Saturday CI Workshop with Guest Teacher Hugh Stanier: Catching a Ride

A Contact Improvisation & Improvisation Workshop

Falling & Catching
We will play with gravity and momentum; focusing on the ideas of falling and flying - both in solo movement, and in contact. Starting close to the ground and building up through levels, we develop confidence in our own abilities, building trust in the body.

Lifting
By researching in our solo movement the subtle mechanics of ‘small dance’, suspension & reaching, we progress towards using momentum and spirals to learn, fluid ways to lift one-another through ‘catching a ride’. We will explore ways to connect to space and find counterbalance in the body, providing frames to both lift and be lifted, and offer structures to be explored. We will zoom in on the details and technique of body tone, alignment and small points of contact, that help with finding lightness in being lifted and efficiency in lifting.

Listening
We will take more time to slow down even more, and from this space discover the subtle nuances that allow for clearer & deeper communication within the dance. The gentle sliding of fascia that indicates direction of movement, tuning to a partners’ breath to ‘hear’ their intention and waiting in stillness together to allow the dance to arise from your shared connection, are a few of the ideas and principles we will explore in this time. A space of allowing and giving trust to yourself, our dancing partners and feeling more the nature of improvisation.

Biography:
Hugh is a Dance Artist & Movement educator specialising in Floorwork & Contact Improvisation. He has over 20 years of teaching & performance experience. He began dancing when he was 15, training in Break dance and Contemporary. He went on to train at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2008. Since then he has worked with companies such as 2Faced Dance, Tom Dale, STAN Won’t Dance, and Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez.

He has taught internationally at the Goa Contact Festival, Goa Dance residency, Thailand Contact and ecstatic arts festival, Berlin contact festival and Portugal Contact festival and for National Dance company Wales (NDCW) as well as organising his own workshops and retreats in Portugal, Germany and Israel. Within his teaching practice he combines his experience in Breakdance, Contemporary and Contact Improvisation to create a highly physical, technical and intuitive approach to movement exploration.

He is a TMW (Tai Chi Movements for Wellbeing) facilitator. The principles of Tai Chi and Qi Kung underpin his approach to teaching and sharing movement.

Guided by the ethos of presence and play, Hugh’s work emphasises listening to the body’s innate wisdom and exploring movement that feels organic and authentic. His sessions offer a gentle yet powerful space to reconnect with breath, awareness, and the freedom of self-expression, encouraging participants to find their own sense of joy, balance, and ease in movement.