The Improvising Citizen
exploring the symbiosis of our creative work and our public life

A workshop in dance, improvisation and performance exploring the polarities of inner/outer, private/public, life/art as our primary sources of instigation and inspiration.
Grounding ourselves in the disciplined study and joyful practice of improvised dance and performance, we’ll explore the symbiosis of our creative work and our public life. Deepening and expanding our dance practices – contact improvisation, physical theater, improvised dance - will be the home base for round-trip travel into questions of politics, culture, spirituality, family, and society. Sound, vocal language and text, sourced from the wild body, will be included in our experiments. Performance will serve as a ritualized time and place for simultaneous research and discourse.
How does the external influence the internal, and vice versa? How do our familial, social, and global experiences influence our dancing body? How do our practices of improvised dance, movement, meditation and performance influence our perceptions and actions outside the studio?
We dive into the pool of our dancing body, dropping into sensation and imagination, resurfacing with gestures and momentum, touch and flight. What is the role of the dance in your life? What is the role of the dancer in social life? Is the world dancing? Is Vienna an improvised performance?
I intend this workshop to be a living laboratory, motivated by the experiences and desires of each and all who are present.



Contact Improvisation
an impulse for spontaneous partnership

Contact Improvisation is an approach, a context, a practice. Anyone who is willing can do it. The dance can be slow, low to the ground, intimate, athletic, fierce and flying within a matter of seconds or hours... Contact Improvisation thrives on deep listening, whole body respect and awareness, flexibility, playfulness, strength, mutual trust and joie de vivre. A basic suggestion is to follow an ever-changing point of contact (or place of touch) between your body and your partner’s body. We will follow this suggestion and expand the dance to include a wide experience of improvising in partnership: duo, trio, group, body and architecture, body and world.
I have been dancing with Contact Improvisation since 1979. The dance, like my body and the world around me, has gone through several phases and changes, styles and evolutions. I teach Contact as an experiment in moving, as an impulse for spontaneous partnership and choreography, as an inspirational space where new ideas and actions flourish.



Shamanic Improvised Presence
Improvisation and performance as potential shamanic action

A weekend experiment to investigate the relationship between improvised dance, performance and shamanism. Exercises and experiences in presence, transformation, breath, altered states of being, trance, awareness, ritual, and performance.
I have been studying ritual, both ancient and contemporary, for over 20 years. I recognize the many continuations and disruptions between religious practice and the Western concert stage. Shamanism, in a general usage, refers to the ritual/spiritual practices of working with unseen forces, of energy, of transforming space and time, of shifting meaning and perspective. Performance often engages the same intentions.
Throughout the weekend we will, in action and conversation, question the concept of Presence. What is it? How do we experience it? Can it be choreographed? What can we learn about presence through improvisation?



Keith Hennessy
Keith Hennessy is a performer, choreographer, teacher and organiser. He was born in Canada, lives in San Francisco and tours internationally. His interdisciplinary research engages improvisation, ritual and public action as tools for investigating political realities. Recent awards include a NY Bessie (2009), two Isadora Duncan Awards (2009), the SF Bay Guardian’s Goldie (2007) the Alpert/MacDowell Fellowship in Dance (2005). Hennessy directs ZERO PERFORMANCE, and was a member of the collaborative performance companies: Contraband (85-94), CORE (95-98), and Cahin-caha, cirque bâtard (98-02). Recent works include "Auf den Tisch!" with Meg Stuart, "Delinquent", a work with young adults investigating juvenile crime and punishment, commissioned by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and "Crotch", a solo performance developed at L’Arsenic in Lausanne, and presented internationally. Keith's recent teaching includes University of California (Davis), University of Dance & Circus (Stockholm), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Touch & Play Festival (Berlin), Ponderosa (Stolzenhagen), Tanzfabrik (Berlin) and American Dance Festival (Durham). Hennessy is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at UC Davis.
www.circozero.org