KiT ensemble is a dance company founded in Budapest by Grégory Chevalier.
We do believe that physical human touch belongs to our nature.
And we wish to reclaim it back and share it with the world.
about us
Dance as a sensing path, beyond any technique
You can explain why dance is good for you; you can mentalize dance as our time spirit is mentalizing everything. Isn’t dance simply about joy and feeling alive in the present moment? Perceiving sensing as a ultimate source, a prayer towards life, our dancing body is an art piece itself, and its natural skillfulness overtakes any technique.
A community of amateur and professional dancers, passionately seeking and researching the possibilities of improvisation. There are no insurmountable borders between us and our audience. During our performances, we invite the audience to experience the movements with more than just their eyes.
Performing art as the root of Contact Improvisation
Back in the 1970s, contact improvisation within the postmodern movement revolutionized the dance world. The practice often took place in a public space. Inviting an audience to witness the work, and in that way, the dance was placed in a performative context. Like their scores sounded like “Come as you are” and “Come and we show you what we do”, we perform in studios. Be as we are, and show what we do without any intention to prove or justify our dance.
The marriage of Somatic and Contact Improvisation
Somatic approaches present the body not as mechanical or mental knowledge. But as a silent one; it is a change of consciousness. Being a body, being a movement, rather than doing, directing, and making. Breathing in and out, being grateful. Somatic and Contact Improvisation are like a dream couple. From hands-on to full-body experiences, they complete and inspire each other with love.
Current dancers: Fruzsi Karvalics, Lőrinc Mészáros, Noémi Czizel, Ilona Regős, Csenge Olexa, Dorka Timár, Fruzsi Kiss, Andrea Miklos, Dora Varga, Csongor Tordai, Balázs Kontur, Lotti Szomor, Barbara Sterk, Szabolcs Hende, Grégory Chevalier.
Current musician: Conrad Hornung
Communication manager: Lotti Szomor
Choreographer : Grégory Chevalier
Previous dancers : Csenge Vass, Nikola Jankovics, Béres Bíborka Janka, Zoé Ambrus, Lukács János, Hrotkó Heléna
Previous musician: Bartha Gergely
Grégory Chevalier
Dancer, teacher, performer,
choreographer, organizer.
Founder and Art Director of KiT Ensemble
and Kontaktland Festival
Grégory has been leading workshops and trainings internationally in movement awareness and dance since 2011. His style is sensuous, playful, fed by a constant hunger for research and faith in body wisdom. He graduated as a Holistic Dance pedagogue under the wings of Sabine Parzer in 2012 then trained 5 years in Body Mind Centering® mentored by Ferenc Kálmán. In KiT’s work he is mainly inspired by first and second generation CI and somatic masters like Nancy Stark Smith, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Steve Paxton, Kálmán Ferenc and Karczag Eva with whom he had the chance to meet and learn from. —- Tovább Butt → Under construction
pieces
How our dancers experience the work?
Do you feel changes in your body?
Kontur Balázs, sculptor, painter, dancer
What makes KiT so open and welcoming?
Kiss Fruzsina, Coach, supervisor
“I feel the relationship with the audience.”
Karvalics Fruzsina, Somatic Wellbeing MA, Special needs educator
“It is educational to inform people about somatic work.”
Conrad Hornung, musician
What makes KiT intimate?
Dora Varga, professional dancer, teacher
“If I was not doing this, I would have to see it!”
Csenge Olexa, professional dancer
audience testimonials
The concept of Earthing is simple and clean, it does not want to show anything other than what is always present in our lives: our relationship with the earth, the planet. Nevertheless, the performance has come a long way, in the first scene the movement is barely visible, only the attention of the dancers draws you into the process of arriving on the ground. Then, in an almost imperceptible transition, the composition expands and gives space to the audience to join in, a special experience as the spectators also become part of the piece. The composition shapes itself here, as some unity is born from many different qualities.
When the members of the audience return to the position of spectators, the finale of the play moves from above to the sky. We see real old-style contact improvisation, with real physical risk-taking, flying, falling, in-the-moment situations and solutions. Nothing more than the dancers and the ground. Yet in this simplicity is the whole life.
Daniel Attila Kovács
I went to see you last night with great expectations, I was very curious to see what the same performance could offer for the third time and I was not disappointed, because it was always different. I really liked the solos, the way you pay attention to each other. I had such an interesting thought when I compared contact dance with a classical dance where the dancers look into each other's eyes, many times I simply saw as if there were lost gazes staring into nothing. But I still saw such harmony and attention in your movements. When the body in contact with another body was able to follow better than if the two dancers had watched each other's movements with their eyes.
Kováts-Szőcs Gábor
My strongest experience was when I was lying on the floor on my stomach, and then someone's sole touched mine. Then we started to move and support each other. It gave me such a sense of safety that the earth also supports me, my soles were also supported; like I was in a safe cradle. I think I have now really understood the role of the earth, grounding, secure support, how important it is
Gergely Király
It means for me to feel at home. It was exciting to see how much I felt and identified with the dancers. It was great that you included us and I was especially happy that this friend of mine joined, who had never seen contact improvisation before
