Teachers 2008

Quinton Bennett Finding The Far Side

Rock climber, modern dancer, snow boarder, skateboarder, Adrenaline connoisseur, unicyclist, slack line walker, general contractor, contactor, for Quinton it's all about being in your body.

Brenton Cheng Time Travel

Brenton Cheng is a teacher, director, and performer of improvised and choreographed work, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is on the faculty of Moving On Center (Oakland), USF (San Francisco), and Integrated Movement Studies (LMA) (Berkeley). His training and inspirations include release technique, contemporary dance, contact improvisation, the martial arts, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis, and acrobatics. www.bfalling.net

Stefanie Cohen The Illuminating Experience of Eyes-Closed

Stefanie Cohen, a solo and collaborative dance/movement artist, teaches and performs throughout the United States. She facilitates investigations of Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, dance improvisation, performance skills, and creative process, and has organized GLACIER (Great Lakes Area Contact Improvisation Enthusiasts' Retreat), annually, since co-founding it with Mark Koenig in 2001.

John Dowell Free Mind, Free Body, Free Heart

John Dowell has been studying CI for thirteen years and teaching for nine years. His teaching is influenced by 17 years of rock climbing, teaching climbers, dancing on rocks, Hakomi Body-centered psychotherapy and figurative painting. He considers creating dance and performing a thrilling privilege second only to teaching creative movement and his work as a body-mind therapist.

Ralf Jaroschinski The Vertiginous Thrill of Momentum

Ralf Jaroschinski grew up in Brazil, was trained in classical, modern and contemporary dance techniques in Germany and in New York City. He works as a free-lance dancer, teacher and choreographer since 19 years mainly in Europe and the Americas. He teaches contact improvisation since 12 years and uses it in the choreographic research for his pieces while emphasizing authenticity and expressivity of the dance.

Aaron Jessup Flight School

Originally coming from a circus and street performing background, Aaron has been a student of Contact Improvisation since 1990. He has taught classes and workshops since 1997, including a year at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy. His current passion involves leading wilderness expeditions with an awareness focus for his company, the Institute for the Study of Awareness in Nature (www.isantrips.com).

Mark Koenig Contact Cement

Mark Koenig has taught Contact Improvisation dance in California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Illinois since 1995. His background includes gymnastics, martial arts and modern dance. A founding member of the Sonoma State University Contact Improvisation jam, and improvisational music and dance performance collectives LAVA and LeyZokiParl. Mark has taught at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival since 1998.

Vitali Kononov Contact Fundamentals

Vitali Kononov is a teacher, somatic movement educator, massage therapist and movement artist working with improvisation as a performance discipline and as a contemplative practice. He was born in St-Petersburg, Russia, in 1966. He has been teaching contact improvisation since 1997 in Russia, Europe, USA and Mexico.

Kerstin Kussmaul Contact Unlimited

Kerstin is a somatic movement educator/artist and dance curator. She holds a M.A. in Music & Dance and has taught dance at ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival and at the „Tanzplan“ Germany. She hosts an international research series for CI and a community dance lab. In 2007 she founded gravityhappens, an arts/education/community project in Austria, Italy and Sri Lanka.

Jacqueline McCormick Embodied Presence

Jacqueline McCormick teaches, performs, directs and makes dances. She has a B.Ed in Human Movement Studies, and an M.A in Dance from Mills College, CA. Jacqueline was Associate Professor in Dance at Western Oregon University (1985-1996) and Connecticut College (2000-2004). She directs and performs in her company DanceAbout . Jacqueline is presently the Dance Director for Cheshire Dance, UK.

Karin Moriarty Holding the Magic Within

Karin holds a Dance degree from UC Berkeley. She co-founded Dance-Is-It, a contact improv teaching and performing group, and is a Harbin Jam organizer. She teaches at DanceVisions studio and is a frequent guest teacher at Stanford University. Karin's choreography is based in CI and "ritual-theater." She is also interested in site-specific performances. Her piece "Along the River" was set at an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture at Stanford Univ.

Julie Oak The Whole Enchilada

Julie Oak started teaching Contact Improvisation in 1985. Her classes emphasize sensory awareness, creative edge, and group cohesion. Julie currently teaches “RealPlay”, a blend of movement and theater improvisation. She is based in Santa Cruz, CA, where she leads ongoing classes.

Nicole Richter The Great Intuition Work-Out

Nicole Richter, M.A. is a professional dancer, choreographer, Pilates trainer, and mom who chanced into dance while at Oberlin College and couldn't stop. She started teaching CI in 1993 while working with Adam Benjamin/CandoCo. Nicole founded Detours Performance Group (London), served as Co-Director/Education Director of AXIS Dance Company for many years, and founded Tectonic Dance Theatre, her current project, in 2006.

Elio Scudieri 2nd Choice

Elio Scudieri has been teaching contact since 2003. His class style is a mixture of humor, edge pushing, spirited, and interpersonal inquiry. He encourages allowing the dance to take its shape through listening and letting go. Coupling a martial arts backround and a focus on meditation, Elio’s classes can be both very physical and quieting.

Rajendra Serber 12 Limbs and the Floor

I’ve taught Contact Improv in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Norway and Australia. I can’t really remember a time when contact improvisation wasn’t part of my life. I’m the same age as Contact Improv. I think it must have come from my father, who was a national wrestling champion in Argentina. Before i could even walk I was being rolled and flung around by him. I grew up wrestling as a playful and loving practice. It wasn’t until I got to collage that I found there was a name for it. Since that time I’ve studied a variety of physical forms: Cuningham Technique, Release Technique, Butoh, Alexander Technique, Astanga Yoga, and Tai Chi with teachers Anna Halprin, Kathleen Hermsdoff, Scott Wells, Simone Forte, Oguri, Akira Kasi, Viola Farber, Daniel Lepkoff… And Others. Look at rjndr.net for mor info.

Lawrenzo Share Outside the Performance Box

Lawrenzo has danced Contact for 29 years. Since his work with Body Cartography in the 90s, he has remained engaged in developing site-specific performance. From organizing dance events such as Dance Camp and Berkeley Dance Jam to his involvement with 848 Community Space/CounterPULSE, Lawrenzo is an active and engaged teacher and member of the Bay Area Dance Community.

Carolyn Stuart What Is, Is Enough To Go Exploring. (Peer Sequence)

In her third decade of engaging in CI, Carolyn Stuart aspires to be a sharer of contact, an explorer with others. Exploration has been her primary guide/teacher/mentor in the form. She is grateful for that and wishes to support others in claiming and using what is, to grow their contact experience, moment by moment.

Carol Swann Contact AND Improvisation And The Alexander Technique

Carol Swann is a teacher, private practitioner, facilitator, director, performer and visionary. She has been teaching and performing improvisational movement and vocal related work for over thirty years in the U.S. and Europe. She is a founder and teacher of Moving On Center-School of Participatory Arts and Somatic Research. She maintains a private pratice in Somatic therapy, (based in Hakomi and Process Work), Alexander Technique, teaches Voice, Contact Improvisation and Group Process.

Ilka Szilagyi The Vehicle of the Senses

Ilka Fanni Szilagyi met Contact Improvisation in 1998 in Budapest, Hungary. She studied with numerous teachers from USA, Europe and Hungary. She's been teaching since 2000. In her teaching, Ilka is focusing on effortless, playful movement, body-mind consciousness, and sense-opening luscious dances. Ilka performs CI, choreography and Improvisation. She performed with Brenton Cheng, Karl Frost and Scott Wells & Dancers. She's a graduate of Moving On Center and besides dancing, she's a somatic educator, offering bodywork, Authentic Movement and movement re-patterning sessions.

Sharon Tomsky CI and Feldenkrais/Anat Baniel Methods – A Potent Convergence.

Sharon has been enthusiastically involved with Contact Improvisation since the late 1970s, and has been teaching CI since 1981. She is a co-founder of this Contact Festival and has been teaching at it since its inception in 1988, and was an organizer for the first 3 years. Sharon also co-founded the California “Harbin” Contact Jam and co-organized and facilitated it for 18 years. She is a somatic educator with certifications as a Feldenkrais Method and Anat Baniel Method practitioner, including specializations in ABM for Children, Anti-Aging, and High Performers. These methods offer the opportunity for potent transformational learning through movement and attention in ways that connect directly with the practice of CI. Sharon also works as an Occupational Therapist. She lives in Richmond, CA with her beautiful cat Yin-Yang, whose movement she studies and attempts to emulate.

Andrew Wass The Four Winds Of Nantucket

Andrew Wass gave up biochemistry for dance. He has been studying CI for the past 11 years. Influential teachers have been Nina Martin, Martin Keogh, Andrew Harwood among others Influential to his work has been a sentence by Keith Johnstone, "Content lies in the structure..." (Impro page 110). For more information visit www.andrewwass.com.

Ali Woolwich Mixed Ability Facilitated Jam

Ali Woolwich has been working in CI for 18 years, and directs HumilitySwim, a CI-based performance ensemble which has shown performance work throughout the Bay Area, Seattle, and NYC. Her regular CI workshops include intermediate and square-one beginners' training, queer women's issues, college guest lectures, and site-specific performance. She is an admitted tech geek, as former Technical Director for CounterPULSE Theater and WCCIF's 2008 Tech Upgrade Project Manager. She produces a local monthly TV show of dance art, CITV: Contact Improvisation Television, for San Francisco's channel 29. She is currently in post-production with 2 short dance films due out in Summer 2008, 52 Negotiations and Tree Wisdom, and in pre-production with her first feature film slated for 2010. See more at: www.rodneyj.net/ali.

Scott Wells Seven Sublime Habits for Advanced Contact

In 1981 Scott he discovered the pleasure of contact improvisation shortly after becoming obsessed with the struggles of modern dance. He stuck with both and currently directs a company and tours annually to Europe. Scott Wells & Dancers is nominated in 2007 for Isadora Duncan Awards in Chroeography and Company Performance. In 2005 Scott received the Izzie for Outstanding Choreography and was selected by Dance Magazine as “one of the 25 To Watch in 2005”. Since 2000 he has taught and performed in Ankara, Turkey, at Impultanz in Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Amsterdam, Zagreb, Transylvania, Munich, Bern, Halifax, Toronto and other cities.

Sue Stuart Into the Back Body/Touching the Core

This is Sue Stuart's 21st anniversary of dancing Contact Improvisation. For 8 years Sue taught 2-3 classes a week throughout the year, as well as produced and performed in dance events in Santa Cruz and the Bay area. With Miranda Janeschild she taught Mixed ability classes for 4 years and co-directed two mixed ability performances. Her study of the Hakomi Method body centered psychotherapy influences her teaching. She lives in a small Northern CA community with her 13 year old daughter.

Erik Ferguson Mixed Ability Facilitated Jam

Erik Ferguson was trained in DanceAbility in Germany in 2003 after working for several years with visual art, performance art and Butoh. He is a grateful practitioner of Contact Improvisation and is indebted to Alito Alessi, Karen Nelson and Carolyn Stuart. He is also the co-founder of the Disability Art and Culture Project, which seeks to promote disability culture and pride through dance.

Daniela Schwartz Immersion Into The Body's Wisdom

Daniela Schwartz ( Arg/F), Nomad artist, graduated in Fine Arts at Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg. She has been involved in the practice, performance and teaching of CI since 1998. She is a member of Cie dégadezo. As a visual artist, she is interested in the body, space and movement in the present moment as Materia for research, expression and creation. Her works cross multiple medias--video, objects, installation--and this multi-disciplinary approach is present in her practices.

Eckhard Mueller Immersion Into The Body's Wisdom

Falling in love with CI in 1988, he studied contact and improvisation with Alito Alessi, David Zambrano, Mark Tompkins, Julyen Hamilton, Martin Keogh, Nancy Stark-Smith among others.Teaching extensively all over Europe and South America he is playfully searching for depth in the understanding of the form. As a co-founder of the blackforestjam and the contactfestival freiburg he is supporting international networking and exchange.

Sean Seward Boyz' Club LAB

Sean is a Bay Area native, who began studying modern dance working from a foundation of Graham Technique. His studies have in part focused on Skinner Release Technique and CI. He has performed with Anna Halprin, Remy Charlip, Project Bandaloop & Ellen Webb. From 1995-2000, Sean was a key collaborator and featured performer with Scott Wells and Dancers. Sean teaches CI in San Francisco at Rhythm & Motion, CounterPULSE, and WCCIF. From 1998-2000 Sean taught dance at the National School of the Arts in Havana, Cuba.

Teri Carter