Diving into Dance... BERLIN, April-May 2012

From the Osterimprofestival in Gottingen I went to Berlin, amazing springtime...

 

After few days there, I already had a full-time classes! I took it very seriously. My friends were kind of surprised... when they were trying to know when we would meet... No time for drinking coffee!!! I was here for learning and training! No time for clubbing in Berlin ; )

Like a butterfly, I was tasting every tasty movement calling me:

- Axis Sillabus in Tanzfabrik. I really enjoyed the Tanzfabrik, I get a card which gave me access to all the classes, which are all "drop in classes". A gift for me.
I went to some Axis Syllabus' classes, and I really enjoyed this approach, dancing with a full body awareness.
The Axis Syllabus is a method for teaching people how to move safely that refers to basic physics and applied anatomy. This method uses a spiraling, circular vocabulary that process the use of built-in landing pads in the body to harness the body´s mass and movements with universal physical principles and your own skeletal architecture, reducing stress on the joints and organs by offering logical transitions for the transfer of weight through muscles and bones.

 - Contact Improvisation with Adalisa Menghini in Tanzfabrik. She is great CI teacher, she give a class with the basic of CI and an other one for more advanced people focusing in Improvisation.

 - Voice improvisation with Carola FurbaB. I really enjoyed the class with Carola, I met her in the Osterimprofestival. She helped me to connect my voice with the rest of my body, with my braith. Discovering the "healing" power of the vibration of my voice, feeling exactly the pathway of my voice inside me, how to offer to my voice more space, more support... We were a small group, experimenting voice impro circle, where the principles of listening, tuning, awareness were very important. Juicy moments!!!

- Action Theater with Action Theater Berlin in Bethanien. Such amazing space, the Bethanien center, an old huge Hostpital in Kreuzberg,  is a nice alternative artists place (exhibitions, workshops, arts media).
I get a good introduction to Action theater during the Osterimprofestival with Peter Krempelsetzer. In the Berliner group, I was the only not German speacking, so here it was really clear that Action theater is an amazing tool for playing with different languages. I was speaking in French, Spanish, Arabic, looking for improvising on the musicality of the sound of the words more than on their meaning.

- Klein Technique with Hanna Hegenscheidt in Bethanien. Every morning, Hanna give classes of Klein Technique, the best morning warm-up!!! Ok, to be honnest during the first class I had, I was completly lost, and I didn't get the "why, how, what"!!!

But litle by litle my body received this amazing gift, I was Higher!!! Yes I get some centimeters, believe me!!! This technique is basically about a rolling down and up. Muscular shift, looking to not hold muscles uselessly, released muscles can then create new space for the bones structure. The top of my head was attracted by a force from a sky and my feet were well rooted in the floor. I was feeling a line connected my pelvis with my head.
 "Standing, closed eyes, your feet at the wide of the hips, braith in... braith out, do not hold your belly, relax your jaw..."
I was able to feel the effect, only walking in the street, and of course when I was dancing!
Mmmmmh, I didn't really now what will be the next step, after Berlin, perhaps in a moment of my journey New York where Susan Klein (the creator of the tech) is practising can be a good stop for me...
 
- Workshops of CI with Joerg Hassman in K77 and with Dino Spiri, Jennie Zimmermann and Nadja Schwarzenbach in K77. Great trio who are assiting to Joerg Hassman from many years.
 I was happy to meet again Joerg, and this time in his "communtity". He told me that he was planning to participate to the Kiev Festival in May. I think about very litle before taking the decision to go also there! Ukraine... How can be the Ukranian CI community? waaaooou

- Workshop of "Body is voice" with Heini in Ada Studio at the Uferhallen. Exercices influenced by Authentic Movement, improvisation, listening and presence.

2 months in Germany, I was discovering a new culture, letting a lot of my stupid French beliefs about German people (and generally, about everyone). One interesting characteristic, German people do a lot of effort for a good communication, and for example, when I was the only not German speaking present in a class, teacher and students were shifting to English!!!!
Imagine going to a dance class in Paris... if you do not speack French? Learnt it!

CI jams in Berlin (no reasons for not dancing!!!):
- Every wednesday, 20h45, in K77
- Every Thursday, 18h30, in Fabrik Zirkonia
- Every 1 and 3 and 5 Friday, 20h, in Phinixtanzt
- Every 2 and 4 Friday, 20h, Phinixtanzt, Contact Tango jam
- Every Saturday, 19h, Tanzfabrik
- Every Sunday, 19h, SundayJamBerlin
- One Sunday a month, Family jam, 16h, in Phinixtanzt

Sites recommendations in Berlin:
Ponderosa
K 77
Tanzfabrik
Phynix
Schwelle7
Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mime Centrum
Fabrik Postdam 

In Berlin, I meet very nice people who open to me their houses, during 2 months I was leaving with Karolina (I met in the Osterimprofestival), with Berivan (I met in Almeria) and her roomate Telma and with Isa (dear friend from Almeria)... Beautiful people who have been supported my journey...


Thanks to them I was in very good condition at home for creating... I go on with my origami creations/ obsession. I was using recylced paper I found during my journey. Like a bird, flying in Germany ; )








Archive ; )  Some years ago, during my first trip in Berlin


 Ok I confess myself my Origami obsession is old... From the day, my brother Wadih showed me...

Souvenir of a street installation we did with Voix Off in a kinderpark in Kreuzberg



Next step??? KIEV!!!!



FREIBURG, GOTTINGEN: Osterimprofestival, April 2012,

In the festival of Fuerteventura, my dear new Friend and beautiful dancer, Nadine Santo, invited me to come to Freiburg and then traveling with her to the Gottingen Festival... At the begining it looked like the thypical "we have to meet again and blabla, it can be so great to blablaba..." But this time I was in the Improlife mood  ; )
So why not? Let's go! This trip is about letting the choices to come to me! Improvising life...
Dunke Nadine...

In Freiburg, I spent a very nice time with Nadine, discovering that she is also an amazing clothes creator "Ninsanto", sharing with her the life market!

Nadine first victim of my Origami obsession...

We went to a Jam in Freiburg and then go to Gottingen for 1 week non stop jam night!!!! Yalllah

Transport to Gottingen ; )
The Osterimprofestival: 250 beautiful people together during 1 week in the University Sports Center of Gottingen. Yoga and open circle every morning.
Intensives, Workshops, Lab, One2One, Performance, and Jam every night.
Many childrens sharing this fabulous experience with us. I really really appreciated that Children are complety part of the Festival.
This festival is not only about Contact Improvisation but also Action Theater, Performance Art, Contact-Tango, Music impro (instrument, voice)...



My program:
-Action Theater with Peter Krempelsetzer: . It has been my first contact with Action Theater; language, voice and movement are valued equally for their capacity to express and communicate meaning. Unique approch to physical theater improvisation created by master improviser Ruth Zaporah.
POWERFUL, opening the tools for improvisation, increasing the listening of space and group, pushing the mind-limits of the body, forgetting the correct, clever, coherent, predictable choices!!!
Yes I love it.
I had the deep feeling that I already knew and practiced it... Now I can name it! Then in Berlin I had the opportunity to practise with a group in the Bethanien Center...

- Performance Lab with David Lakein. He is amazing performer-teacher-human being. He invited us to visit the boundaries of the freedom in a group, traveling in the borderline in our choices, the power given by the Performance to an individual or a group... We spent part of the night in a crazy jungle buble! Inspiring deep work.

- Voice with Katrin Lerche.Very interesting voice work, similar to the body work; with a partner we were releasing some part of the body and finding a way to create more space for the breath and the voice. Discovering the amplitude of my voice! Surprised, perhpas, I can also sing??? noooo...
Yeeessss!! such amazing moment... My partner was also surprised by my discovered funky chest!!!!

Flash back, when I was 7, my teacher told me: "you have a nice voice, you should go to the Conservatory". I was so ashamed, me a nice voice? After some weeks, I shared this "thing" with my parents. I wore a flowered dress, my father and my sister drove me to the corridor of the biggest nigthmare of my life. During the audition, I was not able to remember my name... 6 adults sitting in front of me, waiting that any kind of sounds come out from my litle mouth... Nothing, just the deep desire to disapear forever!!!!

- Contact improvisation with Daniel Wermer, Moksha and Javier Cura ( I didn't get the chance to have TangoContact with Javier, not yet!)

- Carola FürbaB: group voice impro (I stayed in contact with her, and have some classes in Berlin)

Strange feeling of being deeply alone but in the same time supported by this many eyes, smiles, hands...










 And now let's go to Berlin!!!!

LYON, Mars 2012, Training

So... Let's start my journey coming back to Lyon 1 month.

Where I borned and "re-borned", and discover it with my news eyes!!
Also I was looking for enjoying some time with my dear Family (they have been so comprehensive in all my choices, full of Love and so happy to witness this change, my change).
Celebrating with them my 29 years old (Saturn returns to the position it was at my birth: specific period of growth and change!)

I let Spain, afer leaving there 6 years... Full of emotions!!!

Starting my dance training journey in Lyon:

-    Workshop Dance improvisation with Khosro Adibi.
Very generous in his teaching and in his way to approach Art. I was so happy to meet him: I learned many tools for Dance impro and he introduced me to his project "Fronteras" in South America. The project uses art to help children in deprived areas. Adibi leads teaching labs, where questions of a pedagogic nature are discussed, and the artists involved use these as a base from which to run workshops in dance, music, theatre or visual art with local children.

At this moment, I already had a clear idea of my future project in Morocco: using Arts for helping women, children, disable people. I don't really like the word "help", my aim will be only trying to reveal people to themselves, I mean working in self-thrust, in awareness of the beauty and the Power that everybody have! From that I would love to push people to help themselves. For example, empowering a women group for seting-up a local project (water, road, electricity...).
I am very inspired by projects as the Bearefoot College founded by Bunker Roy in India.

My dream, YES my dream: the construction of an Art House in the Moroccan mountains following permaculture concept for finally setting up my Community! an International nomadic community in Morocco and on the road for sharing happyness, pushing physical and mental boarders...
I feel deeply nomadic and love the idea to build an art - social - love - caravan, traveling everywhere (rest of Africa, Europe, and more!!!). Spending sometimes in some villages, bringing some entertainment (dance music, circus) and then working more deeply with the local people about permaculture (agro-ecology, bio construcion, recycling, renewable energy, education...).

Yalllllllllah!!!

More workshops in Lyon:

-    Workshop Voicework with Aurélie Raidron in Atrelyon.
The secret of the Voice. As my interest for the anatomy of my body, I was really curious about the "musle-voice" and how my posture, my braith, my eyes can influence the quality of the sound of my voice.

-    Workshop Feldenkrais & Danse (look & movement) with Josiane Charriau.
At this same moment, I was experimenting kind of inner revolution, reading the book of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen "Sensing, feeling and action". This workshop represented a hugh step in the awareness of my body, of my movements, of my eyes... When I move one part of my body, what happen in the rest of my body?
Amazing experience; after a mental visualization of only one side of my body, for ex the right one, then when I stand up, I felt a real difference between the right and the left side of my body, close to a loss of balance! Prior to this, I experimented this sensation only after some bodywork but never after a "simple" mental visualization... oooooh my mind is so powerful!!!

Confirmation of my choice to work my dance from the focus of the awareness of my body. Dancing is not about technique but it's more about knowing how to let your body move! To not move but to let the movement happen.

Body, mind, body, mind... let's try to find a good connection and easy communication between both.
One question, can we separate the body from the mind? No way! My body is not only a vehicule for my mind. There is no duality, I am an All, part of the universe.

As Steve Paxton said in "Material for the Spine": "The Brain has no sensation, the brain has information. The body has the sensation."

 
Here I felt also that this journey will go further than a "professional" training but will help me to reach happyness through emotional balance and new faith: Love.

-    Workshop Contact improvisation with Joerg Hassman in Jam'inlyon. 
Nice opporutnity to know better the great CI community in Lyon and its area.

CI activities in Lyon:
+ Jam: every Sunday, 17h30-20h30, except when start with a class, 19h-21h30. In Arts en Scène
+ Lab: 1st Friday of the month, 20h-22h. In Arts en Scène
+ Workshop: before the jam, last Sunday of the month, 17-19h. In Art en Scène
+ Classes: Tuesday 19h15-21h30, with Anne Croiseur, in Arts en Scène
+ BMC with Anne Expert
And in the area:
+ Grenoble, important epicenter of CI in France, together with Paris: http://www.chorescence.org/
+ International Festival Contact Impro first week of November : http://www.1001festival.fr/home/.

-   Classes of Feldenkrais with Josiane Charriau in Atrelyon
Moshe Feldenkrais
-    Classes of BMC with Anne Expert

-   Omar, a new friend from Morocco, introduced me to the Soundpainting. He is part of an amazing group in Lyon, Le Spang. Soundpainting is the universal multidisciplinary live composing sign language for musicians, actors, dancers, and visual Artists. Love it. The language comprises more than 1200 gestures that are signed by the Soundpainter (composer) to indicate the type of material desired of the performers. The creation of the composition is realized, by the Soundpainter, through the parameters of each set of signed gestures. The Soundpainting language was created by Walter Thompson in Woodstock, New York in 1974. High level of improvisation performance. Bravo. I hope to participate to a workshop...

ALMERIA, Dic-Feb 2012, Active Body-Mind

My last time in Almeria has been amazing. Of course, impossible for me to stay quiet. I felt so many inspirations. A lot of ideas, full of new experimentations. Younger I did theater, belly dance, Martial Arts, and the memory of my body was intact. Ready for action and learning more and more. The plan was to travel worldwide and dancing.

Come back to "when everything is possible"...

But before starting my journey, I wanted to enjoy Almeria and my friends!

Many activities in Almeria:
- Classes of Contemporary Dance with Anett Wolter. It has been my first contact with Contemporary Dance and I loved it. New postures (in comparaison with Belly dance!) and using new memory for the choreographies!!!

- Classes of Capoiera Angola with Mauricio Montana (who is also a CI dancer). New balance in my body, beginning of interest to acrobatics, and discovery of the Art of playing an instrument (pandeiro) and singing in the same time!!! With Mauricio, we started an exploration of CI-capoiera...

- Urban interventions: I decided to create an open improvisation event, weekly, in a public place (Postal place, Train station, rambla and of course the street!). Everybody (artist or not) was welcome to participate. The basis was Improvisation, with a structure I explained to the group during the Warm-up I was leading the first 30 minutes. My objective was really to connect with ourself, the group, the walkers and the space. It was not a show, the most important was to be really here and now and not play any roll or try to do something nice. Using our body and voice.
Site specific dance, acrobatics, circus, theater, any tool was welcomed.
My aim was the use of the public space, not as a political revendication but a civil one, this issue has been always very important. Being in the public space and giving my art, my smile, my love to the unknowed walkers. Generally I do not have any problem with the Police, as I don't ask for money and I am very pacific, they don't really understand in wich category to put me!
All the participants were friends mine, amazing group, we enjoy so much... Gracias companeros!



- Arabic Night: of course, my Moroccan blood was warming my brain to organize an Arabic performance night. So I organized in a small eco-tapas bar a multidisciplinary performance (belly dance, sing, live music, storyteller, view of arabic traditions). With the deep desire to bring Art everywhere and to share it with my sweet Spanish Community... The participants were all my friends and the owner of the bar also, a fabulous French chef, Denis.

- I have been always interested by the photograph, as photographer, but I never try before to pose. Carmen a friend mine was looking for a model for her boutique Corazon. So we found an amazing old house in the gypsy distrit of Almeria, and I did it!


- "Gitana Mora" is a Photo project we did with Miguel Angel Pantalon (who also did the photographs for the Boutique). Sometimes, in Almeria I felt like an arabic-gipsy (I spent 5 years in Andalucia), first time I came in Seville I felt so close to their culture... Now it's part of my Identity, deeply... We went to the Desert of Tabernas, and let appear who I am... Amazing landscape!

- Inspiration for Manual-works

My dance T-shirts for my dance journey ;)

Recicl-art

I learned the secret of metal sculpting with Iara Magdaleno.
Very good brazilian friend, we lived together in Barcelona 7 years ago. Amazing Artist, CI dancer (she has been really the first to introduce me to CI concept) and Woman.  Obrigado Amor.

Talismans


Anecdote: I went to the Christmas dinner of my ex-job, dressed up as a fortune-teller with a basket full of Talismans for all my ex-colleagues! Unforgettable night...
Here my boss and his wife, dear friends