Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood & Paula Zacharias
Tuning Into Contact

Tuning Into Contact A workshop in Instantaneous Composition and Contact Improvisation This workshop is intended to immerse participants in the practice of dance improvisation in a stimulating and supportive environment. Two complementary approaches to improvisation and composition will be explored in this workshop with Paula Zacharias and Andrew Harwood. The sensorial field of perception, which awakens and “tunes” the imagination while improvising will be combined with the physically interactive and spontaneous duet form “contact”, based on instinct and touch. Bodywork will complement the proceedings. Paula and Andrew have been touring internationally teaching and performing together over the past 18 months in Canada, the U.S.A., Australia, South America, Mexico and six countries in Europe. Paula Zacharias's work will focus on opening the visual and sensorial field of perception for improvisation. This work is based on and influenced by the “Tuning Score” created by Lisa Nelson, a study of the ways we perceive and of choices that we make in the process of viewing which opens the senses to other realities. Simple observation affects action, while attention and intention complement each other to help break patterns drawing other senses into the creative process of movement. Through the awareness of visual and non-visual perception we can tune into our inner and outer world, observing and awaking the imagination for composition. Andrew Harwood's work will focus on Contact Improvisation, which is a free play between two bodies in motion sharing weight, balance and energy, often leaving participants informed, centered and enlivened. Simple partnering work or deep release work, using anatomically sound sequences of movement, will lead us to a grounded internal experience of our weight in motion. Alertness is constantly encouraged in order to work in an energetic state of “beingness”. We will practice various skills such as rolling, falling, supporting, being upside down, pouring weight and catching. Deep relaxation, reflex and coordination games, sensory awareness, ki work and lots of dancing in contact with others will balance out this work.