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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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?...

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...

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...

This is my favourite episode thus far! We're live in Chiang Mai, Thailand for Towards 50th CI Anniversary Conference, a month long dance festival intensive. Our guest today is Khuyen Bui, teacher of CI, philosopher, TED speaker, and writer, based in Vietnam. For more of his work: visit www.khuyenbui.com barikim.blogspot.com ● Find us online @facesofci on Instagram and learn Contact online at www.contactbody.ca

Hello and welcome to Faces of CI! We're live in Chiang Mai, Thailand for Towards 50th CI Anniversary Conference, a month long dance festival intensive. Our guest today is Bari Kim, teacher of CI, Body-Mind Centering and choreographer, based in Seoul / Jeju, Korea. Find her work @bari.dance on Instagram and barikim.blogspot.com ● Find us online @facesofci on Instagram and learn Contact online at www.contactbody.ca

Hello and welcome to our latest episode! We are here in Vancouver, Canada at Edam Dance Company, which holds a special place in my heart as it's the first studio I learned contact at and a beautiful space. Today I'm pleased to interview Anne Cooper, a Contact Improvisation teacher at Edam for 20+ years, artist, performer, and choreographer. Her Sunday classes are super welcoming for newcomers with her patient inquiring approach to Improvisation. We discuss performance, choreography, improv at...

Hello and welcome to the (long awaited) Ubud, Bali episode! Ubud holds a special place in my heart as I've now spent 9 months this year here and it's my unofficial new home. We're joined by teachers and dancers in the local community ~ Helena Kober, Somaji Surya, Fay Yeo Un Kim and Anika Gunawan. Follow along @facesofci on Instagram for more.