Thursday 30th June – Friday 1 July 2022 – Dartington Hall Estate / Space Studios / Studio 6
Everyday: 9:30 – 17:30
We are really excited to have Nita Little all the way from the USA here in Devon for a 2 day Intensive at Dartington.
Join us on this unique and rare opportunity to study Contact Improvisation & Relational Intelligence with Nita Little one of the founders of Contact Improvisation. Nita is offering a 2 day Intensive Workshop at Dartington for the first time as part of her Europe Tour 2022.
About this Workshop
This is a two-day dive into the fabric of touch that is key to our relational practices in the movement of Contact Improvisation – and for many of us, in the living of life itself. Steeped in somatic communication, this adventure into our movement life begins within ourselves, but moves outwardly, to where selfhood refuses to be stable, set and limiting. Movement scores throughout the weekend will make this connection. In this workshop we will form and reform what we know as touch, exploring how this touch translates into the flow of movement. We increase the strength of our moving together with the human and the more than human worlds we also are.
Creative, thoughtful, heart based, skill based, your learning will be anchored in the core principles of Contact Improvisation, such as: how to move weight like water – actions of cascading. The details of touching within weight exchange. The rising and hanging of the body – each mode significant to communication. How attention lives in the very small. Extending to form surfaces that arc. Learning to trust the physicality of your extended intelligence.
Movement practices include lots of dancing both as skills building and exploration. Although, in many cases these will be the same thing. Expect to be touched beyond the flesh.
I am looking forward to moving with you.
Schedule of the day:
part 1: 9:30 – 13:00
lunch: 13:00 – 14:00
part 2: 14:00 – 17:30
Nita Little is a Keynote Speaker at the art.earth symposium 26th – 30th June 2022 Sentient Performativities: Thinking Alongside the Human – at Dartington Hall & Online.
Biography
Nita Little is an activist for relational intelligence through improvisational dance practices that began with the emergence and development of Contact Improvisation (CI) in 1972, a path provoked by Steve Paxton. Nita has remained on the cutting edge of this practice for 50 years, training generations of Contact Improvisation practitioners and teachers worldwide, A dancer, teacher, choreographer, and dance theorist, Little received her PhD in Performance Studies in 2014. She now returns to international touring invited by dance companies, festivals, conferences and universities to teach, lecture, and compose emergent events. Her writing investigates ecological actions of attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. She directs an international network of dance research ensembles – the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (the ISSC) which has remained in suspension with the pandemic, but will return to practice soon.
Weblinks to Nita’s work:
www.nitalittle.com/
www.movementresearch.org/people/nita-little
www.dancingopportunities.com/relational-intelligence-weekly-online-class-with-nita-little/
www.portal.theembodimentconference.org/sessions/relational-intelligence-being-in-touch-jie6ci
Please note:
- This 2 day Workshop is for everyone with some experience in contact improvisation and/or other movement disciplines.
- This is a 2 day workshop / if you can only attend for the first day – it is possible to book for only the first day as well.
- Studio will be open from 9:00 every day for warm up & arrival
- Kitchenette with hot water, sink, fridge & microwave available upstairs
- Please bring your own lunch & teabags – we will provide some simple snacks.
- The GreenTable Cafe is 3min away by foot for lunch options.