Tanzfabrik
Berlin
School
School
School
School
Uferstudios 13
Badstr. 41A, Uferstr. 23
13357 Berlin
School
School
Photo: Sol Schiller

S-06 / Moving Bodies | Empty Spaces

Workshop with Kirstie Simson, Martin Piliponsky
In the frame of Open Spaces/Sommer Tanz 2018

Exploring Freedom through Dance Improvisation

Kirstie and Martin’s creative dialogue encompasses the importance of expanded listening with perceptions of the body and the environment, through practicing focused states of presence, communication and bonding. Imagine a relationship to our bodies without the imposition of culturally conditioned expectations. Imagine what our relationship would be to dancing if we had no prior notion about what the moving body should look or feel like. Is it possible to reach beyond these and other ideas of limitation, to enter a field of free expression in the body? In this workshop Martin and Kirstie will take participants into this field through the celebration of movement practices that they have developed over the past thirty-five years of teaching dance improvisation. We will develop the sensitivity to care for, engage, respect and respond to our own and our partners bodies as we move through practices that are powerful and potentially transformative. The work will include facilitated exercises, open time for play and exploration, movement and vocal scores, listening, observations, meditation and discussion. Much of the work will be experienced through partnering and connection with others, balanced with solo moving and sounding. There will be time to process our individual experiences and to understand connections to a creative and liberating way of being together. Both Martin and Kirstie see their art forms as a life practice, and they will share insights gleaned from their collective experience of living dance improvisation.

Wheelchair accessible studio.

Kirstie Simson

Kirstie Simson is renowned as an excellent teacher, a captivating performer and a leading light in the field of Dance Improvisation. For the past thirteen years she has been a tenured professor in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois. In August 2020 Kirstie returned to her home base in Wales with plans to continue sharing her work though with curtailed international travel. She is excited to be starting an involvement with the Black Mountains College, a local college where a curriculum of planet-centric education will be launched in 2021 for building a better future. www.kirstiesimson.com

Martin Piliponsky

Martin Piliponsky (Argentina) is an architect and urban planner, a dancer and teacher of improvisa- tion. Throughout his growth, Hebrew folk dances and athletic sport training have shaped his character and spirit. For the past several years his passion for architecture is reflected in his guidance as a teacher and curator of spaces both traditional and non-traditional for the practice and performance of dance and improvisation. Blending his background in architecture and dance, Martin teaches about the possibilities of how the spaces in which we live can transform dance and life itself. Sustained by a practice in deep listening to oneself and the environment that contains us, he shares his practice through teaching and performance to students and audiences all over the world.

Level: Movement experience
In English