Faces Of CI

Welcome to Faces of CI - the podcast of conversations in Contact Improvisation. We are joined today by our newest graduate of our Momentum Contact Facilitator Training - Andy Chen (USA / Portugal) ● From the episode "I really love the jams where I get to dance with a lot of bodies. There's a little feeling of "ok, I had a dance and it wasn't that great" But I still went back in. Then I had a nice dance. That idea that it's always different, and I get to choose to have another chance of feeling joy. For me that's a big change in my mindset. Where in other forms of activities, I might just leave and not come back. For some reason with contact, I keep wanting to go back. That's what it's about." ● Join our next trainings online and in person at www.momentum-contact.com Find Andy on Instagram @casa_eira and @charlopants and us @facesofci Dance later, Aalia

Welcome to Faces of CI - the podcast of conversations in Contact Improvisation. We are joined live from one of our Momentum Beginners Contact Workshops with.. our students! Yes, I wanted to share their voices and insights on the practice about what it means to "move authentically" and "be a dancer". Tune in to find out more. ● ONLINE  www.momentum-contact.com & Instagram @facesofci Dance later, Aalia

In this episode we sit with our students in Momentum Contact Workshop, reflecting upon the questions "What is a dancer?" And "What is flow in your body?". I am in awe of my student's shares each time we do this exercise. Names have been withheld for privacy. • Join us for next upcoming Momentum Contact Workshops https://msha.ke/momentumworkshop Find us on Instagram @facesofci - Aalia

Welcome to Faces of CI - the podcast of conversations in Contact Improvisation. Our guests today are our new graduate facilitators from the first edition of Momentum Contact Facilitator Training - Sunny Zheng (Beijing, China) and Janice Chen (Berkeley, USA) /// Sunny : "I just completed the 10 day training with so many takeaways. It’s a journey about exploring my inner self and expanding the boundaries of my world. We learned the history and culture of CI, contact skills, as well as useful and practical skills to not be injured and dance safely. Not just dance but beyond the dance, helping us to become independent facilitators. Before this, I was not sure if I could make it, because maybe I don’t know how to communicate, but it happened naturally in the teaching, because of all that we learned here - with Aalia’s trust and guidance. This is more than knowledge, but confidence and support. I’m so lucky to be a part of this. I can’t wait to share this in my China Contact Community. If you want to be a facilitator, come and join us - it’s so worthwhile!"  // Join our next Momentum Contact Facilitator Training Feb 10 - 19, 2024 in Bali  www.momentum-contact.com And find us on Instagram @facesofci Dance later, Aalia

Welcome to Faces of CI - conversations in Contact Improvisation. Our guest today is Stuart Phillips, Contact Teacher since 1980's joining us from Victoria, BC, Canada. From his wild roots at Bates College in the 1980's all day improvising to contact as charades on steriods. We chat about CI as weirdness, allowance, shadowwork, and therapeutic relief from our everyday lives. His style of improvisational contact, empahisis on the improvising, internal choice first over flow. Depatterning and deconditioning our "contact moves." "When I'm getting what I need in a dance, its shifting me - so it makes me more open to the world. It takes so much patience. It's such a mystery." Find out more on www.stulips.org Join our upcoming Momentum Contact Facilitator Training Feb 10 - 19, 2024 in Bali www.momentum-contact.com And find us on Instagram @facesofci Dance later, Aalia

Welcome to Faces of CI - conversations in Contact. Peter Bingham is a force within the world of Contact Improvisation, teaching and creating performance works through his company EDAM Dance in Vancouver, Canada since 1980. In this episode we discuss his origin story in dance, the physical mechanics of Contact in terms of choreography, his daily morning class for professional dancers, intone voice as hypnotizing state, leading by following, and changes for him with Parkinson's disease. "EDAM is a place for Contact. And Contact has a place at EDAM. And hopefully that will go on - ad nauseum." EDAM Dance has been a nest held by Peter, a thread holding a big part of the contact world. It's floors hold "Contact energy" having been graced by Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Ray Chung, Nita Little, and many other high level dancers for decades. // Find EDAM's Schedule at www.edamdance.org // Faces of CI and Aalia online // Instagram @facesofci  https://linktree.com/facesofci

Hey, it me Aalia! Hopping on the ramble about : cultivating joy, play, and weirdness in jams to reset and shake habits. Comedy improv and circling as supportive mirrors to contact improvisation. What it means to be an embodied leader of contact. Navigating self compassion within the dance of life. // Follow Faces of CI & Aalia online Instagram @facesofci Upcoming workshops https://linktree.com/facesofci

Welcome to Faces of CI ~ conversations in Contact Improvisation. I am delighted to be joined by my first contact teacher, Olivia Shaffer, dancer and assistant director at EDAM Dance Company. In this episode, we chat about her journey from ballet to Europe to contact to finding her voice, correcting "doing" in contact, staying curious when injured with scores of limitation, pilates and Feldenkrais, dancing as a contact company performance artist, moving grief into art through her choreography work, and wrestling and flying in childhood as precusors to contact. Find out more about her classes and work at www.oliviashaffer.ca and edamdance.org // Follow Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci Upcoming workshops by Aalia https://linktree.com/facesofci Photo by Hilary Maxwell. This episode was recorded at EDAM Dance in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

Welcome to Faces of CI - The podcast on conversations in Contact Improvisation. Our guest today is the legendary Contact teacher Andrew Harwood (Montreal). Since 1975 Andrew has been instrumental in spreading Contact Improvisation across Canada. We discuss the roots of his beginnings with Nancy Stark Smith, performance and ensemble in CI, contemplative dance, aging in the dancing body, and the secret Contact meeting of first gen CI teachers in Vermont. This episode was recorded for Saltspring Islandd Contact Festival 2023. Find Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci And info on Momentum Facilitator Training : https://aaliahashem.my.canva.site/momentumfacilitator

This solo episode I share about an exciting new training I'll be hosting in Bali ~ Momentum Contact Improv Facilitator Training. NOV 4 - 13, 2023, BALI Momentum Contact Facilitator Training will change the way you see yourself, the body, and the world around you, as an initiation into leading the Contact Improvisation movement. Held over 10 days in the south of Bali, we will deep dive into all things Contact, including leadership and facilitation tools, somatic supporting practices, and of course, our tried and true workshop method for sharing the practice with new dancers. In this training you will learn how to lead our signature workshop, Momentum Contact Improvisation Beginners Skills, as well as how to host jams, market yourself, find venues, teach private 1:1 and so so much more. Find out more on https://aaliahashem.my.canva.site/momentumfacilitator Follow us on Instagram @facesofci

Welcome to Faces of CI - The podcast on conversations in Contact Improvisation. Our guests today are Selena Lo Brooy & Manuel Rochette, hosts of Saltspring Contact Festival. We danced for an inspiring 10 days of Contact Improvisation at Rhizome Springs, a dancer's and nature lover's dream on the hillside of Mt. Tuam, featuring panoramic eagle's eye view and hive shaped geodesic dome / spaceship, ready for lift off during Manu's dj'd jam sets. In this episode, we chat about the history of Contact on Saltspring Island. Keeping one foot in Contact's origins and one in it's future. Dancing in the dome, with love from Rhizome Springs. ♡ This episode was recorded during Saltspring Contact Festival 2023, on unceded territories of the Hul'ka'menum and Sencoten speaking people in British Columbia, Canada. Find them online // Contactimprovisationsaltspring.com Rhizomesprings.com Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci

Our guest today is the multi-directional being, Contact Improvisation teacher of 26 years, Leilani Weis. Originally from Chile, she helped develop the CI scenes abroad in Mexico & Italy and currently resides in Barcelona. We discuss her decades long mentorship with Martin Keough, dancing into impossible places, preparing the body-mind for Contact, "the dancer superpowers" and our mutual love of falling. This episode was recorded during Saltspring Contact Festival 2023, on Unceeded Coast Salish Territory in British Columbia, Canada. Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci

Hello! I'm dancing solo in this episode, where I to get into my dance background. During this one you"ll learn more about me, discovering contact improv at a fusion festival, the 4 dance styles I see at jams, and some Nancy Stark Smith wisdom. Follow along @facesofci on Instagram for more content. Find Nancy Stark Smith's "Mini Solo Underscore": https://bit.ly/3i0ftNk

Our guests today are the dancing teaching duo, Christina Dohr (Germany) and Santiago Ortiz Heredia (Spain). This is another bi-lingual episode, available in Spanish with translation. In this episode, we cover Architecture and Aikido. Touching in both directions. Embodying being seen. Psychomagic storytelling. Cross cultural contact pollination. You can find more of them on IG @black_key and @embodiedchristina. This episode was recorded in Chiang Dao, Thailand for Towards CI51 Conference @towards.contact Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci

Our guest today is Tu Le, from Vietnam. Tu is an independent movement artist and teacher of Contact Improvisation, with a background in contemporary dance and ballet. In 2017, he founded Contact Improv Hanoi and has been sharing the essence of the practice ever since. For him, dance improvisation is a tool to nurture mindfulness and creativity. In this episode, we dive into learning Contact from Youtube, pacing ourselves in dancing, gender dynamics, gentleness, holding paradox, and the contact scene in Vietnam. You can find Tu on IG @2anhle and "Contact Improv Hanoi" on Facebook. This episode was recorded in Chiang Dao, Thailand for Towards CI51 Conference @towards.contact Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci

Our guest today is Nitipat Ong Polchai of Thailand. Also known as "Ong", he began dancing in performances in the experimental-contact-art scene decades ago in San Francisco, training in Berkeley with Karl Frost. Ong's work spans creative collaborations with other bi-cultural Contact performers for Pride in Thailand, running the Bangkok Contact jam scene for the last 8 years, being a community builder and Physics teacher by day. An advocate for "Queering the practice" of CI to expand from the norms, we discuss dance priveledge, working with blind dancers, social issues, and cultural perspectives on CI. You can find Ong on IG @spineparty and "Contact Improvisation in Bangkok" on Facebook. This episode was recorded in Chiang Dao, Thailand for Towards CI51 Conference @towards.contact Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci

Our guest today is Yasukichi Sazuki (Japan). At 53 years, she has been sharing Contact Improvisation for over two decades in Tokyo, introducing the form to her country. "Simple is the strongest." - That's her philosophy. "We are in Asia. The environment will provide the ingredients. She trusts that and keeps the principles - gravity, fall, expansion, breathing. And offer the space. Focus on the fundamentals. In Asia, it's a culture of caring." What brings her the most joy in CI? "Encounter with unknown." This episode was recorded in Chiang Dao, Thailand for Towards 51 CI Conference. Find more of her at "Contact Improvisation Tokyo Japan" on Facebook. Special thanks to dancer Izumi Kuribayashi for translation of our first bilingual episode. Faces of CI online // Instagram @facesofci https://linktree.com/facesofci

Welcome to Faces of CI - conversations in Contact Improvisation. Today's guest is the legendary improviser Kirstie Simson. Names "a force of nature" by the New York Times, Kirstie is an award-winning dancer and teacher of the practice Contact Improvisation for over 40 years. Her mark in the field reflects her spark of authenticity and virtuoso improvisational performances. Recorded in Chiang Dao, Thailand, we spoke towards the end of her 3 week dance residency curated as"Resilience and Support in Difficult Times". In this episode we dive into her journey navigating cancer, environmental philosophies and themes of her work - aikido, creating art, finding support, sexuality vs. sensuality in CI, and transmuting storytelling through dance. Visit kirstiesimson.com for more. Find us online | Instagram @facesofci About Aalia, the host www.aaliadances.myportfolio.com Learn Contact online at www.contactbody.ca

Live again from Towards CI50 Conference, we welcome Damla özçelik, our guest today and Contact Improvisation Facilitator from Turkey. We dive into Damla's experience with teaching Contact to the blind, to teenage girls as body-self-empowerment, consent in CI, and the fusion of tango-contact! For more of her work visit on Instagram @damlala and @ci_thailand ● Find us online @facesofci on Instagram and learn Contact online at www.contactbody.ca

This episode was recorded in the mountains of Chiang Dao, Thailand, at a mystical monastery. Together 35 contact dances lived by a hot springs Heaven for 10 days, for Part 2 of Towards 50th CI Anniversary Conference. Our guests today are CI teachers and dear sweet friends, Francisco Borges (Portugal) and Geraldine Acevedo Espansa (Columbia) facilitators of Oceandance, water contact and Contact Improvisation in Koh Pha Ngan. We dive deep in this episode into the philosophy of ci, the water and nature body, freedom from rules, and teaching CI without words to village kids on the border of Myanmar. For more of their work: visit @hojadeltropico and @awakedanceflow ● Find us online @facesofci on Instagram and learn Contact online at www.contactbody.ca