TEACHERS AND ARTISTS
Adrian Russi
CH
Inna Falkova
UA
Thomas Kampe
UK/DE
MARTA IUCCI
IT
CHRISTINA DOHR
DE/TH
MAJA MIŚTA
PL
ROSA VALENTINA MARTINO
it
DANIEL ROJASANTA
CO/CH
NATASCHA GOLUBTSOVA
RU/DE
PAWEŁ KUBIAK
PL
KAMILA ZIĘBA
PL
Klara Łucznik
PL/UK
Zuzanna Bukowski
PL
TOMASZ DOMANSKI
PL
Paulina Święcańska
pl
SOUNDSCAPE
Julia Partyka
PL
Daniel Zorzano
PL/MX
Olga Skrzypek
PL
Marcin Bożek i Danny Kamins
PL/USA
Ilya Semashkevich
PL/BY
ADRIAN RUSSI
CH
Adrian Russi has been teaching Contact Improvisation in Switzerland and abroad for over 20 years. Alongside others, he studied with the founders Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Nita Little. In his teaching, he values differentiated perception and precise movement technique, as well as a creativity that arises from a distinct body awareness. For him the pleasure to play and a deep commitment are the basis that allows him to fully embrace the possibilities of dance. Further influences originate from his studies of various martial arts and Craniosacral Bodywork as well as from his own research work (on fascia, among other things).
INTENSIVE
LISTENING: body – space – encounter
When immersing oneself in Contact Improvisation, it is revealed very quickly and with great clarity how multifaceted and complex this dance form is. The most different layers of the human being are addressed and accordingly diverse are the skills that are required from the dancers. This can sometimes lead to overwhelming demands, but most of the time one feels deeply and entirely nourished after a contact jam – physically, emotionally and also socially.
For me, the physicality of the body-to-body encounter forms the basis of the entire happening. This includes sensing one’s own body beforehand, being in contact with the floor and the space, and finally the differentiated listening to the other body. The word “listening” emphasizes that the dancers take an observing distance to what they sense and thus have more freedom in finding their own movements. The dancers’ own history and any possible preconceptions recede into the background and new and often surprising pathways open up for their encounters with the others. The basis for the perception is decidedly physical – but as all layers of humanity are always in resonance, the dances turn into something so fulfilling, rich and personal.
This workshop is all about perception and the resulting movement qualities and encounters. Dynamics and powerfulness should also come into play. It may therefore be an intention to go beyond the slow, mindful encounters to create wild and technically challenging dances that emerge from a differentiated listening maintained over the entire duration. In the phases of free jamming, the participants have the opportunity to follow the quality of the moment and to find their way into dances full of grace and liveliness.
Inna Falkova
UA
Inna is a Ukrainian choreographer, performer, and somatic therapist with over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of art and psychology. She has been active in Contact Improvisation since 2000 and is the founder of the Kharkov Laboratory of Contact Improvisation and the experimental group Dancelab. Inna teaches Authentic Movement, Dance-Movement Therapy, and somatic practices, drawing from extensive training in Body-Mind Gestalt, Integral Body-Mind Therapy, and trauma-informed approaches.
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Inna has been working as a crisis psychotherapist with humanitarian organizations in de-occupied territories, while continuing to create performances reflecting on the experience of war. She currently leads somatic practice groups and therapeutic support programs in Kharkiv, close to the Russian border, sustaining her lifelong dedication to bridging psychology and art even in times of crisis.
INTENSIVE
JUST BEFORE
It’s a laboratory for movement practitioners inviting to explore together what’s next. To explore the potential of community, civilization and collective intelligence. One that can become an act of intentional action.
War and peace. Life and death. Polarization.
When we actively research, we gain awareness and can shape experience. But when experience happens to us, realizations emerge beyond our control.
Throughout history, rituals and initiations prepared people for life’s challenges—offering a step ahead, just before real experience took hold.
War brings fear, death, and battle. But also internal strength, resilience, and compassion. How can we engage with these forces without unconsciously stepping into war itself?
The world is small. War lives in our bodies. Can we create a future where life is not shaped by its patterns? A society where nonviolence isn’t utopian but a real possibility?
Aggression and power struggles are part of human nature. Can we integrate them without recreating war? Can we consciously cultivate peace—not as something we stumble into, but as an embodied practice?
In daily life, we take existence for granted. It’s only on the edge of loss that life’s value becomes clear. Can we create conditions to stay aware, to act intentionally?
Thomas Kampe
UK/DE
Thomas Kampe (PhD) lives in London and has worked with dance, theatre, performance, and movement for the last 45 years. He has worked as performer, choreographer, and director in Germany and Britain, and was Professor for Somatic Performance and Education at Bath Spa University, UK, until 2022. Since the late 1980s Thomas has taught somatic approaches towards Movement Education, Theatre, and Contact Improvisation in different settings around the world. Thomas is a qualified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method® which forms a foundation for his teaching of dance and movement. His numerous research writings and performance works have been published internationally. Thomas recently co-edited JDSP Vol. 13.1&2 (2022): ‘Embodying Eco-Consciousness: Somatics, Aesthetic Practice and Social Action’, and was guest editor of the IFF Journal Vol. 6 (2019): ‘Practices of Freedom: The Feldenkrais Method and Creativity’. He was co-editor of the book ‘Beyond Forgetting – Persecution/Exile/Memory: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Design, Performance and Education’ (2021). He is a member of the London collective CI@Goldsmiths and of the International Forum for Eco-Embodied Arts (IFEEA).
https://thomaskampe.wordpress.com
INTENSIVE
GRAVITY MOVES: Feldenkrais and Contact Improvisation
In this workshop, we integrate principles from the Feldenkrais Method® with Contact Improvisation, using movement experiments and detailed partner work to develop awareness, spontaneity and ease in our CI dancing. Through Feldenkrais-based explorations, we will deepen our self-awareness, refine our sensitivity to touch and weight and discover new pathways of movement and complexity in coordination in order to support creativity and connection in partnership.
We will focus on developing a fluid coordination of our core and on fine-tuning our ability to relate creatively to gravity and our living environment. Using ‘Awareness Through Movement’® lessons and guided touch-based explorations, we will cultivate a clearer sense of our core, our relationship with gravity and our ability to move with efficiency and freedom.
The Feldenkrais Method®, developed by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904–1984), is a somatic learning process that enhances mobility, self-discovery, and well-being. It invites us to listen to ourselves and to explore the world of our internal sensation. It activates our organic intelligence and relational partnering skills. It invites gentle, sensorial, and exhilarating dancing by supporting somatic communication through touch, a readiness for being-with, and re-orientation to gravity.
MARTA IUCCI
IT
Dancer, researcher, and teacher of Contact Improvisation and the Feldenkrais® Method since 2011. I love learning and think of learning as our infinite potential as human beings. What I like to share through movement and contact is rediscovering one’s body and inhabiting it more fully. I’ve studied dance mainly in Rome, Paris, and Barcelona. My main inspiration and teacher in Cl is Nita Little. I have also had the good fortune of studying with Nancy Stark Smith, Ray Chung, Martin Keogh, and Kirstie Simson, as well as to organise their workshops in Spazio NU, Pontedera. From 2016 to 2019, I collaborated with Asaf Bachrach, Matthieu Gaudreau, and Emma Bigé on “F.A.R.”, the Paris area-based dance and somatic practices project drawing upon the Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, Rolfing, and CI. I currently live in Tuscany and work in Italy and abroad.
CI SKILLS: GROUNDING AND FLOWING
During this class, we want to explore our supports and play with the various possibilities our four limbs offer us in relation to the floor. And then also between the floor, the space, and a partner. How can we feel powerful when receiving weight? How can we clarify to ourselves our support and that of our partner while allowing the dance to flow in small and large imbalances? And how can this generate momentum and the possibility of small falls and flights? We will literally move through these questions, creating the space for exciting but soft moves.
CHRISTINA DOHR
DE/TH
Christina is a certified Embodiment Facilitator and Coach, guiding individuals and groups toward greater self-awareness and choice around their patterns and relationships.
Her multidisciplinary background includes a black belt in Aikido, yoga teacher training, various dance forms, meditation, bodywork, and conscious relating practices. Over the past 10 years, Christina’s focus has been on Contact Improvisation and its potential for both social and personal transformation.
In all her work, Christina uses embodied inquiries involving posture, movement, and breath to deepen self-awareness and empower people to shift patterns in a playful, experiential way. Those who work with Christina often describe her approach as sensitive, perceptive, down-to-earth, and balanced while bringing clarity, compassion, and humour into the space.
FINDING COMMON GROUND
An exploration of conflict and collaboration through the lens of Contact Improvisation and Aikido.
How do we meet another person? How do we find common ground when forces oppose, direction shifts, or momentum builds? In both dance and life, we are constantly navigating connection – sometimes with ease, at other times with tension. This session explores how principles from Contact Improvisation and Aikido can support us in harmonising with others while staying grounded in ourselves.
Through guided exercises, solo explorations, and partner work, we’ll examine the following topics:
- Listening through touch: How can we sense and respond rather than react?
- Shared balance: Finding stability in motion, both physically and relationally.
- Moving with, not against: Redirecting opposing forces into creative possibilities.
- Clear boundaries & soft edges: Staying true to ourselves while staying connected.
In Aikido, practitioners learn to meet incoming energy without resistance, blending with an attack and redirecting its path. Contact Improvisation offers a similar approach – instead of fighting momentum, we move with it, finding mutual pathways for shared balance and creative flow. Both practices reveal that common ground isn’t about agreement but about attunement – listening, adapting, and creating together.
No prior experience is necessary. This session welcomes movers of all backgrounds who are curious about how physical practice can illuminate relational skills.
MAJA MIŚTA
PL
Maja is a dance artist, performer, and contact improvisation teacher based in Lower Silesia, Poland. A graduate of the Łódź Academy of Music in the performing arts programme Somatics in Dance and Therapy and of the University of Warsaw in cognitive science. Maja has also studied interior design at SWPS University and experimental choreography at Centrum w Ruchu in Warsaw. As a certified Thai massage and Wuo-Tai bodywork practitioner, she is interested in the connection between dance and bodywork. She also draws inspiration from embodied phenomenology and various somatic practices, including Axis Syllabus, BMC, and the Feldenkrais Method. In her current artistic activities, Maja is exploring “bodies of water” – the somatisation of fluid systems in the body and of fluid aspects of identity. Maja’s choreography landscapes are often based on improvisation scores, partnering dance, and site-specific practices.
SOFT EDGES
Smooth, hard, and slippery surfaces; unyielding, oppressive sharpness and roughness; grooves and recesses. I soften all these qualities of matter around me, settling into my body and stretching movement in time. I sink into the floor and walls, dive into fabrics and under the skin, swim in the body and soften it. I adjust the pace of movement to the tone of the tissues and discover the absorbing structure of the skeleton. I gradually pour the weight in dialogue with gravity, space, and another body.
In this workshop, we will explore the potential of movement in the gravitational field, in the compression and decompression of tissues, in the elasticity of fascia, and in the embrace of another body. Using elements of Thai bodywork and taking advantage of the body’s tensegrity structures, among others, we will soften and slow down our falls and lifts, as well as our encounters with the floor and with other bodies. We will investigate the soft quality of touch and the movement paths resulting from the interwoven forms and shapes of our bodies.
ROSA VALENTINA MARTINO
IT
Rosa is a dancer, artist, and architect from southern Italy. After years of working as an architect in Austria, she discovered the transformative and healing power of dance and Contact Improvisation. Immersing herself in intensive training in Vienna, she soon found herself dancing at numerous festivals and camps around the world, learning from nature and countless jams.
Meeting the founding souls of Contact Improvisation, including Nita Little and Karen Nelson, profoundly shifted her perception and deepened her understanding of the practice, transforming her path as a dancer. Driven by a passion for merging dance with everyday life, she seeks to draw profound lessons from movement, rethinking and reimagining societal patterns to radically transform the way we live and connect with the earth.
Rosa is a certified Danceability teacher, an inclusive dance method for people with disabilities, and an accredited Contact Beyond Contact facilitator. She also facilitates Contact Improvisation, such as in the Dansoma dance residency in Sicily, blending somatic exploration with acrobatics and postural training in her approach.
She combines dance and Contact Improvisation with diverse artistic practices, yoga, tai chi, meditation, and mindfulness. Through her work, she explores ways to reimagine community, drawing inspiration from ancestral practices and fostering deeper human connection.
POETRY IN MOTION
Dancing from the Center, Dancing from the Heart
Dance is a conversation—a river that flows, bends, and is reshaped with each moment. By stepping beyond habitual patterns, we embrace the grace of letting go.
This workshop serves as a living laboratory to unlock fluidity in movement, filling the body with softness and adaptability. We’ll explore the dialogue between the coarse and subtle bodies, opening the backspace, expanding in all directions, and finding resilience through bouncing, yielding, and releasing.
Inspired by tai chi and qigong, we’ll work with breath and intention to awaken energy flow, allowing movement to arise naturally.
Beginning with meditation and slow, intentional exercises, we’ll cultivate ease and receptivity. Through Contact Improvisation, our partners’ touch will guide us to deepen our connection with our own energy centres, enhancing our internal awareness and unlocking new movement possibilities.
What does it mean to dance from the centre? How does it feel to dance from the heart? We will explore these questions, allowing our partners’ presence to support our expansion while we respond with openness and sensitivity.
Poetry in Motion invites you to move beyond structure, rediscover the poetry within every gesture, and trust that the body, when given space, will find its own expression.
DANIEL ROJASANTA
CO/CH
Multidisciplinary performing artist born in Latin America and now teaching Contact Improvisation internationally. Has eight years of experience performing dance, music, and theatre.
Studied physical theater in South Korea with the Theater Troupe Georipae; trained in butoh with the Japanese master Katsura Kan (桂勘); practiced tai chi in Shanghai with the master Zhou ZhongFu (周中福).
Daniel has facilitated Contact Improvisation, performance, and somatics workshops and laboratories in Russia, Japan, United States, Colombia, Thailand, and – over many years – China, where he co-created the first CI community in Hangzhou. He has toured extensively performing both his own improvisation pieces created in collaboration with Contact HZ, as well as dance and theater pieces by the ASK from Shanghai, the Spanish troupe Teatre Animal, and the Swedish dance company Ingrid Olterman Dans. He has performed at the India Art Fair in New Delhi, the Myriang Village Theater in South Korea, the National Grand Theater in Beijing, and the Power Station of Art at the Shanghai Art Biennial.
Daniel has led workshops in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, New York, Moscow, and Bogota.
BLENDING FORCES
Co-facilitated with Paweł Kubiak
- How to unify forces?
- How to land safely?
- How to rise together?
- How to save energy?
- How to find smooth gradual transitions?
- How to be ready for the unexpected?
- How to support each other while moving?
Through the exploration of lifts while dancing we sense the possibility of accessing a territory in which the interactions between the movers are not necessarily framed as what is up and what is down, who is supporting and who is supported, but instead, they create a mutual interdependency in which the forces blend constantly. “Supporting” and “being supported” are thus not different or separate identities but simultaneous qualities required in each movement. We will investigate communication through movement, including through lifts, approaching them not as repetitions of a sequence but as a collective process of improvisation and co-creation, finding space for playfulness, safety, and curiosity, while aiming to be ready for the unexpected.
We will research Contact Improvisation from slow somatic tuning to acrobatic movement, blending contemplative and dynamic qualities
NATASCHA GOLUBTSOVA
RU/DE
I have been growing, researching, and creating in dance since 2006. My journey began in Novosibirsk, Russia, with contemporary dance and Contact Improvisation. After moving to Bulgaria and later to Germany, my practice expanded to include Authentic Movement, Butoh, The Axis Syllabus, Feldenkrais, and the Ilan Lev Method, as well as Body-Mind Centering, Dance Improvisation, and Instant Composition. These influences continue to nourish both my artistic work on stage and my teaching.
Currently based in Hamburg, I teach weekly open level CI classes, host jams, and co-teach CI workshops. Additionally, I facilitate instant composition “Impro Evenings,” where CI and dance improvisation meet live music improvisation. In my teaching, I invite dancers of all levels to practice at the intersection of authenticity, somatic listening, and performance.
I have been lucky to learn from many great teachers, including Andrew Wass, Julyen Hamilton, Jörg Hassmann, Katya Basalaeva, Kira Kirsch, Nina Martin, Nita Little, and Martin Keogh.
CI & PERFORMANCE: HOW TO COMPOSE FALLING MASSES?
Instant Composition, Working With Objects
This class is a tribute to Steve Paxton’s initial question: What if we were not humans, but just masses? What if we simply fell, drawn by gravity to the Earth—just like this bottle, this stone, this wall? How can I connect to this continuous falling, knowing that gravity is a force deeper than my person, one that connects every human and non-human being on this planet?
We begin with our solo bodies, allowing our heads, ribcages, pelvises, arms, and legs to fall—just as our water bottles do. We play with different objects, connecting with their weight and integrating them into the mass of our own bodies. Through duet and trio experiments with various scores, we hold each other’s weight and let it fall, exploring the nuances of muscle tone and its infinite variations.
In the end, we compose small, playful, wild, and touching contact dance pieces, where objects become both our environment and our dance partners. We co-create with and for each other. Can we fall together into the support that is everywhere?
Come as you are and bring one or more objects with a tangible weight of 0.3–4.0 kg (book, bag, stone, grapefruit, anything).
PAWEŁ KUBIAK
PL
Dancer and pedagogue. During his pedagogical studies he worked in a forest kindergarten, taught regular Contact Improvisation classes and organised jams and workshops.
For the past four years he has been travelling around Europe and Asia, exploring dance and leading workshops.
He has taught Contact Improvisation at international festivals such as Israel CI Festival, Beijing CI Fest, Solo&CI Tirol Festival, Warsaw Flow and FRU Contact Improvisation Festival in Lodz, Poland.
He is currently studying the Ilan Lev Method and draws inspiration from the Feldenkrais Method.
BLENDING FORCES
Co-facilitated with Daniel Rojasanta
- How to unify forces?
- How to land safely?
- How to rise together?
- How to save energy?
- How to find smooth gradual transitions?
- How to be ready for the unexpected?
- How to support each other while moving?
Through the exploration of lifts while dancing we sense the possibility of accessing a territory in which the interactions between the movers are not necessarily framed as what is up and what is down, who is supporting and who is supported, but instead, they create a mutual interdependency in which the forces blend constantly. “Supporting” and “being supported” are thus not different or separate identities but simultaneous qualities required in each movement. We will investigate communication through movement, including through lifts, approaching them not as repetitions of a sequence but as a collective process of improvisation and co-creation, finding space for playfulness, safety, and curiosity, while aiming to be ready for the unexpected.
We will research Contact Improvisation from slow somatic tuning to acrobatic movement, blending contemplative and dynamic qualities.
KAMILA ZIĘBA
PL
Dancer, performer, yogi. She is passionate about many fields of movement; currently, the closest to her are Contact Improvisation, Partnering and Movement Medicine. A significant influence on her dance and movement development and how she teaches is her medical education and the study of anatomy and physiology of the human body. She acquired her dance workshop at Warsaw Dance Department, Opus Ballet school in Florence, festivals and workshops in Poland and abroad, including Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. For the past 4 years, she has been a member of the partnering performance group Oddaj Ciężar (PL). In 2019, she completed the Ashtanga and Vinyasa Yoga 200h Teacher Training course in Warsaw, which she is currently teaching. She is a big fan of spirals, big Pilates balls, travel, nature and dolphins.
Klara Łucznik
PL/UK
Klara specialises in being ‘in-between’: in between art and science, in between dance and psychology, in between embodiment and running thoughts, in between improvisation and the need for structure.
She started by studying theoretical physics but obtained an MA in Choreography and Dance Theory and completed a PhD in psychology. Her PhD thesis explored creativity and flow experience in group dance improvisation (University of Plymouth, UK). For the last few years, she has carried out empirical and embodied research on the role of contact with nature at the University of Plymouth and the University of the Philippines (Open University).
She has now decided to try to be a little more sensible and coherent in her interests, so she has returned to researching dance as a research fellow at the University of Warsaw, focusing on the role of embodied communication, touch, and all positive side effects that come from practising dance (contact) improvisation.
She is also a curator and organizer of Warsaw CI Flow, Movement Labs in Warsaw (Poland) and co-organiser of CI Totnes Jam in the UK. She has collaborated with ColLab in Bristol since 2018. She continues living, dancing and researching between Plymouth and Warsaw.
Photo: Inna Arya Pavlichuk
ZUZANNA BUKOWSKI
DE/PL/TH
Zuzanna’s embodiment journey began at the age of four with dance and has unfolded through martial arts, ballet, yoga, modern dance, and the Axis Syllabus. Deeply inspired by international teachers in contact improvisation and contemporary dance, she integrates movement principles from the Axis Syllabus and the structure of the Underscore into her practice and facilitation.
She is passionate about the interplay between body and mind—a thread she follows through her work in coaching, IT, and dance. Bridging analytical clarity with embodied presence, she continues to explore how movement can inform and transform ways of being.
Zuzanna finds joy and balance in co-creating spaces for dance and connection. She teaches and facilitates contact improvisation, co-organizes the Thailand Contact & Movement Arts Festival and the Warsaw CI Flow Festival, and is the co-creator of contactimprovkohphangan.com, where she hosts immersive contact improvisation journeys at Motionscape on Koh Phangan, Thailand.
TOMASZ DOMAŃSKI
PL
Tomasz is a dancer, performer, and teacher who specializes in Contact Improvisation and partnering classes, as well as facilitating jams. Over the past seven years, he has been a co-creator of the Szur-Sure performance collective and the Oddaj Ciężar partnering group.
In the realm of Contact Improvisation (CI), Tomasz delves into the boundless possibilities of movement and explores various influencing factors: the dynamics of the partner relationship, intention, body awareness, and attention. He encourages everyone to cultivate a profound trust in their own bodies. Recently, his focus has shifted predominantly towards exploring the softness and calmness of the body in inverted positions.
Paulina Święcańska
PL
Graduated from the National School of Music (eurhythmics) and the University of Zielona Góra (BA in Animation of Culture and Sport). Holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities and completed R. Laban’s kinetography at the Institute of Choreology in Poznań. She also studied cultural management, theatre production, and project management.
She gained experience at international festivals and coaching programs across Europe, Israel, Brazil, India, the USA, Japan, and more. As a choreographer, she created over 20 original works, including Food Variations, Hybrid, Butterflies 2046, Perfect Couple, and EXIT, presented at Polish and international festivals. A multiple-time scholarship recipient, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, the Institute of Music and Dance, TVP 2, and the Art Stations Foundation. Speaker and author at international dance conferences.
Engaged in Warsaw’s cultural scene, she was a dance curator for the Re:visions Festival (2008–2012), co-organized the Warsaw Dance Scene (2014–2016), and founded Poland’s first Contact Improvisation Festival, now Warsaw CI Flow. Directed the Dance Art Centre (2016–2019) and initiated the Central Dance Scene project (2020–2025).
President of the PERFORM Art Foundation, she has created three dance films and published six academic papers. In her work, she incorporates Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, bodywork, and other techniques. Since 2019, she has been involved in Vedic Art, pouring, and neurography, becoming a first-degree Vedic Art teacher in 2023.
