New Year's Intensive Jan 1-3, 2010
CIRF: Contact Improvisation Research Forum (producers of WCCIF)
presents
New Year's Intensive (NYI) 2010:
Research Into Scores with Brenton Cheng and Jennifer Chien
LOCATION:
CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission Street (@9th), San Francisco, CA USA
(Arrive by 6:30pm on Friday. Intermediate Level dancers may do walk-up registration 6:30pm Friday on a first-come, first-served basis. Advance phone/email to inquire about spots left is recommended.)
PRICE: (includes 1-year CIRF membership)
$150 Early-Bird Registration til DECEMBER 15th.
$185 after DECEMBER 15th.
QUESTIONS:
contact@ciresearchforum.org, 415-335-6384
(Payment plans and special accomodation available.
Check out the FAQs at the bottom of this page.)
PAY HERE for NYI 2010:
CLICK HERE TO PAY FOR THIS INTENSIVE.
SCHEDULE:
Fri Jan 1:
7-10pm: Intros & Intentions Jam: semi-open score, watching, collecting, harvesting
Sat Jan 2:
10am-1pm: CI Class: Skills and Patterns
1-2pm: LUNCH
2-4pm: Tools/Exercises for Group Tuning
4-6pm: Scorework: Practicing & Feedback
Sun Jan 3:
10am-1pm: CI Class: Personal Style and jumping out of your own frame
1-2pm: LUNCH
2-4pm: Tools/Exercises for Solo Resourcing vs. Group Action
4-6pm: Scorework: Development, Usage and Crafting. Final Harvest.
Rejuvenate and re-inspire your dancing body in the New Year with renowned performers, Jennifer Chien and Brenton Cheng. This 3-day Intermediate intensive will focus on shifting physical states, deepening into sensation, and refining both solo and ensemble awareness. Explore scores as frameworks for dancing and witnessing, build structures to play in and on, and practice spontaneous composition.
In this Intensive you will learn/enhance how to:
- Craft scores for performance, jamming, artistry, and personal practice.
- Discover new tools for staying engaged and true to your own impulses.
- Identify your own superpowers and get new ones.
- Learn how specific scores and parameters can clarify your compositional intent.
METHODS:
We will draw on the frameworks of Body-Mind Centering, Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, yoga, body system exploration, contact fundamentals…each of which provides a lens for approaching the construction of scores and identifying personal movement patterns.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Engage with tools for re-interesting yourself in your individual dancing
2. Enhance skills for dancing CI with more than one person
3. Integrate contact improvisation into more open improvisation without losing track of partners
4. Big picture vs. little picture focus – make the dance meaningful
5. Move beyond your current edge by employing new concrete tools/pathways
CIRF Intermediate Prerequisites: at least 2 years’ current CI practice. Familiarity with:
jam partnering & etiquette, inversions, falling, rides/lifts. Comfort with: maintaining rolling point, counterbalance, taking/giving weight. For more info go to the Prerequisites Link.
Teacher Prerequisites: This intensive is for dancers who already feel comfortable coming to a jam and initiating and ending contact dances. For info on upcoming classes/jams in your region that can help you assess your experience level, please email contact@ciResearchForum.org
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ):
Q: In this Intensive, what do you mean by the use of the word "score?"
A: Similar to its use in music, a "score" is the structure/instructions for action. In dance improvisation use, a score can range from almost no structure to a complex set of directions that all the dancers ensembling together agree to follow to enable greater collaboration and partner signaling throughout the development of the group dance. There are some "famous" CI scores, such as Nancy Stark Smith's Underscore, and Karen Nelson's Tuning Score. Scores provide useful limitations that help focus choice.
For example:
- An "open" (simple) score: dance for 7 minutes any way you want then stop.
- A complex score: everybody solo w/ eyes closed. When you touch/bump someone open eyes and dance in contact. After 3 contact dances, exit and observe. After watching for 3 minutes re-enter with 2 others.
Q: What if I can't attend all three days of the Intensive?
A: It's the holidays--we'd prefer you come for the whole thing, but realize you might have to duck out for a couple hours on one of the days and that's OK, just let CIRF know beforehand. No Sunday-only attendance is permitted as the material is cumulative. There are no financial deductions for an individual's partial attendance. There are no refunds for NYI.
Q: How much dancing vs. talking will we do, will there be "showings" with feedback?
A: 75% on the feet/dancing, and 25% harvesting.
There will definitely be time for observing a lot during the workshop and feedback, but no public showing.
Q: How will Friday night be different than Sat/Sun?
A: Friday is “getting to know you” time and bonding as a group, asking for specific intentions for the workshop and time to return to the body and its sensations after perhaps holiday extravagance.
Q: Is financial assistance available to attend NYI?
A: CIRF offers a flexible payment plan for NYI.
Send an email to let us know your circumstances and CIRF will work with you.
Q: What are the CounterPULSE Facilities and neighborhood like?
A: CounterPULSE(CP) has a beautiful sprung wood dancefloor and good heating. There is a full kitchen (gas stove, oven, big fridge, dishware, cutlery, mugs, cookware, microwave, toaster) that students can use to store/prepare lunch, there are 3 private changing areas and 1 shower room. The studio theater is walking distance from Harvest Urban Market (vegan/organic foods, good coffee), Good Hotel Pizza, Ananda Fuara (vegan & veggie) and Custom Burger (organic meat&veggie), plus a convenience store & Walgreens in the block. Public Transit stops for Muni, BART, and Golden Gate Transit are all a quick walk from the studio.
CP is wheelchair accessible.
TEACHER BIOS:
Brenton Cheng is a teacher, director, and performer of improvised and choreographed work, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1995, he has taught improvisation for performance, contact improvisation, and movement re-patterning to both professional and non-professional movers in classes and workshops around the world. As a teacher, he empowers students to become sophisticated movers through a cultivation of somatic and poetic awarenesses, and a capacity for surrender. He is on the faculty at University of San Francisco and the Integrated Movement Studies Laban/Bartenieff certification program.
Jennifer Chien is a dance/theater performer, bodyworker, writer and teacher from San Francisco. She has been dancing since childhood, and practicing Contact Improvisation since 1994. Her teaching reflects a deep inquiry into both the mechanics and mind states of CI, and is influenced by studies in yoga, contemporary dance, authentic movement, BMC, bodywork, and more. She received her BA in American Studies from Smith College, and MA in Creative Inquiry/Interdisciplinary Performance at New College of California. In San Francisco she has danced in the works of Kathleen Hermesdorf/Albert Mathias, Jo Kreiter, Annie Rosenthal Parr, Scott Wells, Hope Mohr Dance, and STEAMROLLER. She is a core member of acclaimed dance-theater company The ESP Project, in residence at Intersection for the Arts. Her own work has been shown at Venue 9, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, Asian American Dance Performances, Mama Calizo's Voice Factory, and CASA 0101 (Los Angeles). She has taught at New College of California, American Conservatory Theater, CounterPULSE, San Francisco County Jail #8, and the ContactFestival Freiburg (Germany). Recent performance projects include aerial dance in the award-winning "Ballad of Polly Ann" by Flyaway Productions and the intimate evening of dance-theater "what we know so far..." with Jesselito Bie.