This workshop focuses on developing physical intelligence and emotional resonance in contact improvisation. Physical intelligence is not about specific movements but the ability to solve the emergent tasks or situations that evolve through the dancing. This manifests differently in each person and includes the ability to provide mobile support, organizing your body to be lifted, finding fluid pathways into and out of the floor, and the ability to push, yield, and pull away from your partner. We would also include here the ability to creatively engage with your partner. This is the poetics underlying the form.
Physical intelligence involves perceptual acuity, the ability to hone in on what is significant to guide your movement, and your capacity to be in touch with yourself, your partners, and your environment. Emotional resonance is the ability to notice how the dancing is affecting you, others, and your environment. It involves the senses and the ability to imagine how we impact one another. It includes the ability to inhibit one’s choices and to imagine beyond the sensorial moment, asking questions like, “What if we tried something different?” Or, “What is missing here?”
Our work seeks to help dancers deepen their understanding of the core principles of CI and to become inspired through the interplay of touch, movement, and imagination.
9 → 12 October 2026 · four days, full immersion.
