Contact Improvisation Weekend Workshop w/ Kirstie Simson & Charlie Brittain "Dancing Practices that Promote Well-being, Resilience and Healing in Challenging Times"

Dancing Practices that Promote Well-being, Resilience and Healing in Challenging Times
A movement workshop with Charlie Brittain and Kirstie Simson

There is deep inspiration and rigour in a practice of improvisation that posits vulnerability at its heart. Developing the skills to be able to care for, engage, respect, and respond to that state of openness in oneself, others and our environment generates creative work that is powerful and transformative. Learning from a place of interconnectedness can give us the resilience and insight to face life's challenges and complexities. In honouring our body’s innate attraction and drive towards wholeness, balance, creativity & healing, we will explore embodied intelligence and imagination utilising dancing practices that emerge from the radical softness of the heart-space. These reflective practices support us in witnessing the transformation and joy that is realised through the challenging simplicity of experiencing our bodies in motion.

Over the course of the workshop, we will journey through shared dancing, scored movement explorations and space for group processing - affirming the poignancy of our human connectedness, and its implications for health and resilience in facing the universal and personal challenges of our lives today. The work emerges from the grounding of care gleaned from their extensive collective experience, comprising improvisation, Contact Improvisation, contemporary dance, Alexander technique, bodywork and myofascial release, movement rehabilitation, human biomechanics, musculoskeletal health, integrative health practice, Aikido, meditation and emergency care. We share our work through facilitated exercises, open time for play and exploration, movement scores, observations, self-reflection, deep listening, discussion, and humour.

Much of the work is experienced through partnering and connection with others, balanced with solo/group time for processing and reflection. Kirstie’s broad knowledge of improvisation as a renowned teacher and performer, and Charlie’s extensive experience as a professional dance artist, choreographer and performer brings rigourous depth to their work, which is regenerative and Life-affirming. Together we will explore new avenues through which we can move forward to face the uncertainty in our world today.

Kirstie and Charlie’s ever-evolving collaboration is centred on their shared passion and dedication for dance and healing, which manifests through teaching, performing, and cocreating. Their work expands as it is shared internationally and in the diverse contexts of dance, healthcare and, Life. -

*This is an open level workshop offering valuable information for dancers, movement practitioners and health professionals including those with little or no experience.