ANDREW DE LOTBINIÈRE HARWOOD (MTL) — RESILIENCE (making due with what we have)

Oct. 24 to 28, 2022 — 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate: 85$ with Service Québec / 145$ if non-eligible
No Drop Ins – full week registration only
Language of instruction: English and French
Capacity: 23 people
Open to artists of all disciplines

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By registering for a workshop, you agree to cancel your participation if you have symptoms or suspect you may have COVID-19. Please read the Participant Engagement before registering. Thank you!

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CONTENT // This workshop honors Contact Improvisation’s 50^th anniversary.  Everyone is welcome, especially long time enthusiasts of this form and practitioners who are older. At its core, CI offers us a testing ground for the development of resilience and creativity while allowing what is new to transpire. We will seek to harvest from the collective accrued wisdom in the room while opening our minds to the possibilities of reinventing our practice and tuning to the emergent tasks of the dancing. Classes will include topics such as: efficiently adjusting to physical challenges, using what you have and developing what you can do, perceiving what’s important and accepting our awkwardness. Each session will emphasize the potential and necessity of improvising one’s responses to the moment in ways that are nourishing on both a physical and emotional level. 

ACCESSIBILITY // In essence this course accentuates physical contact involving a continual exchange of weight in partnership with another person (sometimes three or four) where all parts of the body will be solicited. 

We will start the class by gathering together to discuss the menu of the day, followed by a period of personal awareness and a guided warm-up related to the particular focus of the day. All the oral instructions are accompanied by a demonstration and will be followed by a period of research and practice where each person can go at their own pace and ability. 

The sessions will end with a period of relaxation and release followed by a closing circle where we will share our discoveries and our challenges. This course will be demanding for people with reduced mobility who may encounter some difficulty.

BIO // Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is renowned as a leading light in the field of dance improvisation. He is recognized internationally as a pioneer of contact improvisation (CI) and a master teacher/performer in both real-time composition and CI. For over forty-five years he has dedicated himself to the research, development, education, collaboration and dissemination of these rigorous artistic practices as sophisticated movement disciplines and performing art forms. Since 1976, his work has evolved through an abundance of creative associations and collaborative performances around the globe with the likes of: Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Nita Little, Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Ray Chung, Kirstie Simson, Karen Nelson, K.J. Holmes, Daniel Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Alito Alessi and so many more. Formerly artistic director of AH HA Productions (2000–2014), he also danced with the companies of Marie Chouinard, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Jo Lechay, Joint Forces and Fulcrum, as well as the improvisational dance collectives Discovery Bal, The Echo Case and The Improvisational Movement Fund. 

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