Chris Aiken is an internationally recognized performer and teacher of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. His approach has been guided by the effort to link the poetic imagination with the capacity to engage ecologically through perception, intention, and action. This means the integration of our awareness and understanding of self, other beings, and our the world around us. It includes history, culture, and things that are made. His current interests include finding ways to create situations where people feel empowered and sensitized to one another, open to the unknown, and respectful of one another and the environment. Chris has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Angie Hauser, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Andrew Harwood, Joerg Hassman, Ray Chung, and Steve Paxton. His work has been shaped by years of practice with the Alexander Technique, Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis, ideokinesis, yoga, and myofascial bodywork and release technique. He received his MFA degree from the University of Illinois and is currently a Professor of Dance at Smith College.
Classes in Spiral & Root together with Ray Chung / 5 days – third week.
GET TO THE POINT
What processes occur in our body and mind when we integrate the movements of our bodies
with other bodies, with the intention of creating, collaborating, and performing? What do we think about when we no longer need to focus on surviving and moving safely? What strategies
do we incorporate to frame our intention of embodying the various aspects of intention, awareness and imagination. Can we develop a transparency of technique, to move with less effort, more clarity of intention, wider awareness, and greater presence? Dance is a physicalization of ideas, images, emotions, and spirit. Although our work is physical, our processes grow out of a need for integration. Performance has been a way of expressing ideas, values, emotions and unnamable things in a more complete way than is acceptable in everyday life. We work with physical elements, but we devise physical elements which closely correspond to states-of-being and imagining. This workshop will give an overview of some of the processes involved in the body/mind during the practice and performing of Contact Improvisation (CI).
