Dance as
a Sensing Path
A new ensemble is being created in Vienna
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
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 (2024 September to 2025 February)
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 (2024 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 2024)
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)
24 September 2024 -17 June 2025.
Every Tuesday morning from 9.00 to 13.00.
Space:
Zeitraum studio – Bandgasse 34/29c, 1070 Wien
Prices:
- Early bird until June 30 – 1490 €
- Normal price – 1690 €
- Bring a friend – 1490 € for each
Payment is possible in one or three installments.
Registration will be accepted together with the first payment.
The training is alltogether 219 hours.
- the weekly classes (37 weeks, 171 hours)
- the preparation and participation in 3 performances (January 25 in Vienna, March 23 in Vienna, May 25 in Budapest, June 10 in Vienna), 24 hours.
- 4 days of residency together with KiTBudapest in Hungary, from May 22-25), 24 hours.
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)
24 September 2024 -17 June 2025.
Every Tuesday morning from 9.00 to 13.00.
Space:
Zeitraum studio – Bandgasse 34/29c, 1070 Wien
Prices:
- Early bird until June 30 – 1490 €
- Normal price – 1690 €
- Bring a friend – 1490 € for each
Payment is possible in one or three installments.
Registration will be accepted together with the first payment.
The training is alltogether 219 hours.
- the weekly classes (37 weeks, 171 hours)
- the preparation and participation in 3 performances (February 14, April 18, May 25), 24 hours.
- 4 days of residency together with KiTBudapest in Hungary, from May 22-25), 24 hours.
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
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 after completing the year. Many of our dancers are currently involved in teaching as well as other creative and performative projects.
Like a family
KiT Ensemble has been growing since 2018. We are now like a family, so maybe this training is the beginning of a long story.
“Performing an improvisation is not the same
as improvising a performance.”
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
