Potential Shamanic Action
Improvisation and Performance as potetial shamanic action

An experiment to investigate the relationship between improvised dance, performance and shamanism. Exercises and experiences in presence, transformation, breath, altered states of being, trance, awareness, healing, ritual, and performance.
I have been studying ritual, both ancient and contemporary, for over 20 years. I recognise 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, of communicating with the dead or not-human. Performance often engages the same intentions.

Each day we will, in action and conversation, question the potential of energy, ritual and magic. What is it? How do we experience it? Can it be choreographed? What can we learn about presence through improvisation? What is magic? What is the role of presence in making magic, provoking transformation, or sensing the Other worlds?



Post-Contact Improvisation
Experimental practices in body-to-body engagement.
Dance training in physical and energetic relationship.

A laboratory that extends the proposals and possibilities of Contact Improvisation. How do we engage, critique, and evolve the practices of pas-de-deux, improvised duet, group touch and shared weight? What are its limitations of Contact Improv in relation to performance, contemporary art, choreographic innovation and intervention? Contact Improvisation, more than any other development in European and American dance, challenged the hierarchy of the vertical body, attempted to democratise body parts, challenged the role of gender in dance partnering, and disrupted deeply embodied choreographic and institutional habits. Post/Contact questions and celebrates the resistance to Contact Improvisation in contemporary dance and performance. 1960-70s dance experimentation was heavily influenced by pop culture and youth rebellion, including hippy culture and activist projects (anti-war, feminism, black power…). How do contemporary dance practices erase, engage or embody these influences?



Keith Hennessy
Keith Hennessy was born in a mining town in Northern Ontario, lives in San Francisco, and works regularly in Europe. Director of Circo Zero, he is a Bessie award-winning performer, choreographer, teacher and organizer. Hennessy was a co-founder of the San Francisco performance spaces 848 and CounterPULSE. Hennessy was a member of Sara Shelton Mann’s legendary Contraband, is deeply curious about improvisation, and has been queering bodies and stages for over 25 years. He is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at University of California, Davis.
www.circozero.org