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Contact Improvisation: Finding Earth (all levels)

  • Firehouse Arts and Events Center 1314 Harris Avenue Bellingham, WA, 98225 United States (map)

This class is part of the 2024 7-day dance festival class series!

Instructor: Carmen Serber

Location: Firehouse Arts & Events Center

Description: Finding Earth is a beginner/all levels Contact Improvisation class. We will practice the Point of Contact in relationship to our whole body, gravity, and space. We will develop an understanding of how it feels to find the earth through our partner’s skeletal structure to share our weight dynamically and safely. We will explore how this can be done by practicing receptivity and attention to the relational qualities that are emerging in the moment. Working from a baseline of care, we will explore the almost magical potentials of moving together.

Bio: I teach dance because I love dancing and because I want to share that. I teach because I love to learn in community and believe in the infinite potential of exploring movement together. I teach dance because probably nothing else kept me more engaged and intrigued about life and guided me toward the places that I needed to look at. I teach because I had a hard time in many dance classes just because I couldn’t remember the freaking phrase! I want to create an environment where every-body can feel welcome, learn and play with presented material and apply it in their own dance practice. I am annoyed about ideologies that preach what is the right way of moving and I strive to offer something different.

In the last 25 years I have been exploring and deepening my practice of embodiment. Extensive studies in perspectives of anatomy and movement practices that are not limited by this study are relevant for my offerings. I am interested in investigating embodied attention within improvisational movement practices which are both creative and relational. My teaching is shaped from my longtime study of the Axis Syllabus, experimental dance, especially working with Sara Shelton Mann and Contact Improvisation. Furthermore I am influenced by my work as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, the exquisite exploration of the subtle realm of the body and my longtime practice and study of contemplative and improvisational dance scores. My husband and I host and teach seasonal CI Jams and workshops in Bellingham. carmenserber.com

Pricing: $10-25 drop-in

$20 class pass available to 7DDF participants only

Earlier Event: August 18
Advanced Contemporary - Hannah Donk
Later Event: September 1
Advanced Contemporary - Tatyana Stahler