Contact-Improvisation

This is a workshop open to students with at least a year of solid contact experience. The role of perception, sensation, expression and imagination will be examined. We will challenge the mind's beliefs about space and time and experience the dramatic effects on our bodies and movements. Finding a sense of timelessness in our dancing – a state of consciousness that is aware but not self-conscious. Dancers will be encouraged to explore the outer edge of their physical limits while still attending to the world of sensation, imagination and inspiration.


Instant Instinct

After a releasing and sense-awakening warm-up we enter the rich and instinctive arena of the unknown with an open mind and a curious body. Simple directions and basic structures will help us to harness our intuitive discoveries. We will be encouraged to lower our expectations and accentuate our inventiveness.


Improvisation for Performers

These classes focus on improvisation as a performance art. To me the unique value of improvisation lies in its live spontaneity, its potential to discover something spectacularly dynamic, physical and ''real'' in the instant, that you would never have thought of in a hundred hours of choreographic rehearsal. Improvisation requires a great deal of concentration, presence of mind and body, and abandonment of expectations and ego, all while being watched. It requires accepting that you cannot control everything. Perfection is not the accomplishment of a pre-determined goal, but rather a moment-by-moment process of perception, response and collaboration. The classes will emphasize acute physical presence, intimate yet versatile movement, fullness of breath, personalized performing, open and sharp intention, and, most of all, trust.


Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood
Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is a leading international teacher, performer and creator in the field of instantaneous choreography and Contact Improvisation since 1975. He is the artistic director of AH HA Productions, a project oriented company based in Montreal and dedicated to improvisation as a practice and a performing art.

Andrew studied extensively, taught and performed with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Nita Little, the founding members of Contact Improvisation. He also has a background in gymnastics, athletics, Yoga, contemporary dance, Release Technique, somatic studies and Aikido. His work has been presented in numerous international festivals since 1980. Andrew danced for the companies of Fulcrum, Jo Lechay, Marie Chouinard and Jean-Pierre Perreault, and with the improvisational ensembles The Echo Case and Discovery Bal. He has also collaborated in performance with Marc Boivin, Peter Bingham, Lin Snelling, Benoît Lachambre, Chris Aiken, Kirstie Simson, Ray Chung, Lisa Nelson and Paula Zacharias among many others.

Additionally, Harwood has taught advanced workshops and performed at many major Contact Improvisation festivals in the past few years: Freiburg Contact Festival (Germany), Moscow Contact Festival, Israeli Contact Festival, Zip Contact Festival (Italy), Kontact Budapest (Hungary), Trans Contact Festival (Romania).He has also taught classes to the world renowned companies of O’ Vertigo and Marie Chouinard in Montréal as well as the fabulous Montréal Circus group called Les Sept Doigts de la Main. He is the recipient of the Canada Council’s Jacqueline-Lemieux award for the year 2000.