Tanya Williams & Friends of the Floor | Creating the conditions for co-intelligence, collaboration and flow through the wisdom of the body-mind.
Creating the conditions for co-intelligence, collaboration and flow through the wisdom of the body-mind.
The purpose of POLLINATE is to create a space in KW where lovers of dance & music improvisation can come together in collaboration.
Each event will host veteran musical improvisors to support the space with inspiration for movement, expression, surprise and delight. This could include both acoustic & electronic sound.
Nibbles & refreshments will be available to energize our bodies.
This coming POLLINATE, we have the sweet opportunity to move to the soundscapes of the incredible acoustic trio Joel Brubacher, Ron Schweitzer, & Todd Scheidel on accordion, cello, guitar, banjo, percussion, and handmade instruments, joined by the textured grooves of DJ Jessoh.
$25 Got a little extra you can spare to support the artists & others who can't afford to come at the average price.
*We ask you to consider paying what makes deep sense for both yourself and for what you want to grow in your community.
1) Learning. I see myself & everyone as learning.
3) Curiosity. When faced with the choice between curiosity & judgment or defensiveness, I choose curiosity.
4) Response-Ability. We are all interconnected and affect what happens.
5) Creative Tension. I can embrace both what is happening AND my vision of what I want (& don't want) as a creative tension.
6) Practice & Play. These are core to how we learn.
We love feedback and because this is the first POLLINATE, we are especially interested in your experience and feedback. Please let us know!
This class is specifically designed for people who are new to contact improvisation and those who would like to refresh a grounding of their dance with the fundamentals of the form. If you are feeling uncertain or nervous about trying out contact improvisation, this class is recommended.
This class is specifically designed for people who have a grasp of the fundamentals of the form.
Everyone is welcome to these classes, regardless of level of experience. When new people attend, we improvise in supporting their integration into these classes. This might happen through one-on-one support or adaptation of exercises.
To find out more about the focus of upcoming classes & who is facilitating, visit KW Contact Jam on Facebook for regular updates.
Contact improvisation is a whole-body practice in the art of collaboration. It involves following what makes sense for you while exploring gravity, momentum, & whatever is happening in the moment, including the physical & energetic contact with your dance partners. At times playful, at times meditative, dancers may share a shifting centre of gravity that can take them into a dynamic dance of lifts and rolls, or into a subtle movement conversation.
* Tune into what makes deep sense for us moment to moment.
Bring your water bottle and beginner's mind. Wear comfortable clothing with layers you can shed as you warm up, and your bare feet. Yoga, sweatpants, or dance clothes with no buckles or zippers work well. Some people like to wear kneepads for extra comfort.
No previous experience necessary. All abilities welcome.
FRIENDS OF THE FLOOR DANCE-THEATRE is an evolving ecosystem of dancers, actors and context artists investigating and improvising: What creates the cultural conditions for co-intelligence, collaboration and flow toward creating the world we deeply want?
This happens through growing a trust in the wisdom of the individual & collective body-mind-in-process, primarily through the practice of movement, sound and contact improvisation.
TANYA WILLIAMS is a context artist with a passion for dancing with complex systems… in community, on the land, and in the body. In her classes, she loves sharing both practical and magical pathways into the dance, and has been doing this for 20 years. She studied Alexander Technique movement education and Structural Integration bodywork for many years and enjoys developing new ways to draw on all these forms to enrich the practice of contact improvisation. In recent years, she has explored the integration of the Pathway work of Laurel Mellin, integrating contact improvisation & authentic movement into an embodied self-facilitated practice for consciously changing neurological pathways. She has been working with the MT Space (Multi-cultural Theatre Space) for over 10 years, and currently gets totally inspired facilitating devised physical theatre with youth. She co-founded the Ontario Regional Contact Jam, Friends of the Floor Dance-Theatre and The Living Room Context 24/7 learning community exploring what it means to embody a systems understanding and an experience of flow in everyday life.
The practice of contact improvisation invites her to find delight in her learning edges and generate full-body co-intelligence with others to create the dance she wants as it emerges.
TIM SPRONK has been dancing for 25 years. He started training at the School of Alberta Ballet in Edmonton, Alberta. After completing a B.F.A. at York he joined the Newton Moraes company and had since worked for a variety of independent choreographers and companies. He was a founding member of the Chimera Project and danced with Kaeja d'Dance for eight years. Currently a member of the Arabesque dance company and orchestra, Tim has most recently appeared at the Canada Dance Festival with CORPUS. Aside from dancing, Tim works as personal trainer and is an instructor for Join the Dance Canada, a charity that brings ballroom dance to young people in the GTA.
Tim has actively practiced Contact Improvisation for 20 years, and he is eager to share his knowledge of strength training, dance partnering and internal martial arts to help fellow students expand their skills for safe, dynamic play in Contact Dance.
No one will be turned away for financial reasons, AND this common resource depends on our energy and support to continue.
If we look through a sacred economics lens, we might ask… What do I value and want to experience more of in the world? How might I be a resource to this common resource? What is the current situation for myself and the whole? When I tune into my body, what makes deep sense to me here?
-spread the word/poster/Facebook/tell your friends! Who might love this?
-support the infrastructure of website, calendar, FB pages, etc.
AND if $ is more abundant for you than time or other energy, then, by all means, add resilience to the dance commons that way!
Anticipation as anti-participation & resistance disguised as hope.
My parents are away and I made the trek to hang out with my Nanna for 5 days who lives next door to them and needs someone around now.
The last time I stayed in Kingston I had my heart and mind blown open as I walked along the shores of Lake Ontario.
Again, I set out for a walk along the edge of that great body of water. I felt the tugging of hopeful anticipation that I would find myself again in a state of ecstatic bliss.
I reached the lake and it felt kind of… usual. A semi-cloudy winter day, kind of… grey. In fact, I actually felt kind of irritated by the experience of tension in my body from being around Nanna's patterns of "helpful control" and micro-management. My stomach was upset, probably from something my Nanna had put in my food, because she wasn't listening to me, I thought.
I didn't want to be having these thoughts and feelings about my Nanna. I realized that I was grasping onto the hope or anticipation that Lake Ontario would transport me back to my previously enlightened experience and out of my currently encumbered experience.
It wasn't working at all.
I decided to just be with it. The irritation, the judgmental thoughts, the upset tummy, the general sense of dissatisfaction and blah. As I let go of the need to be more or different than what I was, I felt a soft loving of my self experiencing all this. Even a loving of the discomfort. Paradoxically, I sensed how I wasn't all that. I felt a deep sense of calm and quiet amusement, and even delight as I picked my way over the rocks.
At this point, my friend Keith joined me by phone and I told him what I have just told you. Keith shared my delight, and it reverberated in the space between us, magnifying.
I felt incredibly present. The open space that a few minutes before was just being a lake and a sky, now made me stop and look long and deep into its expansive reflective eye.
In that space, I remembered seeing myself anticipating my Nanna would say this or do that. Sometimes I was right and sometimes I was not. Either way, my body would tense up with the anticipation. It had been exhausting! Walking around with my trigger cocked and ready, no doubt she felt it. Our energy-bodies locked in battle, stress and fear.
And in that space, I noticed that I noticed, and I could choose.
I breathed a smile and let that go too. I returned to the somatic logic of my body making its way along the icy shore. Lots of pauses, patience and small steps on the slippery stones.
Lily Lanczi on Anticipation as anti-participation & resistance disguised as hope.