Be ready for 22 days of classes, intensives, workshops, nature walks, waterfalls, contemplation, improvisation, interaction, integration and rest. Surrender to the energy of the water, the stones, the hikes. Enjoy the view of stunning landscapes and experience the amusement of moving through dance and nature. Be in touch with your inner self and with people from all over the planet.
Encima da Chapada will guide us to a powerful journey, from the pure waters of Vale do Capão to the sacred mountains of Vale do Pati. An immersion of dance surrounded by nature, opening a space of deep listening for the sublime dialogue of the body with the environment.
During the first week we will be cohabitating in the village of Vale do Capão, – also known as Caeté-Açú – located at the entrance of Chapada Diamantina National Park, municipality of Palmeiras, in the state of Bahia. The term “Caetê-Açu” in Tupi (the local indigenous language) means “great true forest”. Upon arrival, all it takes is to look around to understand the reason for this name. This oasis with impressive waterfalls, breathtaking landscapes and diamonds sprouting from the earth, generated so much magnetism that it ended up attracting countless interesting and alternative people, healers and artists from all over the planet, becoming one of the most cosmopolitan villages in the world!
In this phase, we will be enjoying the grounds of the super charming Pousada do Capão, with a wonderful wooden dancefloor by the edge of the Batista River. A natural pool, sand court, saunas, hot tub, several lawn areas surrounded by nature and a beyond-inspiring view will be just some of the facilities of the place that will host us. There we will share classes, jams, experimentation labs, sensory exploration, trekking and lots of space for exchanging dances, ideas and coexistence.
During the second week we will enter the Vale do Pati, an ecological sanctuary in the heart of Chapada Diamantina National Park. It is known worldwide for being a place of unspeakable beauty and a peculiar ecosystem, being one of the most sought after places by those who enjoy trekking in nature and hiking to spectacular sites. Away from car noises, cell phone antennas or other distractions, we will further explore the movement of the body in nature, opening up our perception and possibilities for interaction with the environment and other beings. In a 7-day dance trek, we will cultivate time to be silent, breathe, observe, walk, contemplate small dances, large waterfalls, movement and stillness… immersing ourselves in a space outside of time, opening to true connection with our essential nature.
Before starting the Capão phase, there will be a pre-festival workshop, with our anchor teacher, who has been invited to collaborate with the festival on long term basis, because we love her research!
Since this work deals with fundamentals, it firstly affects our quality of presence and our relationship with the world, and secondly, it prepares the body appropriately for dance, revealing fresh possibilities for movement and interaction.
He practices Tae-kwon-do and athletics. He has a degree in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of La Plata. In 1990 he began his studies in Contact Improvisation and since 1994 he has taught at various centers, institutions and festivals in Argentina, Brazil, Australia and around the world. He is currently an adjunct teacher at the Chair of Contact Improvisation at U.N.A. (National University of Arts). He was part of the teaching staff of the Contemporary Dance Company and GEAM (Group of Experimentation in Movement Arts). He offered classes at the UNSAM Circus School (National University of San Martín), at La Fábrica, “Professional Dancer School” and at the “Incubator Project”, Training Internship Program.
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Social Psychologist, Embodiment Facilitators Course (EFC) Certified, Bodymind Gestalt Therapist, International Teacher of Contact Improvisation and Body Awareness, retreat guide on emotional freedom, nurturing touch and conscious sexuality. Practitioner of the Deep Listening method. Author of a method for teaching underwater dance (Ocean Dance), freediver, ecologist, hostess of dance and movement retreats and festivals in Nature (Thailand, Bali, Portugal, Russia, Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, Mexico), author of the blog “Body My House”. Guides regular Contact Improvisation events on land and water in Tepoztlan, Mexico.
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Eco-somatic artist - visual designer - improvisation dancer - performer
Geraldín studied graphic design at the UJTL University in Bogotá, Colombia with a postgraduate degree in "Combined Artistic Languages" at UNA-Buenos Aires, Argentina (in progress).
The relationship between the urban body and the wild body has been her main source of research and artistic work. Her eco-somatic universe explores the relationship between the human and more than human, through contact improvisation, poetic thought and performative practices in nature. Her sharing is inspired by the cosmologies of the body and territory in ancestral communities of AbyaYala (South America).
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Visual artist and dancer, she has been practicing contact improvisation for ten years. She studied with Ray Chung, Gustavo Lecce, Cristina Turdo, Gabriel Forestieri, Violeta Lubarsky, Lucía Bertone, José Villa, Eliana Bonard, Lior Ophir, Gabriel Greca, Iván Baucia, Autarco Arfini, Gabriela Morales, among others. Producer and organizer of urban interventions and festivals such as Transformando Pela Prática. Creator of MACI (Contact Improvisation Marathon), an itinerant project with the aim of strengthening the network of practitioners in Latin America. Influenced by the Authentic Movement and Theravada Buddhism, her interest is in nurturing the inner connection, the ground, to make the way to the outside, to the connection with space and with others.
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He is a circus performer and street artist since 1998. In 2003 he had a bad injury that forced him to focus on healing. Thanks to the innovative postural physiotherapy that provided great tools and precious principles for a quick recovery, he developed a somatic training named DanSoma. This approach is applied especially to handstand, acrobatic dance, contact improvisation and fluid movement research. He holds numerous workshops in Italy and abroad, and in 2018 - 2019 he has been a resident teacher of postural training and movement training at the Roman Circus School. In Sicily he is organizing festivals and especially long residential courses (3 or 2 months long) focused on healing body, mind and spirit through somatic training applied to the study of movement and circus arts.
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17th to 19th January 2024
3 classes of 3 hours each
(without meals or accommodation)
22nd to 29th January 2024 –
8 days, including all activities and meals
(without accommodation)
1st to 7th February 2024 –
7 days, including all activities, meals and guide
(without accommodation)
17th January to 7th February 2024
22 days including all activities,
and meals in capão and pati phases
(without accommodation)
R$ 50 (camping daily)
From R$ 160 (daily in shared luxury suite)
Have a look at the rooms and environment:
www.pousadadocapao.com.br
From R$ 50 (camping daily)
From R$ 100 (daily in shared room)
Photo and video credits: Maria de Los Angeles, Carlos Gavina, Sasha Bezrodnova, Julia Limaverde, Xenia, Joana Shroeder, Ciro Becker, Felipe Godoi, Olya Glotka, Marina Sekacheva.
“The Patterns of Being” Intensive at the Intersection of Somatics and Contact Improvisation
My passion and deep exploration in recent years has been working with movement patterns. According to the somatic (embodiment) approach, we move with our entire selves. It is through movement, which occurs on various levels of our existence, that we feel, experience, act, and relate, everything with our whole selves.
Therefore, the fundamental movement patterns can be equally called patterns of being. Studying how we use or don’t use various patterns helps us become aware of ourselves in interaction with the world in order to find more possibilities for free choice, if we believe it exists. If it doesn’t exist, then at the very least, it provides more opportunities for understanding our conditioning.
During the intensive, I will invite you to discover and explore different movement patterns from the following frameworks:
Reflexes help movement occur instantly, bypassing the processing of information in the cortex of the brain, which is very helpful in organizing the body quickly and correctly in survival situations.
We will awaken the body in a dynamic way, enabling our reflexes to act easily in slides, spirals and lines of force. We will inhabit the bone structure and its connections with the ground and others, as well as the relationships between the ground and vertical lines. Standing here and guided by a point of contact, the dancers will be encouraged to look for fluidity of movement, without knowing exactly where it will take them. They will transport or will be transported by physical forces, already put into play. When physical safety is guaranteed in movement, on a more instinctive level, improvisation finds a more subtle playing field.
We will investigate specific Contact Improvisation skills, awakening our senses of the surrounding environment. We will seek and investigate our own fluid movement, bringing it to states that lead us to a safe and unique dance. We will accentuate our relationship with the ground, until we recognize it as a pair, through our own adjustments to gravity and our multiple attention. Another core of the practice will be the exploration of improvisation, practical and poetic games that the world of improvisation can provide, so that each singularity finds its own particular way of dancing.
The intensive is gonna be focused on how we interact with the world in the very place of contact. Where we end, and where the other, or the world, begins? Where are our membranes that are both sensitive and protective? How do our boundaries change in the process of interaction?
The topic of boundaries brings us to so many different places…
SAFETY
Why sometimes we say YES, when we are not sure, or when we mean NO?
When do we betray ourselves and when we are following our inner truth?
When do we neglect or ignore our limits, or pretend we dont have them?
NOURISHMENT
Our ability to be nourished emotionally and bodily derives from our self-permission to trust, to absorb, to be aware of our needs, to accept that we have needs, to be fully present with all our shadow parts in contact with the other.
CONTACT
How do we manifest ourselves in the presence of the other? Who we think we are and how we want to be percieved? How we are with being seen, felt, smelled? How much are we ready to really be ourselves and to meet the others the way they are? What do we want from contact and why do we need contact?
IMPROVISATION
What happens in the authentic meeting of me and the other, me and the environment? How the alchemy turns the different essences into a new oneness? When we improvise, are we a bunch of individuals within the dance space, or a new unique expression of life? What is the dance that occurs when something meets something? Or when we meet with Nature?
Playing with all these layers, we will encounter the sourses of movement within us, outside of us, among us and between us. We will create space for very personal meetings, for spontaneous artistic acts and for manifestation of something that we don’t know yet that we are.
We will investigate space as a source of visible and invisible forces that inform the intelligence of this very moment. We will explore curiosity as a force of nature that enables the body and mind to improvise. Opening the multidimensional body, we will work with the metaphysical levels of movement that invite the imagination and poetic thought. We will explore presence as an act of generosity to allow ourselves to be seen and enter the organic cycle of appearance and disappearance. Contemplation and breathing will be the basis for entering states of shared presence with the human and more-than-human worlds. We will be danced by Aluna.*
* Aluna is a term used by the Kogui indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. It is a concept to define the space of thought, the invisible, the mind within nature – and it means idea, consciousness, thought and essence. It can mean “thought” and “ocean”.
The purpose of the class is to provoke a deep state of listening anchored in the observation of physical sensations to investigate the territory of the unknown. With the focus on the movement of attention, we will try to dilate the time between stimulus and response to open the spectrum of possibilities and choices. Promote awareness of the multiplicity of meanings and internal dialogues that contact brings. Make the body available to do by listening and to listen by doing. Move and be moved.
This class is a journey that, starting from the breath, will bring us to learn some simple “acrobatic” elements that will enrich our dance and therefore our possibilities of communication with other bodies, as well as our abilities to support each other and fly together.