COMPOSITIONAL AWARENESS IN CONTACT IMPROVISATION
Contact improvisation offers us a container for the practice of non-verbal communication, of expanded awareness, and for creative expression while allowing what is unexpected to emerge. As we ground ourselves in the core principles of Contact Improvisation and focus on the dynamic subtleties of touch, tone and weight, we will expand our awareness to include space, time, image, gesture and design through duet, trio and ensemble dancing. Seeking a quality of attention that shifts from self to other, to the environment and the ever-changing atmospheres in the room, we will consider how a lightly held compositional awareness and feeling can support our efforts to connect, find meaning when we are dancing, and engage with innovative possibilities for individual and collective improvisation. This work can be viewed not only as a means for creative expression but as a process for developing our capacity to collaborate and build a community that holds space for each individual.
Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is renowned as a leading light in the field of dance improvisation and is currently celebrating his 50th anniversary as an internationally recognized pioneer of contact improvisation (CI) and a master teacher/performer in both real-time composition and CI. For over fifty years he has dedicated himself to the research, development, education, collaboration and dissemination of these rigorous artistic practices as sophisticated movement disciplines and performing art forms. He first studied and then performed with (among many others) Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Nita Little, Kurt Siddal and Daniel Lepkoff, the original developers of Contact Improvisation. He subsequently danced for the companies of Marie Chouinard, Jean-Pierre Perreault, Jo Lechay, Joint Forces and Fulcrum, as well as the improvisational dance collectives Discovery Bal, The Echo Case and The Improvisational Movement Fund. Formerly founder and artistic director of AH HA Productions (2000–2014), his work has also evolved through an abundance of collaborative performances around the globe with many renowned artists such as Chris Aiken, Ray Chung, Peter Bingham, Kirstie Simson, Julyen Hamilton, Lisa Nelson, K.J. Holmes, Alito Alessi, Karen Nelson, Benno Voorham, Benoît Lachambre, Marc Boivin and Lin Snelling. His journey continues to expand through investigations of perceptual awareness, ecological sensitivity, and an ongoing interest in design and composition in both everyday life and artistic practice.