Dance as a sensing path. KiT Vienna is already 2 years old.
Somatic Contact Improvisation into Performance One-year-long training
Have you ever dreamed of being on stage with a group where you feel at home and whole?
Do you see yourself as a dancer, though you sometimes question it?
Would you love to investigate deeper into the wisdom of the moving body?
And to share this within a heartfelt collective?
This training offers a somatic and safe approach to movement and touch. It provides a ground for the dancers to flow into the performative aspect of Contact Improvisation.
We form a committed collective to dance and perform together over the course of one year. We will meet once a week every tuesday morning. This time will be precious for us. We will investigate the core values of contact improvisation with the support of body awareness methods.
“In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It’s the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive.”
David Abram
An interview with
Grégory Chevalier
The program
During the whole program, we will touch Contact Improvisation skills, somatic and ensemble aspects. Those systems will interweave and grow continuously accompanying our process.
1st semester (2025 October to 2026 January)
The first semester is about flowing, establishing the principles of moving and being moved.
SKILLS
- Flowing into weight transfers
- Spread my limbs as tentacles, ways for twisting
- Investigating the skinesphere, the spaces under the skin.
- Effortless rollings and slidings.
- Hanging and releasing, partnering work.
- Spinning, jumping, flying from and through our center.
- Catching momentum, being quick and sudden.
- Stretching as an act of union.
- Spiraling inside vortex consciousness.
SOMATIC
- Being moved by and moving sensations.
- Fluid small dance.
- Ancient movement development patterns (vibration, cellular breathing, navel radiation) and fluid consciousness in touch and movement.
- Breathing from the navel, re-creating our relationship with our inner ocean.
- Hands, feet, head and tail consciousness.
- Being in my solo and together while nurturing a somatic movement language.
ENSEMBLE
- Unity, sensing and moving like one body.
- Kinesthetic awareness and empathy.
- Taking and giving space.
- Holding space.
- Being aware of everyone all the time.
- Seeing the spaces between, perceiving the kinesphere of other bodies.
- Finding eternity inside very quick connections.
- Supporting someone’s solo.
- Speaking and presenting what I am doing.
- Taking the audience’s hands.
- Make it simple.
- Act on instinct.
2nd semester (2026 January to March)
The second trimester is about grounding, reclaiming our body as an ecosystem itself.
SKILLS
- Not doing
- Diving into the fluidity of the Earth.
- Being slow, even slower.
- Feeling weight, being heavy and light.
- Being aware of extremities, pointing into space, reaching out and in.
- Arches, spirales and ondulations inside solo work.
- Concavity and convexity of positions and movements.
- From spirale to lift, spinning around shoulders safely.
- Falling while flying, falling as the condition for flying.
SOMATIC
- Organs consciousness, seeking for the origin of movement.
- Embodying front and back spaces through an embryological approach.
- Skeleton and bones consciousness, shaping spaces and being moved by kinesthetic awareness.
- Connective tissues consciousness to fall safely and randomly.
- Middle space, bridging earth and sky.
ENSEMBLE
- Creating composition together.
- Creating harmony inside chaos.
- Chaordination concept exploration.
- Inclusive standing, sitting and lying, gardening.
- Spaces and times inside composition.
- Timing of entering and leaving.
- The attention of space and spaces of attention.
- Duo and trio dynamics.
- Quintet dynamic and flock dynamics.
- Welcoming unpredictability.
3rd trimester (April to June 2026)
This trimester is about integration, being liquid and earthy, letting those two principles meet.
It will be shaped by the evolution of the work we have been exploring together. It will depend on us and the needs of each individual. There will be the possibility to re-visit and deepen into the existing material or to investigate new formats within Contact Improvisation skills, somatic and ensemble work.
Invisible becomes visible: 3 performances
Every trimester, we will reap the fruits of our work.
The pieces “Oceanhand” and “Earthing” will be our base resources for it.
The tremendous amount of skills that are required for a somatic dance performer and inside contact improvisation will grow from experience. And your unique one will enrich the community.
Who can attend?
This training is for non-professional and professional, passionate dancers. All dance lovers, who come from body work, psychology, martial art, sculpture, therapy, pedagogy, massage, medicine and mathematics are welcome!
Next dates: (registration open)
30 September 2025 – 23 June 2026.
Every Tuesday morning from 9.00 to 13.30.
Space:
Zeitraum studio – Bandgasse 34/29c, 1070 Wien
Requirements for participation:
- 30 min. interview with Grégory.
- Doing the first 3 week trial.
- Committing for the whole year program.
Prices:
- Early bird until June 30 – 1590 €
- Normal price – 1790 €
- Bring a friend – 1590 € for each
Payment is possible in one or three installments.
Registration will be accepted together with the first payment.
The training is alltogether 200 hours.
- the weekly classes (36 weeks, 165 hours)
- the preparation and participation in 3 performances (April 12 And May 12 in Vienna, June 21 in Hungary)
- 4 days of residency in Hungary, June 18-21.
Grégory Chevalier Teacher, choreographer, founder.
Grégory has been leading workshops and trainings internationally in movement awareness and dance since 2011. His main focuses include physical touch, exploring movement language through body systems, the concepts of seeing and being seen, embracing the unknown. He is driven towards dance-making with the motivation to dismantle societal behaviors and reconnect with the natural wisdom of living in a human body.
His style is sensuous, playful, fed by a constant hunger for research and faith in body wisdom. He is trained in Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement and Body Consciousness-based Improvisation. Presently studying in the school of Body Mind Centering and Focusing oriented therapy.In KiT’s work he is mainly inspired by first and second generation CI and somatic masters including Nancy Stark Smith, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Steve Paxton, Kálmán Ferenc, Karczag Eva, Alex Guex and many others with whom he has the chance to meet and learn from.
Credit : Laura Szekeres
Bea Forizs Teacher, KiT Vienna assistant
Somatic Movement therapist & Vocal Sound Healing Coach, home-schooling mother, working with kids, mothers & entrepreneurs.
She believes that everyone has their own Master within themselves. Bea’s work is inspired by Feldenkrais method, trauma-informed neuro-biomechanic sensory integration for functional spine, core & pelvic floor stability, Somatic Vocal Sound Healing and Authentic Clowning.
credit: @lavionphoto
Natalie Campbell Teacher, KiTVienna assistant
Natalie is a transdiciplinary artist, working at the intersections of movement and text-based art, currently based in Vienna. Since one decade she researches, teaches and studies dance in its various forms, being hugely influenced by the lens of Axis Syllabus, as well as Contact Improvisation and other somatic approaches to movement. Inspired by the various approaches of postmodern dance in her research with KIT Vienna she raises the question: how can we perform Contact Improvisation today?
Credit: Walter Pobaschnig
Elements of Body Mind Centering®
Body Mind Centering® developed by somatic pioneer Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical, and developmental principles, utilizing movement, touch, voice, and mind.
Ideokinesis
Ideokinesis is an approach to improving posture, alignment, and fluency of movement through structured guided imagery that uses metaphors, such as visualizing an object moving in a specific direction along various muscle groups throughout the body, while lying completely still.
Postmodern dance philosophy
Postmodern dance is more about discovering your own unique voice through movement than imitating an already prescribed aesthetic. While most studio class offerings ask students to replicate shapes, tricks, and routines, postmodern dance asks students to explore their own movement vocabulary through dance improvisation.
Nancy Stark Smith’s teachings and Underscore
The Underscore, a long-form dance improvisation structure created by Nancy Stark Smith, incorporates Contact Improvisation into the broader arena of improvisational dance practice.
Steve Paxton’s Material for the Spine
Conceived by dancer Steve Paxton as both a meditation on the spine and a technical approach, Material for the Spine focuses on experience acquired along his artistic journey: his study of walking, his experience as a dancer, the development of contact improvisation, and his aikido practice.
The path of sensing
Founded by Luis Ansa (1922–2011), the way of feeling is an invitation to return to the immediate reality of our being, to this inner freedom and this unconditional love that are our true nature.
A resourceful training
You will have gained embodied experience and material to use in your passion and professional life. Many of our dancers are currently involved in teaching as well as other creative and performative projects
Like a family
KiT Vienna is gonna be 3 years old and some of us are here from the beginning. This training is already the beginning of a longer story.
KiTVienna photos credit: @lavionphoto, PHOTO FLAUSEN, Theresia Kaufmann
“Performing an improvisation is not the same
as improvising a performance.”
How our dancers experience the work?
How does this make sense for you to perform what we do?
Barborka Kiczkova, Bea Forizs, Amélie Schlemmer, Simon Kornkaüsl
What is the most precious for you in KiTVienna?
Barborka Kiczkova, Bea Forizs, Amélie Schlemmer, Simon Kornkaüsl
“It is educational to inform people about somatic work.”
Conrad Honrud, 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