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CONTACT IMPROVISATION
TRAINING PROGRAM 2025 

MALMÖ · GOTHENBURG · STOCKHOLM

Documentation from 2024's program in Malmö. Photographer Alexandra Bergman

rolling . falling . flying . listening
becoming . kinaesthetic . landscape
negotiating . finding . soil

A modular training program in Contact Improvisation,

as a movement practice, somatic research, and art form.

 

Combining somatic practices, tools for spatial awareness, and technical skills for improvisation in and out of contact, we explore performative scores and tools for ensemble work. Investing time in movement, stillness, silence, words, sound, writing, and drawing, we discover, uncover, and recover by moving and being moved. Pouring ourselves into collective knowledge and development, creating a living library within a group.

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During our weekends the idea is to co-create a C.I. living room where we practice various forms of reflection to explore what moving together can reveal. We identify sources and history, drawing inspiration from other practices and great C.I teachers coming in to share.

Each module has a research topic interweaving practice and theory, approaching the body as a relational field.

FACULTY 2025

KATJA MUSTONEN is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer from Finland. For the past 20 years, the work around dance has made her travel around the globe. In dance, she is interested in the holistic performer, where strong physicality is joined with active imagination, energy work, and embodied wisdom. Her special strength is in Contact Improvisation, partnering, and improvisation, but she works versatilely within dance depending on the context as a performer, maker, and teacher.

HUGH STANIER is a dance artist and movement educator from the UK. Specialising in Contact Improvisation and floor-work. He has over 16 years of teaching & performance experience. He began dancing when he was 15, training in Break dance and Contemporary. He went on to train at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2008. Since then he has worked with companies such as 2Faced Dance, Tom Dale, STAN Won’t Dance, and Wim Vandekeybus/ Ultima Vez.  He has taught internationally at the Goa Contact Festival, Goa Dance residency, Thailand Contact and ecstatic arts festival, Berlin contact festival and Portugal Contact festival and for National Dance company Wales (NDCW) as well as organising his own workshops and retreats in Portugal, Germany and Israel.  Within his teaching practice he combines his experience in Breakdance, Contemporary and Contact Improvisation to create a highly physical, technical and intuitive  approach to movement exploration.  He is also a qualified TMW (Tai Chi Movements for Wellbeing) facilitator. The principles of Tai Chi and Qi Kung underpin his approach to teaching and sharing movement. Hugh’s approach to movement practice is both technical and experiential - concentrating on building up a functional understanding of underlying physical principles and structures of Contact Improvisation, whilst also widening the trust to one's instincts, impulses and intuition. 

The principal themes behind the work are organic, efficient and functional movement, tuning and sensitivity to listening through & with the body deepening the awareness of the body in movement and in connection to other bodies. The sessions develop slowly from inside to out. Often starting with individual floor-work, offering particular principles and tasks, and then gradually building up through the layers using the natural spirals of the body.  Material alternates between contact and solo tasks, and exercises that connect the group as a whole, creating an open, safe and exciting environment to explore. 
Within specific exercises we will  explore tools that are helpful to work in contact: sharing weight, center-to-center, leaning and supporting, rolling point of contact. Also using ideas around momentum, suspension, inertia & falling. To find effortless ways into weight transfers and lifting, leading and following, falling and spiraling… 
Time will also be given to work with dance-scores, which allows participants to get into the flow of their own movement, giving time and space to integrate the learnt technique into their dance.

SERGEY SEMICHEV is a teacher, dancer, performer, researcher and activist from Ukraine. Organizer and co-organizer of Contact Improvisation festivals and projects for filming dance movies in Ukraine. Teacher of Contact Improvisation in Europe and at European Contact Improvisation festivals. Teacher and organizer of regular classes and jams in Rome (Italy). In the past, a gymnast, acrobat, fitness trainer. Massage therapist, physiotherapist, photographer and videographer.

Application opens 1st of November 2024

The coming year the modules will create a dialogue between Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm. Participants are required to be familiar with Contact Improvisation and /or other somatic movement disciplines. Dedicated to deepen and expand their practice and research.

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The program consist of two blocks where we meet to dive into practice during six intensive weekends.
The intention is to cultivate a continuous and flourishing practice of Contact Improvisation. 

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2025 will be the 4th edition of the program. It is an initiation to create a group process. To build, sustain, remain, deconstruct, question, support, reflect, breath, and craft a beautiful space together. Opening up exchange between the cities, the vision is to connect, nurture, and develop the community in Sweden.

BLOCK 1
 

Module 1  -  Malmö       w.12     March   20 - 23     

Module 2  -  Göteborg   w.16     April     18 - 20     

Module 3  -  Stockholm  w.20     Maj      16 - 18     

BLOCK 2
 

Module 4  -  Malmö       w.35     Aug      29 - 31     

Module 5  -  Göteborg   w.39     Sept      26 - 28     
Module 6  -  Stockholm  w.43     Oct       24 - 26     

PRACTICAL INFO 2025

"This program has truly made a significant impact on my experience of my being, body, mentally and all in between. Led by Pippi, an incredibly gentle and responsive facilitator, the experience has been transformative. From dancing with chairs, threads net all around us, dancers, to running and jumping into each others bodies.
Pippi's exceptional teaching approach, characterised by attentiveness, humbleness and adaptability, made it possible for me to not only participate but to thrive within this program for an entire year. The group dynamics were wonderfully supportive, allowing us to forge strong bonds and create a safe and comfortable environment. I couldn't imagine that i could feel that safe with a group of strangers, but time and good facilitating does that."

 

Sahab

MALMÖ

w. 6    Feb 9-11

w. 14  April 5-7

w. 22  May 31-1

w. 34  Aug 23-24

w. 40  Oct 4-5

w. 48  Nov 29-1

STOCKHOLM

w. 7    Feb 16-18

w. 16  April 19-20

w. 24  Juni 14-15

w. 35  Aug 30-31

w. 42  Oct 18-19

w. 50  Dec 13-15

TIME

Fridays             18.30 - 21.00

Saturdays         13.00 - 18.00

*  Sundays        11.00 - 14.00

*  Sundays only goes for the First and the Last Module.
** Short breaks will be included and times may shift​ depending on the process and the groups needs.

PRACTICAL INFO 2024

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