Contact Improvisation Workshop with Nita Little 6/9-6/11/17

Nita Little has been delving into the significance of improvisational dance actions the entirety of her professional career, which began with the emergence and development of Contact Improvisation (CI). Originally a modern dancer, she trained with José Limón and first generation Graham and Cunningham dancers as well as Judson pioneers including Judith Dunn, her mentor in ensemble improvisation. Her work with Steve Paxton was research generative of CI and she toured with him, developed teaching methodologies, performance practices, and conceptual understanding of the form. A practitioner/theorist, choreographer, and teacher, Little received her PhD in Performance Studies in 2014. This was an effort made because of the significance of the field of dance improvisation to the expansion of human knowledge through physical research into its creative and embodied potentials. Little explores physical/mental states in the physics of motion, relational and creative action, and the articulation of presence through ensemble improvisation and Contact Improvisation. She tours on a regular basis making work, performing, and teaching technical, relational, and creative skills to dance companies and at festivals and schools worldwide. Her writing investigates ecological actions of attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. She was just Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, School of Theater and Dance. Home base is now in Seattle. www.nitalittle.com

“Nita is incredible, she brings curiosity, generosity, integrity, intelligence and openness to her teaching of Contact Improvisation.  The scope of her explorations was broad, from refining technical skills to discussions of ethics, all held within the framework of how the form has resonated for her and keeps her in an ongoing state of investigation.” Daniel Halkin, Chicago, IL.

June 9-11, 2017 Workshop/Retreat, “ReWilding Attention: Becoming Feral” with Nita Little, 

(Feral: A return to the wild state after a prolonged period of domestication)

What are the limits of our ability to be physically alive, to connect, and to commune with one another? Commune with our environments?

Dancing Contact Improvisation and dance ensemble improvisation, this workshop develops states of embodiment that support communion.  This process will begin deep within our physicality as we seek to understand how we communicate through our own anatomical structures. With this understanding we extend outwardly into duets, trios, and ensembles. Our work is to rethink our embodiment, challenge our cultural assumptions, and find new answers to how we communicate as physical beings. We develop states of being that heighten our felt sense so that even walking down a street we are alive with communication. Ready to meet one another and our worlds, we understand the creativity implicit in play. Our goal is to shake off the limits of our domestication and become more instinctual, more intuitive, more specific and clear in our actions, and more alive in our presence with one another and our worlds.

Friday June 9: 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Saturday June 10: 10 a.m.- 5:30 p.m.