifer’s Class:

In Jennifer’s class we will  explore moving in and out of contact with partners, codified techniques of the form (skills) and open dancing with self and others. We move from the floor, to standing, back to the floor cultivating a sense of grace and flow. Touch is inherent in these practices, so come ready to touch and be touched. Boundaries are asserted and respected as we become more sensitive to one another’s space, both energetic and physical.

Jennifer McLeish-Lewis

Performer – Producer – Choreographer – Teacher – Radio Host

Jennifer McLeish-Lewis is a a professional dance artist and choreogrpher.  She has had a creative practice in dance performance since she was nine years old.  She grew up on ballet and modern dance at the Alberta Ballet School, trained in Graham Technique at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and completed her post secondary training at Vancouver’s MainDance.  She has been training with master contact teacher Peter Bingham since 2002, and for the last eleven years contact has been the dance form she that she comes home to; it fortifies her daily physical practice, informs her choreography and provides a platform for her teaching.  Other wonderful contact teachers that Jennifer has had the privilege to study under are Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung, Karl Frost and the dancers at EDAM Dance.  Jennifer believes that as a peace practice, contact improvisation can heal our bodies and spirits.

She has performed in Brussels at the Danse en Vol Festival with MACHiNENOiSY’s Body/Building (2003), down the west coast of the United States with Karl Frost’s Axolotl (2005), in Berlin with Felix Ruckert’s United Kingdom (2006), and at The Banff Centre during a residency with The Tomorrow Collective (2008). In May 2007 she was the assistant-director of a piece by Martha Carter at the Dance Week Festival in Zagreb, Croatia.

For the last three years she has been moving in a theatrical direction with her work, co-creating and performing in Radix Theatre’s Fever (Hive), in her own pieces like fishgirl (Battery Opera’s Bob’s Lounge and Leaky Heaven Circus’s BLiNK) Privileged White Girl (at The Carroll Street Festival) and The Naughty Elf (BLiNK). A major theme and through line in her work is the sacred feminine.

Jennifer trained across Canada at The Alberta Ballet School of Dance, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and MainDance, which she graduated from in 2002. In 2003 she was the recipient of the Holly Body Tattoo BC Emerging Dance Artist Award. Jennifer was a company member of mmHoP from 2002-2009, performing in stage and film work and at times as rehearsal director or choreographer’s assistant (martamartahop.com). Along with the artists mentioned above, Jennifer has performed works by Peter Bingham, Susan Elliott, David Pressault, Helen Walkley, Delia Brett and Daelik. Her training in contemporary techniques, ballet, contact improvisation and yoga, as well as her experience in club culture make her a versatile interpreter.

Jennifer was a founding member and one of three co-artistic directors of The Tomorrow Collective; a company that produces the interdisciplinary performance series Brief Encounters. The “artistic blind date meets creation under the gun” event created a buzz in the Vancouver arts community as “one of the city’s hottest ongoing series” –The Georgia Straight, 2007. As a platform for accessible and inspiring interdisciplinary work, Brief Encounters is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and The City of Vancouver. Jennifer left The Tomorrow Collective in 2009 to pursue her solo career.

Jennifer has had her choreography presented at professional venues such as The Dancing on the Edge Festival, Dances for a Small Stage, Signal and Noise, The Scotia Bank Dance Centre’s DanceLab Series, Lucky Trimmer (Berlin) and in a short film for the National Film Board of Canada. Jennifer is a certified Hatha Yoga instructor who has taught since 2004. As a contact improvisator she leads workshops, classes and jams in the form. Her most recent creative endeavor is an all women’s radio show called GIRLcrush on Cortes Radio, every Wednesday afternoon from 1-3pm PST.

To register go to ‘Contact Us’ on the right side of the screen and ‘send us a message’. Please specify which event you are registering for.