Contact Improvisation
“Moving On”

Contact Improvisation is a dance form of communicating, experiencing, and relating through physical contact between two or more people. Basic skills such as falling, rolling, sharing weight, and moving with momentum encourage a freedom of expression and communication unique to the form.
The class will introduce both the roots and a contemporary approach to the form. A special focus will be on the “Improvisation” aspect of Contact Improvisation. Gravity, weight and a meditative entrance into sensing will be used to open the instinctive and intuitive mind of improvisation. Sensing yourself, non-verbal communication with others, and experiencing the environment facilitate reflecting on the past, present, and future of your improvising.
Dancing ranges from simple to complex, depending on the experience levels. It is an accessible form where people can meet on equal ground and explore the movement possibilities that exist between them.




Bodywork
deepen intuition

Alito Alessi, choreographer, dancer, and Licensed Massage Therapist, will teach bodywork preparation, application, and integration, including techniques for alignment of the shoulders, neck, spine and pelvis combined with cranial sacral work. Breath and movement will be used as a physical awareness preparation for hands-on partner-work moving towards the balance of structural, energetic and muscular expression. We will increase our understanding of strength, stretch, release and our ability to listen to our bodies’ messages, and deepen our intuition.
We will use a hands-on approach to cultivate a responsive, listening attitude to identify our own healing qualities and to assist others in identifying that which inhibits the physical, mental and emotional aspects of alignment. Together we will become aware of what our bodies are telling us but often ignore.



DanceAbility

DanceAbility is a unique dance methodology founded in 1987 by Alito Alessi and Karen Nelson and has been under the exclusive leadership of Alito since 1989. DanceAbility uses improvisational dance to promote artistic expression and exploration between people with and without disabilities.
Through experiencing movement together, misconceptions and/or prejudices that able-bodied or disabled people might have about themselves and each other are uprooted. DanceAbility workshops provide a supportive atmosphere for attitudes to change, and for people to learn about the beauty and joy of communicating through movement.
The intention of DanceAbility is to cultivate a common ground for creative expression of all people. The material is drawn from the group present in a given situation and isolates no one. The method supports self-empowerment by offering ways that all individuals can participate fully in expressing their creative choices, including respecting one’s own limits. Following one’s own interest and desire, and applying that to the benefit of one’s community, is a basic DanceAbility teaching.
The class will consist of foundation exercises introducing basic concepts of movement improvisation to people of all abilities based on things that all participants can do. This class will provide an introduction to the unique language of each person’s body and how to communicate non-verbally with a partner and in larger groups. This will result in work in self-directing small groups to shape short dance pieces. The integration of “Contact Improvisation” will result in learning to improvise using physical contact.

Alito will lead this wokshop together with Vera Rebl. She is DanceAbility-trainer, choreographer and life quality advisor, living in Vienna. She attended numerous workshops with artists including Alito Alessi, Maud Paulissen, Fabiana Pastorini, Sonja Browne and appeared in their performances. Recently she founded the dance company A.D.A.M. (Austrian DanceAbilty Movement), and performed in the beginning of April 2008 at the Congress Ent-hinderte Sexualität in Linz at the Ursulinenhof.

Alito Alessi and Sara Zolbrod
www.corpus.net




Alito Alessi
Alito Alessi is the artistic director and founder of the Joint Forces Dance Company and teaches and performs DanceAbility and Contact Improvisation internationally for more than 20 years. Both Joint Forces as well as DanceAbility are considered to be of the most important pioneer-projects in the field of "mixed-abilities dance“. This project for performers and teachers with and without disabilities achieved international appreciation for its artistic vision and the unique method in widening variety in dance.
Over several years Alito Alessi received scholarships for his choreographic works from American National Endowment of the Arts. As one of the pioneers of integrating Contact Improvisation into choreographic work, collaborations with artists include Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Andrew Harwood, Karen Nelson amongst others.