NANCY LAVOIE (MTL) — Skinship: the connected body

Mar. 18 to 22, 2019 – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
$90 full week / $20 drop-ins (unless full)
Open to artists of all disciplines / Bilingual teacher
Capacity: 25 people, priority for full week attendance

This workshop is for anyone interested in partner work. It proposes conscious body work through a series of exercises comprising of interactions between the art of touch, dance and music. This workshop is open to dancers of argentine tango and any other form of partner dance, as well as to actors, musicians, performers and massage therapists.

More specifically:

– we will explore the states of hook-up, where sensation, intuition and intellect are in constant dialogue;
– we will look at how to devote our temporalities and sculpt space with one or more partners;
– we will develop sensitive listening of the “viewer” and explore the different ways of entering into contact with “them”, through different approaches such as touch and the activation of mirroring neurons;
– initiation to Abandon corporel and Momentum massage and development of tactile and sensorial acquitment necessary to a present touch;
– precision and connexion in tango and the relation to bio tensegrity;
– initiation to the analysis of the parameters of the musical object and its application in movement and music.

Through research of valid and accurate touch and it’s activation by movement, and by wearing the music like our clothing or by composing it, we will attempt to create a living dialogue, supple and free, and to apprehend the world differently, exploring its connexions, playing with our own perceptions and the traces they leave… So that in our attentiveness, something wonderful can happen.

From her first tango class, Nancy Lavoie was seduced by the rich expressivity of the dance. She travelled to Argentina to study with teachers who experienced the golden age of tango, in order to better understand its sources, traditions and language. From the beginning, she learned both how to guide and be guided. A passionate promoter of tango, in 1995 she founded the first school dedicated to tango in Quebec: l’Avenue Tango. In 2005, she became a member of the Tango Discovery collective, a movement research group based in Buenos Aires where she perfected her pedagogy and developed methods of movement teaching and partner-work inspired by cultural anthropology and the analysis of human phenomena. Nancy is also a piano teacher, holds a bachelor’s in music, is a certified massage therapist in California massage, sports massage, Momentum, and is a Tragermd practitioner. Since 2007, she is an instructor at the Centre l’Attitude in Californian massage, Abandon corporel, Consciense corporelle as well as massage for pregnant women. She is regularly invited to give intensive workshops and present short choreographic works in New York, Berline, Buenos Aires, Rome, Stockholm, Hamburg, Zurich, Oslo and Paris.


All workshops are for professional performing artists. Some require advanced dance training.

Registration – Please contact (514) 393-3771 or at info@studio303.ca. A non-refundable deposit of $20 is required to reserve your spot.

Payments – By check, cash, Paypal or credit card on the phone or in person ($1 to $2 fee)

Reimbursement policy– No reimbursement possible without a good reason (ex: sickness or injury).

*Emploi-Québec – With the support of Emploi-Québec. In order to get this rate, participants must be Canadian citizens or permanent resident and live in Québec. Full-time students and social assistance beneficiaries are not eligible to this rate. In case of inadmissibility, you can refer to the non-eligible rate, contact us for questions.

Studio’s accessibility – Consult this page for detailed information.