MAZOPALOOZA IS A DANCE FESTIVAL which has been quietly thriving in the dead of winter in a tiny town in Southwest Wisconsin for over a decade. We’ve filled the streets, galleries, community spaces and storefronts of Mazomanie with spontaneous physical composition; enjoyed exquisite afternoons of focused movement; explored aerial, vocal, musical, silent, site-specific, physical, theatrical and contact-based improvisation, welcomed the curious via free classes and performances, accrued rich memories of retreat and reconnection in a peaceful, beautiful rural setting. It is always a delight to witness new eyes opening to the lifelong practice and joyful play of improvisational movement, and to welcome back old friends for whom Mazopalooza has become a New Year’s tradition. Here are some photos from past ‘paloozas.

This year we are returning to our roots of Contact Improvisation, with Intermediate-level (Friday) and open-level (Saturday) workshops by guest teacher Melecio Estrella (Oakland, CA) and lots of time and space for open jamming. Teachers from around the great lakes region will lead us into dancing with mini-classes and facilitated warmups. On Saturday evening, we’ll create and witness some improvised performance that is contact-based as well as site-based. On Sunday morning, Bobby Kokott will lead us into dancing by way of sound, drawing on his experience as a lifelong musician and certified  Sound Healing practitioner.

Melecio Estrella is a Bay Area performing artist working in the field of dance theater for the past decade.  He is co-director of Fog Beast, an interdisciplinary performance cluster.  He is also a longtime member of the Joe Goode Performance Group and BANDALOOP.  Melecio found his way into the worlds of modern dance and contemporary performance through his love of contact improvisation.  He has been fortunate to study contact over the years with Nancy Stark Smith, Scott Wells, Carol Swann, Martin Keogh, Chris Aiken and many other luminaries of the form.  Melecio has taught contact/partnering at Stanford University, University of Wisconsin, University of San Francisco, and many high schools and festivals around the country.  He continues to be curious and engaged with Contact Improv, as an artistic practice, as an awareness practice, and as a playful engagement with the earth’s physical forces weaving with other humans.

Big Listening into Big Moves; Sensitivity into Virtuosity Intermediate level (firm grasp of contact fundamentals encouraged): Friday, Jan. 9, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. This workshop moves us from a quiet receptive center into the outskirts of delicious multi planed movement. We will practice listening and tuning to ourselves and each other.  We will encourage this listening to grow in the midst of moving big.  We will experiment with finding easeful pathways into lifting and flying, giving special attention to the dance of landing back into the floor.

Touching Conversation Open level: Saturday, Jan. 10, 10 a.m.-noon. This workshop will play with gesture and specificity in and out of contact.  We will visit contact fundamentals for helpful hints into connected and easy dancing.  We will hunt and gather in the fields of our everyday movement vocabulary to bring our contact practice more nuance, texture and narrative flavor.  We will watch each other and talk about it.

Here’s our tentative schedule for the weekend: 

Time	Event	Location
Fri 1/9
10:30-11	Arrival, registration	Rumpus Room
11-11:30	Opening circle	Rumpus Room
11:30-1	Melecio’s class (Big Listening into Big Moves)	Community Bldg
11:30-1	Jam space available	Rumpus Room
1-2:30	Lunch	Community Bldg
2:30-5:30	Melecio’s class (Big Listening into Big Moves)	Community Bldg
2:30-5:30	Jam space available	Rumpus Room
5:30-7 p.m.	Dinner break	Mazo Community Bldg
7-8 p.m.	Jun’s Class (Using Aikido Principles in CI)	Rumpus Room
8-10 p.m.	Warmup 2 jamming (Kim)	Community Bldg
Sat 1/10
9:00-10:00 a.m.	Arrival, registration	Rumpus Room
10:00 a.m.	Opening Circle
10:15 – 12:15	Melecio’s class (Touching Conversation)	RR or CB
10:15 – 12:15	Warmup 2 jamming (??)	RR or CB
12:15 – 1:30	Lunch
1:30 – 3:00	Performance-making minimarathon! (Mars, Sarah)	Rumpus Room
1:30-3:00	Warmup 2 jamming (Greg)	Community Building
3:00-4:00	Ali’s Class (Check your gender)	Rumpus Room
4:00-5:30	Warmup 2 Jamming (Sophie)	Community Bldg
5:30-7	Dinner	Community Building
7-8 p.m.	Some Assembly Required	Rumpus Room
8 -10 p.m.	Live music jam? (??)
Sun 1/11
10:00-11:15 a.m.	Brunch	Maria’s
11:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m.	Bobby sound healing into jam	Rumpus Room
2:00-2:30 p.m.	Closing Circle

Enrollment Form

 

Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/09/2015 - 01/11/2015
All Day

Location
The Rumpus Room

Categories

• Dance
• Special Event