The jubilee, 15th edition of the Warsaw CI Flow International Dance Festival celebrated dance, performance, and improvisation! We invited teachers who had been co-creating the festival with us from the beginning, Ray Chang and Iwona Olszowska, and new, long-awaited teachers, Nina Martin and Anya Cloud. There was a lot of dance, improvisation in larger structures, and site-specific workshops. Once again, we gathered at the Mazovian Institute of Culture and its surrounding gardens.
Fifteen years ago, Paulina dreamt of creating a space for dance, community, and fun with an easy-going, inclusive ambience – something quite different from many formal spaces for culture and dance. A place for intercultural and intergenerational encounters. She aimed at creating a dialogue between global centres of Contact Improvisation and Warsaw (locally referred to as the heart of Europe). The FLOW Festival has already inspired several generations of dancers and movers, firmly establishing itself in the landscape of CI events in Europe. Although the festival team has changed many times, the same ambitions persist: to create a programme showcasing both the roots of CI and contemporary related genres while ensuring inclusivity and diversity of practice.
This year, we hosted:
Ray Chang, one of the pioneers of Contact Improvisation, led the morning intensive “Ready”, focusing on engagement in dance at physical, mental, emotional, and creative levels. The sessions explored mobility, agility, and flexibility in movement and choices, combining experience, practice, and forging new paths in improvisation.
Anya Cloud, representing experimental approaches in improvisation, somatics, and contemporary dance, invited participants to a workshop that was both highly physical and political: “Contact Improvisation as a High-Risk Practice”. The workshop emphasised movement potential by working on sensing, pressure, intention, tonus, direction, time, quality, and sequencing. It aimed to enhance Contact Improvisation skills, enabling better listening, expressing consent, setting boundaries, and taking risks.
Nina Martin, the creator of the Ensemble Thinking approach, led the performative intensive “Big Picture.” She invited participants to immerse themselves in forms naturally occurring in improvisational dance performance: Solo Body, Contact Improvisation Body, and Ensemble Body. In her approach, improvisational dance in performance invites dancers to move freely across all three forms to embody improvisation as a form of art in the present moment.
Iwona Olszowska, a Polish improviser who had supported the festival from the very beginning, led the afternoon urban intensive “Resonating.” This took Contact Improvisation away from the predictable spaces of the Mazovian Institute of Culture to the city and its gardens. Her practice was based on mindfulness, exploring how the space we dance in influences our movement patterns and manifests in our choices.
Zuzanna Bukowski, drawing from the Axis Syllabus in her practice, led the somatic afternoon intensive “Moving me, moving you”, diving into themes such as soft landings, tensegrity, and bone movement in the body. Her workshop brought together various movement approaches, from biodynamic to choreographic, blending the fundamentals of reflexes with creative exploration and play.
The following events took place as part of the 2024 edition:
INTENSIVE WORKSHOPS
Ready | Ray Chung
Big Picture Performance Lab – CI through a Performance Lens| Nina Martin
Contact Improvisation As a High-Risk Practice | Anya Cloud
Resonating: Sensing Actions in Site-Specific | Iwona Olszowska
Moving Me, Moving You, Solo in CI | Zuzanna Bukowski
CI WORKSHOPS AND LABS
Calmness and Softness in Inverted Positions | Tomasz Domański
Expression and Communication in Dance | Filip Wencki
Trio | Jesus Alonso
A Workshop on Consent in Contact Improvisation | Christian Dohr
The Moment of IN: Kinaesthetic, Composition & Performance Workshop | Xindi Chen i Shuyi Liao
Heals Over Head In Fall With Me (CI Skills) | Christos Litsios
Attention Gravity | Katarzyna Brzezińska
Underscore | Klara Łucznik
Intros to Jams | Marta Iucci, Kieran Mitchell, Janis Povilaitis
OPEN EVENTS
Closeness In Motion – Cultivating relationship through movement for children and parents | Katarzyna Burzyńska
Resonating (site-specific sharing) in Ogród Krasińskich with Open Jam | Concept: Iwona Olszowska with the festival participants.
Performance Night | improvised piece devised by the festival’s teachers.