Teachers - Warsaw Flow

TEACHERS AND ARTISTS

JESS CURTIS

USA/DE

SIMONETTA ALESSANDRI

UK/IT

SEBASTIAN FLEGIEL

GURU SURAJ

ADRIANNA MICHALSKA

PL/IN

Klara Łucznik

PL/UK

ROSALIND HOLGATE SMITH

UK/DE

THOMAS ROCOURT

Katarzyna Dańska

JOAQUÍN ALFEI

AR/BE

JESUS ALONSO

Tomasz Jimmy kowalski

OLENA OLIANSKA

GERALDIN ACEVEDO ESPANA

CO/TH

Hanna Jurczak

ZUZANNA BUKOWSKI

DE/PL/TH

TOMASZ DOMANSKI

KATARZYNA BURZYŃSKA

Reimar Wen Shen

DE/CH/TH

OTHER ARTISTS

Paulina Święcańska

Regina Lissowska-Postaremczak

Weronika Kocewiak

Bartek Bartosiński

SOUNDSCAPE

Kasia Tekielska

KATERYNA GAVRYLOVA

Julia ParTyka

Daniel Zorzano

PL/MX

JESS CURTIS

USA/DE

Jess is an award-winning choreographer, director and performer committed to making performances informed by experimentation, innovation, and social relevance. Based in Berlin and San Francisco since 2000, he and his trans-continental performance company, Jess Curtis/Gravity have premiered 13 full-length productions and numerous shorter works with co-producers in the U.S. and Europe, performing in over 70 cities in 15 countries. In 2011 he was presented the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts for choreography and the Homer Avila Award for innovation in physically diverse performance. Curtis is active as a writer, advocate, and community organizer in the fields of contemporary dance and performance. He teaches accessible Dance, Contact Improvisation and Interdisciplinary Performance workshops throughout the US and Europe. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of the Arts in Berlin. He holds an MFA in Choreography and a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California at Davis. www.jesscurtisgravity.org

Headshot by Sven Hagolani

Sensing, Dancing and Performing

How do our senses inform, support, interrupt and enable the (inter) actions we call dancing and performing? In this workshop, we will work from the most basic building blocks of experience, unpacking sensation, perception, impulse, emotion, attention, reflex, and reaction to create more space between them in which to develop performances and hone our performing skills. Layering sensory-motor experiences, we will surf through twisting topologies of flesh and blood to enact perceptual acrobatics that bring us into new dimensions. Creating scores and structures (or not), we will ask, “Is freedom the state of having choices or a state beyond choosing?” We will look at both possibilities and smash them together to see what kind of messy realities we can construct for ourselves. We will work in the sweaty modes of physical performance where weight, breath, momentum, desire and adrenalin intervene in conceptual structures to create pleasure, satisfaction and a rich range of performing experiences.

Photo by Robbie Sweeny

SIMONETTA ALESSANDRI

UK/IT

Simonetta is an Italian dance artist and a somatic educator based in London. She applies the Feldenkrais Method in dance and movement training and in performance making. She teaches at Trinity Laban, Goldsmiths University and London Contemporary Dance School. Her work is informed by more than 30 years of dancing, teaching and choreographing. Her choreography has been for dance companies, student pieces, large-scale opera, improvised performances, site-specifics and movement direction for theatre. She was one of the few dance practitioners in Italy who began working with CI in the 90s. She has been a guest teacher in Germany, Colombia, UK, Norway, Israel, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Taiwan. She obtained the Post Graduate Diploma at London Contemporary Dance School, she is a qualified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method and she holds the Teacher Certificate from the Royal Academy of Dance. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is one of the founders of CI@Goldsmiths.

Feldenkrais into Contact

With the Feldenkrais Method, we direct our attention to internal sensations without judgment. Acknowledging the intelligence of the body and curious about new possibilities, we identify habits and clarify choices to promote efficiency, freedom, and a sense of ease that involve our whole selves. This specific way of cultivating awareness will magnify our senses, affecting the quality of our presence and alertness, nourishing the journey from the inside out while engaging in self-discovery and authenticity. We will find a felt sense of self that aims to be related to others and to the environment, to be experienced, reinforced and then transformed. When we meet a partner who has shared the same somatic process, we will find more sophistication in sensing, reading, and communicating during the physical conversation of Contact Improvisation. In this shared experience, we will gain more trust and feel the possibility of refreshing our CI vocabulary and exploring it in more depth by experimenting with hidden and unfamiliar pathways. Or by looking at the more familiar CI vocabulary from another perspective to enjoy authentic, unpredictable, and reinvigorated dancing.

SEBASTIAN FLEGIEL

Sebastian has been exploring many paths, but only in a few of them he reached a level satisfactory for him – for the time being. By his nature, Sebastian is a philosopher, engineer, and, above all, movement practitioner. He has been moving for the past 40 years, or, in other words – for virtually all his life. The human body has been his source of inspiration since he turned nineteen, so he delved into the path of understanding it. In his practice there are things that he is already well-aware of, and there are other that are still waiting to be discovered.

He wears several hats: mover, performer, teacher, masseur, adept of martial arts, to name a few. He is fascinated by anatomy, motor skills and dynamics of movement, its meaning and reception through the common symbolic lense. He studied with many famous and less-famous teachers over the last two decades and a half. His teaching material and understanding of movement, based on his personal experience and judgement, are a fusion of what he has been doing thus far and his current research. He loves to move.

Joyful Techniques

I would like to bring some technical aspects to the world of somatic softening. I like to remind about the need for structure and strength in the practice of CI, which, in its early days, was branded as an art-sport. In a way, I would like to take us on a trip back in time.

I feel that our physicality has its own, deep, inherent logic. Movement has its rules. By discovering them, we build a knowledge base that is recorded in the movement itself. Through practice and repetition, we are expanding our potential for action. Skills become second nature, and movement becomes easy. Embodied technique becomes fearless freedom, and freedom brings joy.

For me, CI is a joyful interplay between our centres of gravity, where one leads and the other follows. This occurs when we experience the state of flow. This state transcends fear and dissolves blocks. It allows us to share the ever-changing reality of Contact Improvisation with a smile.

GURU SURAJ / ADRIANNA MICHALSKA

Guru Suraj

Guru Suraj is an Indian artist with a background in visual and movement arts. His main focus is researching and performing Contact Improvisation at the cross-section with other art forms. He also facilitates and organizes CI events.

Guru has a BA in Painting and an MA in Philosophy of Yoga. Together with a group of first Indian teachers of CI, he founded Contact Improv India (CII) and InContact: organizations that teach and perform CI throughout India. In his work he blends the radical with the traditional. His main interests revolve around strengthening one’s creativity, structuring curiosity, and learning from using various modes of communication.

Adrianna Michalska

IN/PL

CI dancer, facilitator, performer, and an independent artist from Poland with a background in CI, somatics, and various improvisation techniques that she had studied across the world. Adrianna graduated from the University of Surrey (UK) with a degree in Dance and Culture. She is also a certified DanceAbility teacher.

Currently, Adrianna is working closely with Contact Improv India and InContact: organizations that develop the CI scene in India by organizing movement arts residencies, workshops, and performances. Adrianna is interested in bringing artistic practices from different cultures to the creative process. She is also investigating interdisciplinary potential of working with texts, images, sounds, and movement.

Liminal Spaces

The state of improvisation in movement occurs between the thrill of the unexpected and the ability to organize one’s body in any given situation. This workshop is designed to explore the experience of ‘in-between’: between falling and flying, between old patterns and new possibilities, between the state of readiness and being unprepared. Practicing this state is anchored in the circular, dynamic, unpredictable, and changing world.

During the workshop will use tools that help us find and practice spiral pathways, flying, and falling. We will offer scores that help to tune into our spontaneous, creative, non-habitual movement. We will investigate how to be safe in the movement, and at the same time stay focused, alert ,and creative in our movement patterns. We will practice curiosity and keeping the improvisation alive while dancing and in everyday life.

Photo: Purnendra Meshram

Klara Łucznik

PL/UK

Klara is specialised 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 from studying theoretical physics, and now she practices physics in motion. Klara has an MA in Choreography and Dance Theory, and she completed a PhD in psychology. In her PhD thesis she explores creativity and flow experience in group dance improvisation (University of Plymouth, UK). She is a member of the Institute for Study of Somatic Communication, led by Nita Little. For the last few years, she carried out empirical and embodied research on the role of contact with nature. She has now decided to try to be a little more sensible and coherent in her interests, so she has returned to researching dance: the role of embodied communication, touch, and all positive side effects that come from practising dance improvisation.

She is also a curator and organizer of Warsaw CI Flow, Movement Labs at MIK (Warsaw), and co-organiser of CI Totnes Jam in the UK. She consolidates her passion for group improvisation in her series of workshops entitled Spacemaking.

Spacemaking

How do we find structures specific enough to spark our movement creativity, and open enough to contain whatever it brings? In this workshop, I will share the practice of ‘open scores’. We will start from simple tasks that we will develop into a mulit-layered improvisation to investigate the complexity of movements, space and silence. We will deepen the contact with our bodies, other people and the surroundings. We will become more aware of the space and of the group. We will allow ourselves to notice the meanings, memories and contexts, and to play with scores until we find freedom within the constraints, and explore the performative aspect of the tasks we engage in. We will do this through dancing, observing, inquiring and appreciating, and above all by searching for solutions in our embodied selves. This practice has many inspirations, and yet my work with Adam Benjamin is the most significant in this context; I recommend his book Making an Entrance, where he discusses inclusive approaches to dance improvisation.

This inclusive workshop considers individual communication and movement needs, including extra space, rest, or new challenges. The workshop is designed for participants new to CI and for those with years of experience.

Classes will be conducted in Polish and translated into Polish Sign Language.

(Non-Polish speakers are also welcome, always a challenge!)

Photo: Katarzyna Sołtys

Rosalind Holgate Smith

UK/DE

Rosalind is a Dance Artist, Choreographer and Somatic Movement Educator based in Berlin. She creates performances, installations and art that investigates intimate experiences between people, place and the environment. She has been teaching Contact Improvisation for ten years and bring to it a background of training in Body-Mind Centering®, Skinner Release Technqiue, Authentic Movement, Capoeira, and Aquatic bodywork. She has danced also extensively outdoors, underwater and with raw materials such as soil and trees. Rosalind holds also a Masters in Dance Creative practice, a BA (hons) in Fine Art & Choreography and is currently doing a PhD, that investigates touch as an encounter with Otherness and the vocabulary of touch in Contact Improvisation, based at Kingston University, in London.

https://rosalindholgate-smith.com

Soft Touch

In this Contact Improvisation workshop we will explore bodies as collections of force, coalescing, disassembling and assimilating. Inspired by posthuman philosophy and notions of entanglement we will look beyond boundaried ideas of individuality and humans as contained with singular sacs of skin, to attend to how we are becoming by inhabiting the relational spaces in and between bodies. As though swimming within the skin we will begin by softening and dissolving. From here we will immersive and spread outwardly to move in touch with others, and the surrounding environment looking at places we can listen, hover, find support and release through different substances. The soft touch techniques introduced in this session alter the bodies density to facilitate the dispersion of weight, tension and tone, making way for light and buoyant movement, and floating forms of flight. These techniques have been much inspired by my dance research in water that has opened up many omnidirectional movement possibilities and fine sensitivity to states of suspension and the fluidity of collective agency.

Following this workshop I am keen to facilitate a discussion on eco-somatics, and navigating consent within entangled ecologies.

Thomas Rocourt

Thomas is a somatic coach and educator focusing on pleasure, sensuality and sexuality. He considers himself a researcher in perpetual motion. His path has led him to live several years in Latin America, to teach yoga, to advise social entrepreneurs, to practise meditation extensively, to live in permaculture communities, to dive into the practice of dance, to become passionate about somatic practices and the nervous system…

Contact Improvisation has changed his life and continues to do so. He loves this practice and this community so much. He is a cis-gender, white, heterosexual male.

More about his work here: www.thomasrocourt.com

Why do I dance?

Why do I dance? What brings me to contact improvisation?

What are my desires when I dance? What are my limits? Where is my pleasure in moving and making contact? What explorations are welcome?

When do I feel safe or not safe? What is my responsibility; what is my dance partner’s responsibility?

In this workshop, we will open up these questions… and a few others!

We will leave room for our feelings, which are our inner barometer. We will explore – with intention and with a supportive framework – our “yes’s, “no’s”, “maybe’s”, “stop’s”, “again’s”…

Contact Improvisation offers a (potentially) magical and revolutionary playground. As it turns 51 years old, consent remains a research topic for this practice. Let’s keep researching together!

Katarzyna Dańska

Certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst and dance movement therapist. She dances with groups at the Day Treatment Unit for Neuroses at the WAT Clinic in Warsaw and in individual sessions at the Iba Centre for Dance and Movement Therapy. She is teaching Somatics in Dance and Therapy lat the Music Academy in Łodz. She teaches courses on movement language, body awareness and non-verbal techniques for relational skills. She studied at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in Tel Aviv and the Kestenberg Movement Profile at the Centrum für Tanz&Therapie in Munich, to mention only a few. To her, dancing is a kind of philosophy. Thus, she is less interested in forms and more in the intention behind the choice of movement.

Contacts

In this workshop, expect to work with something other than technique. You are invited to explore and embrace reflection on several forms of making contact that you are familiar with from Contact Improvisation, which, in fact, reflect the broader context of non-verbal connections between people. We will practice kinesthetic empathy, which enables flow and attunement between dancers and is fundamental to sharing movement. We will go through Laban’s continuum of shape modality, which in the body form change reflects the different phases of the relationship between Self and Not-Self. This can be as much an opportunity to test one’s preferences as a chance to move through diverse improvisational choices.

Joaquín Alfei

AR/BE

Existing in the practices of (contact) improvisation, neuroscience, and philosophy, Joaquín has been obsessed with ‘ways of knowing’ and ‘gestures’ of research in dance improvisation and science. Challenging classical divergences between subject/object in both his dancing explorations and academic work. Joaquín has grown thinking in movement with the ideas and collaboration of/with Asaf Bachrach, Florencia Campise, and Otto Akkanen. Among the people who have most nourished him with their material are Ray Chung, Daniel Lepkof, Nita Little, Charlie Morrisey, Julyen Hamilton, Scott Smith, and Karen Nelson.

Viewing (contact) improvisation as multi-faceted, he is presently absorbed in the physical aspects of the study but also in theory, conversation, and written and artistic creation. Upon meeting (contact) improvisation many years ago, he found himself centred around the form, dancing internationally between labs, workshops, teaching, residencies, jams, performances, and collective and personal projects. Joaquín is also active in the field of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience, holding a PhD from KU Leuven ( BEL) and a position at the National Research Council of Argentina.

https://vimeo.com/user154670378

Affor[dances]: A Movable Laboratory

The world is perceived not only in terms of object shapes and spatial relationships but also in terms of object possibilities for action (affordances) — action makes perception.

J. Gibson

Contemporary thinker, Vinciane Despret, pointed out that researching depends on asking the right questions, by which she meant asking open questions, questions that allow us to be put into variation by the answers. If we are up for thinking heuristically, while science wonders ‘whether this is the case?’ and philosophy wonders ‘what it means?’, dance ponders ‘what happens if I do this again?’ Where the dance and dancer-questioner are engaged with practice as research, this is the perspective that we will adopt for our dances and explorations together.

The term affordances can be thought of as a “relationscape”; belonging neither to the object itself nor to its user but is created by the relationship established between them. How can we reinvent affordances through the continuous dialogue of weight sharing with our partner(s), the practice and the space? With a profound focus on the essentials of Contact Improvisation, we will dance this (and other) question(s).

In the studio, this looks like us focusing on weight-sharing, falling and sharing/making questions. During this lab, we will dance, we will dance big and also small. I will share tools and containers for collective artistic exploration. Inevitably, mutual sharing of weight is a way of being in the unknowable. We will also find ourselves working and engaging with the unpredictable, attending to surprises, placing ourselves in the in-between, and meeting the ‘speed of our attention’ in dancing.

This is open for all levels of (CI) experience. Beginners welcome! and especially for those with the curiosity to ask questions and to both affect and be affected by (or through?) weight sharing and falling

Jesus Alonso

Jesus is a CI movement researcher and a dancer. He has always been curious about researching the body in movement, somatics and kinetics. He teaches regular classes/workshops and organises CI meetings in Madrid. He trained with teachers such as Cristiane Bullousa, Diana Bonilla, Linda Bufali, Katja Mustonen, and Mirva Mäkinen. Moreover, he practiced contemporary dance, somatic and movement expression training with Poliana Lima, as well as the Feldenkrais method.

From Volume to Stucture

In this workshop we will focus on the somatic investigation of our bodies. The main themes are going to be the volume of the head, torso and pelvis and using them to go deeper into the connection with the structure of our partner. We will achieve a symbiosis between bodily forms, leading to a deep connection to our bones, that will finally develop into a very tuned-in dance.

TOMASZ Jimmy KOWALSKI

Dance teacher, photographer, activist, educator of non-formal education. A graduate of the Academy of Music. Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz in Łódź, specializing in choreography and dance techniques. He experiences, develops and fulfils himself in motion, sourcing from such techniques as ci, improvisation, contemporary dance, dance theatre, traditional dances, and breakdance.

He is the originator of the Harmony Art idea, a meld of dance, spiritual development, film and photography – originating art from the surrounding world, with attention to the sense of harmony between the creator, viewer and form of expression. This idea allows finding a balance where it is needed. Through workshops, projects, writing and social action.

He studies and shares his passions in Poland and worldwide (including Portugal, Germany, Spain, Greece, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Guatemala), working with theatres, non-governmental organisations, foundations, companies and artists. Among others: Chorea Theater, Rosanna Gamson, Arte Ego Foundation, City Council of Łódź, Sztuka Ciało Foundation, OSiR Wawer, Escola Superior de Danca, Agora Aveiro, Kreisau Initiative, Blossin Foundation, Helen Poynor, Pitsas Camp, Ma-Uri institute.

Beyond the scheme – Site-Specific

The world around us is full of patterns and repetitive shapes: pedestrian crossing stripes, trees planted evenly, waves on the water, road signs, human behavior and much more. When you look at these elements of the environment from a different perspective, when you give them different meanings, they become an inspiration, an impulse for improvisation and performance.

Leaves waving in the wind, hard concrete, soft grass, uneven and sloping surface, traffic.

We will observe how elements of the environment affect movement. And how these contain qualities that can be translated into the human body.

Olena Poliańska

Olena is a performer, choreographer, teacher of contemporary dance and contact improvisation, and philologist. She began her dance journey as a performer and impro-dancer, participating in festivals in Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel, Russia, and Warsaw. Now lives and works in Germany, a resident of Performdance (Stralsund), Tanz Station – Barmer Bahnhof (Wuppertal), Kampnagel Internationale Kulturfabrik GmbH (Hamburg), Tanzkomplizen – TanzZeit e.V. (Berlin).

Her practice focuses on a collaborative relationship between dancers and viewers and the influence of space on them. Through the CI practice, she explores natural motion qualities, how the practice affects the body, and how it all creates dance.

Jam Intro

We will focus on space and body sensations, checking how we touch the floor, where our body weight is, where our attention is, how many directions the movement has, and our awareness of self in space. We will give time for the sensory system to feel movement with skin, muscles and bones. To feel the sounds, vibration, and silence. We will focus on haptic communication with space. To help each other find their own directions of movement and dance.

Geraldin Acevedo eSPANA

CO/TH

Geraldin is an eco-somatic artist, visual designer, and dance improviser based on Koh Phangan, Thailand. She studied graphic design at UJTL University in Bogotá, Colombia, with a postgraduate degree in “Combined Artistic Languages” at UNA- BsA, Argentina. In 2012 she discovered dance improvisation, CI and performative practices in the contemporary dance company of UJTL University.

Since 2014 she has been following a nomadic lifestyle. Since 2019 she has studied at TOWARDS – Center for the Education and Research of Contact Improvisation in Koh Phangan – Thailand, and participated in multiple Art Continuum Nomadic Residencies and BeingNature projects with Sasha Dodo, Dolores Dewhurst-Marks in a unique constellation of HumanDancers and artists.

She is part of Human Garden, an eco-somatic art research project focusing on performative practices, dance improvisation, Deep Ecology and environmental philosophy. She has been sharing the dance in the waters and lands of Thailand, Colombia, Argentina, Portugal and Vietnam.

Instagram: @hojadeltropico

Body of finitude

Contact / basics / principles

By reclaiming the forces of nature available in the matter, we will create a more-than-bipedal human. Rolls, orbits, and helixes will be the key to exploring the spectrum of our vertebrate-nature’s presence.

The content is inspired by the wisdom of Material for the Spine by Steve Paxton and Aikido, a modern Japanese martial art and a foundational practice for CI, which aims at mastering the physics of motion/energy from a felt sense.

-How to see with the back side of the body?
-How to embody the sustainability of movement?
-How to recycle energy?
-How to make yourself lighter when you’re heavier than your partner?
-How to be a good base which embodies both stability and fluidity?
-How to remain aware and relaxed while flying and spiraling?
-How to use the momentum of falling to release and rise again?
-How to trust in the intelligence of the structure?
-How to practice mutual listening?

Hanna Jurczak

Dancer, performer, psychotherapist. She has been practising contact improvisation for 12 years. Member of the Sztuka Ciała Foundation (FSC), cooperates with PERFORM Artistic Foundation, teaches at the Holistic Trainers School (PL). She graduated from choreographic training at Hurtownia Ruchu in Kraków (directed by Iwona Olszowska) and a year-long Laban Bartenieff Movement Systems programme. She co-founded an improvisation ensemble in Dorożkarnia (Warsaw, PL). Since 2018, she has gathered experience in directing the performances ( “DREAMING/WOMAN IMAGE” (2021), “LightShadows” with Thierry Verger, 2021), the site-specific piece (Passionate Associations, Wawer, 2019) within the framework of “Bielańskie Encounters with Art”, in Poland, and the film “Inner Dance”. Earlier, she led creative processes with amateurs within the framework of FSC activities and the “Summer at the Theatre” project. She creates visualisations for performances and workshops for various audiences. Hanna is also a co-founder of the “Center in the Field”, a holistic development centre in Mazuria (PL).

“Contact improvisation interests me as an encounter, co-creation, a source of constant loss and finding harmony between individual expression and coexistence in duo, trio and a group.”

Space Jam

The first part of the jam will take around 40-50 minutes. During this time we are going to improvise with visualisation as one of the contact partners. Visualisation will give us more awareness of the space and composition. We will give more space to observe the performance happening between images. Afterwards we open jam to whatever comes.

Zuzanna Bukowski

DE/TH/PL

Zuzanna zaczęła tańczyć w wieku 4 lat i kontynuowała swoją podróż z ruchem poprzez praktyki sztuk walki, baletu, jogi, tańca współczesnego, Body Mind Centering oraz Axis Syllabus. Pogłębiała swoją praktykę ucieleśniania pod okiem różnych międzynarodowych nauczycieli kontaktu improwizacji i tańca współczesnego. Pasjonuje ją wzajemna zależność ciała i umysłu, którą wciąż odkrywa w swojej pracy w coachingu, IT, tańcu i jogi. Zuza uczy kontaktu improwizacji w Warszawie, Berlinie i Tajlandii, współorganizuje festiwal “Warsaw CI Flow” i “Thailand Contact & Movement Arts Festival”, oraz pracuje jako konsultantka IT, szukając równowagi pomiędzy potrzebami ciała a umysłu.

http://zuzabukowski.com

Underscore

Underscore Jam is a movement improvisation practice that was originally created by Nancy Stark Smith and further developed over time. The practice is designed to offer pre- and descriptive structured improvisation prompts to guide dancers in creating movement.

Participants are encouraged to explore their movement impulses while responding to the movements of others in the group. Guidelines and prompts give a framework for the improvisation, which can include contact improvisation, somatic, artistic and performance explorations and more.

The Underscore Jam provides a valuable tool for building community among dancers and fostering collaboration and communication through movement. This innovative approach to movement improvisation offers a unique way for individuals to explore their creativity and movement potential.

Be on time, we invite you to join us and experience the impact of an Underscore Jam by arriving on time and walking through the different Underscore sequences with us.

Tomasz Domański

Tomasz is a dancer, performer, and teacher. He facilitates contact improvisation and partnering classes and holds jams and workshops for adults and young people. For the last six years, he has co-founded the Szur-Sure performance collective, with which he performs on stage and in the city space in site-specific performances and the Oddaj Ciężar partnering group. In CI, he explores the infinite possibilities of movement and the elements that influence it, the relationship with a partner, intention, body awareness and attention. He encourages deep-rooted trust in one’s own body and, most recently, the softness and calmness of the body in inverted positions.

Photo: Dominik Fraj

Underscore

Be on time, we invite you to join us and experience the impact of an Underscore Jam by arriving on time and walking through the different Underscore sequences with us.

KATARZYNA BURZYŃSKA

Katarzyna is a psychologist who has completed a school of integratively oriented DDA/DDD psychotherapy. She practices dance and movement – improvisation, contact improvisation, and body awareness techniques, which she uses in her work with the artistic collective SzurSure, in psychotherapeutic sessions, and in everyday life.

She explores movement and touch as an alternative form of communication and a tool for personal development in adults and children. In her practice, she combines knowledge acquired in the realm of classical psychology with body-oriented work, which gives her a broader perspective on the human psyche and the processes that occur within it.

In 2018, she completed a course in experimental choreography at the Center in Motion.

Closeness in Motion

Cultivating relationship through movement in a one-hour workshop for children and parents

“Closeness in Motion” is an opportunity to connect with your child and with yourself. Parents and children will have the chance to experience a different form of communication and strengthen their parent-child relationship through movement activities based on elements of contact and improvisation, as well as working with metaphor. Touch is one of the most important elements of human development and the most important element of “Closeness in Motion”.

The fundamental principles of our meetings are pleasure, presence, and mutual mindfulness. This is a lesson in conscious and authentic movement, which is co-created in the parent-child relationship. Through movement activities, focusing on the body, and working with imagination, we integrate the activities of both hemispheres of the brain. This allows us to deepen the most important relationship in a child’s life and build it on safe touch, closeness, and trust. All of this is to be able to share experiences and needs, develop a sense of worth, being seen, and taken into account – important elements in a child’s life.

We will run, jump, roll, breathe, fly, and fall, laugh, and develop spontaneity. These are tools helpful in developing the four important elements of a good and supportive relationship: readiness to play, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy.

Reimar Wen Shen

DE/CH/TH

Reimar landed in CI with a background in martial arts and Vipassana meditation. Raised in Germany, he is currently based in Thailand. He founded vipassanaathome.org, through which he shares donation-based online meditation courses. Practitioner of a somatic approach to freediving, he facilitates OceanDance workshops: deepwater CI in depths up to 15m.

A mover throughout his life, he holds a Taekwondo Blackbelt and is a passionate CI dancer. He loves to integrate Vipassana into movement and relationality, as he believes it is helping us cultivate presence in movement, opening up spaces, giving freedom and possibilities. In his view neither meditation, nor CI should remain separate from our lives, allowing us to become embodiment of the principles we practice.

Improvised dance has helped Reimar integrate insights from stillness into the world off the meditation cushion.

Vipassana in Contact

Insight Meditation meets Dance Improvisation.

Vipassana meditation cultivates a specific ‘way of seeing’. This technique emphasises a direct way of knowing the Body & Mind in the present moment. It is a way of seeing that leads to freedom from entanglement in our unconscious habits and patterns. It helps to see clearly what is happening from one moment to another.

In dance improvisation we aim to be fully open to ‘what is’. We strive to listen deeply and not to fall back on what we know. A direct access to the present moment gives birth to the wonder of improvisation that we get to express and explore through dance!

In this jam warmup, we’ll explore a way of looking that invites presence and curiosity to this very moment. We start right here.

Paulina Święcańska

Graduated from the National School of Music (1st and 2nd degree) in the faculty of Eurhythmics and the University of Zielona Góra with a BA in Animation of Culture and Sport. She is an educator of Contemporary Dance, recognized by the National Centre of Culture. She graduated from the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities with an MA in Cultural Studies and R. Laban’s Kinetography at the Institute of Choreology in Poznań. She also graduated from the University of Warsaw in Cultural Management and the University of Łódź in Theatre Production. She holds a Diploma in Project Management from the Warsaw School of Economics.

She has been awarded multiple scholarships, including the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Institute of Music and Dance, TVP 2, and the Art Stations Foundation Stary Browar Nowy Taniec. She is a speaker (and a paper author) at international scientific events on dance in Czech Prague, Bilbao, and Lisbon. She is strongly involved in the animation of the city of Warsaw through projects such as the Warsaw Independent Art Festival Re:visions 2008-2012, where she was a dance curator, co-organizer of the Warsaw Dance Scene 2014-2016, and an organizer of the 1st Contact Improvisation Festival in Poland since 2010, which became Warsaw CI Flow. She was a director of the Dance Art Centre from 2016-2019, and the originator and curator of the Central Dance Scene project in Warsaw 2020-2023.

To date, she has published six scholarly publications and co-edited three. She is the president of the PERFORM Art Foundation (www.perform.org.pl), where she carries out artistic, social, and educational projects working with artists of different directions and professions. She has created and directed three dance films. In her artistic work, she uses techniques and methods of bodywork such as contact improvisation, authentic movement, bodywork improvisation, floor work, animal flow, and Pilates, among others.

Performance Evening

This year, we invite you to a special performance evening during which we will explore two worlds: the virtual and the real. We invite you to a dance fusion featuring dance films, improvisation, and live contact improvisation.

The medium of film and video is currently a space for many choreographic experiments and an original form of dance creativity development used by artists working in various dance styles and techniques. Creators specializing in the art of film often successfully include dance and physical expression as an essential narrative component due to their universality and distinctive aesthetic value.

During the performance evening, we will present five dance films selected from the international circulation of artistic films and combine them live with dance etudes produced by teachers of this year’s 14th edition of the Warsaw CI Flow Festival.

The curators of the evening are Regina Lissowska-Postaremczak and Paulina Święcańska.

Regina Lissowska-Postaremczak

Regina is a theater researcher, dance critic, choreographer, and dance film programmer. She holds an MA degree in Choreography and Dance Theory from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, and an MA in Theatre Studies from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where she also earned her PhD, focusing on choreographic strategies and cognitive aspects of dance. She is a lecturer at the University School of Physical Education in Poznań and at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. She has written numerous critical and theoretical articles on dance art, and her recent research interests focus on dance perception, dance film, and the intersection of dance and new media.

Since 2014, she has been a curator of the international Dances with Camera competition as part of the Short Waves Festival. Since 2018, she has been working with the PERFORM Artistic Foundation and the Mazovia Institute of Culture in Warsaw as a curator of the Kino Tańca programs. As a juror, curator, and program consultant, she collaborates with international festivals presenting film and dance. For her research in the field of dance film, she received a Creative Scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for the year 2021.

Performance Evening

The curators of the evening are Regina Lissowska-Postaremczak and Paulina Święcańska.

WERONIKA KOCEWIAK

Weronika is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She has studied in Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal. She creates using a combination of techniques, from traditional oil painting and drawing through New Media to performance. Beyond that, she works on body awareness using walking as a research method, movement meditation and dance improvisation approaches. She is fascinated by the processes of in-betweenness and the emotional and somatic relating of one with space. She has exhibited both in Poland and abroad. Since 2019, she has been intensively dancing CI and drawing movement, among other things – resulting in various images of the body in motion.

Bartek Bartosiński

He is an engineer by training. He is involved in photography, creating upcycling objects, performance, and web design. Since 2016, she has been regularly dancing contact-improvisation. As part of this practice, he performed in the performance “I don’t want to wait any longer” in 2019.
His areas of interest include visual arts, improvisational movement and abandoned objects, which can be given new meaning through feeling, intuition and absurdity.
He is fascinated by the body as an emanation of spirituality. Or vice versa.

Kasia Tekielska

A viola graduate of the Academy of Music. St. Moniuszko in Gdańsk and Koninklijk Vlaams Conservatorium in Antwerp. She also plays the violin, sings and composes her own music. She performs in both classical music concerts and those related to other music genres. She has worked with bands, such as The Frozen North (post-rock), Ba Bu (original cover arrangements for three voices and looper) and with Emma Bonnici (folk, traditional songs).

She engages with various art genres, i.e. composing music for dance performances (series of performances ‘Connected’ / Fundacja Sztuka Ciała) and drawing inspiration from painting and sculpture. In 2014, at the Museum of Modern Art, she presented, together with a group of independent artists, a series of concerts bringing echoes from the exhibition of the sculptor Maria Bartuszova. In 2015, she created music for the radio play based on St. Barańczak’s “Winter Journey” (Studium Teatralne). In 2017, alongside Dominika Jarosz, she played music for a concert inspired by Angelika Kauffmann’s painting “Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus” (at the exhibition of one painting, Łazienki Królewskie). In addition, she regularly connects with dancers, creating live music for improvisations.

Currently, she is working on solo material. She is passionate about baroque vocal music, which she explores under the eye and ear of Dr Agnieszka Budzińska Bennet.

KATERYNA GAVRYLOVA

Kateryna is a Ukrainian artist who specializes in piano performance, singing, composition, and playing various instruments. She has a unique approach to her work, listening intently to the world around her and using her voice and sound to connect with it. While she began her career as a classical pianist, she has since branched out into experimental music, using sound as a means of connection.

In Ukraine, Kateryna is involved in a variety of different projects. She performs regularly, works with children, facilitates singing circles, and collaborates on interdisciplinary projects that bring together music, art, and dance. Her work is a testament to the power of music as a unifying force, bringing people together and fostering connections across diverse communities

JULIA PARTYKA

As a cellist, vocalist, improviser, and movement enthusiast, Julia has a unique approach to sound. She likes to break it down into its component parts, moving freely between them and viewing it from every angle. For her, there is no such thing as weird or inaccessible music or movement – everything is open to exploration.

Julia’s passions lie in music and dance, and she loves to immerse herself in their flow, allowing her impulses to guide her rather than her thoughts. When she creates music for dancers, she finds it especially rewarding, as they provide a visible reflection of the music she plays. Seeing the way the dancers move to her sound is just as important as hearing it, and together, they create a dynamic interplay that is truly magical.

Daniel Zorzano

PL/MX

Born in Mexico, Daniel graduated in viola da gamba and violone (double bass) from the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague under Wieland Kuijken, Margaret Urqhart and Philippe Pierlot, and from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse in Lyon in Marianne Muller’s viola da gamba class. Producer and DJ presenting his sets and live acts in Warsaw, Berlin and Mexico, among others. Musician and organiser of artistic projects. Co-founder of the Artist Kollective KICK PERFECT.