Contact Fundamentals - The Essential Building Blocks
An open level course in Contact Improvisation

Contact Improvisation is a system of movement based on the communication between two or more moving bodies and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion – gravity, momentum, energy, inertia. It is a free play with balance bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves participants informed, centered and enlivened. The body in order to open to these sensations must learn to abandon a certain quality of wilfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes rolling smoothly, falling safely, being upside down, supporting and giving weight effortlessly. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one’s basic survival instincts.


Improvisation for Performers
practising instant inventiveness

The core of this advanced workshop will focus on movement structures which will encourage performers of various backgrounds to redefine and expand their solo and duet vocabulary and allow for experimentation with small to large group dances. Through various forms of improvisation, spatial design, images, states, chance procedures, tasks and games, we will practise instant inventiveness, refine our sensing skills and develop various compositional strategies, which in turn will become the framework for in-house performances that we will view and discuss. This entire process relies on the dancers willingness to listen deeply to themselves and each other, to take risks, to call upon their confidence and to allow their skills as interpreters to come into focus. Emphasis will be placed upon collaboration and communication, personalised performing, clear intention, trust and instinct.


Contact Improvisation - Being ready
An intermediate course in Contact Improvisation

Because of the sophisticated nature of this workshop, this intensive is for those with a solid grasp of Contact fundamentals with at least three years of continuous ongoing practice. Being completely attentive and always prepared on all levels, will enable us to go beyond thinking our way through the dance, and help us be attuned to what is actually taking place. This total presence allows us to be freed of the mental chatter, planning ahead, and judgment, which so often override the body’s ability to make appropriate split second choices. In this way the improvisations can be entirely physical, playful, heartfelt, surprising and enjoyable. Explored themes will include: tumbling, flying, use of variable speeds, use of direct action and initiation, resistance, disappearance, subtle ways of moving weight, flowing through unfamiliar circumstances, extending our personal range of movement, and integrating our imagination.
This intensive is for those with a solid grasp of Contact Improvisation fundamentals with at least three years of continuous ongoing practice. (The teacher reserves the right to transfer students to a lower level if need be).



Instant Instinct
entering the instinctive arena of the unknown

Each class will begin with a warm-up focusing on releasing and extending the body, awakening the senses and developing an awareness of inner/outer space. We then 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 harness our intuitive discoveries, share our current quests, and challenge our dancing's desires while we improvise alone/together. Throughout this practice, we will be encouraged to lower our expectations and accentuate our inventiveness. This will be a mixed level class, open to all levels of experience.


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.