WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS for The NC 2021 ITALY
This year the NC will run three weeks from the 6th to the 25th of August 2021, and will be hosted in Puglia, Italy at
for registration details write to:
Week 1
6th to 11th August
Basics / Fundamentals
9:-11: "Anatocomotion" - micro movement intensive study of bread-and-butter movement patterns: rolling, crawling, walking, running. Low intensity base patterns are our trampoline to safe assumption of the safe assumption of risk-happy challenges.
teacher: Frey
11:15-13:15 “The Inner Archer" - Starting from the observation of the curved nature of our external and internal environment, we will study and practice macro postures and transitions that build and use these resilient curves and curved trajectories.
teacher: Francesca
17-19 "Motifs on Sale" - Short sequences and micro-phrases that offer creative mini-challenges that have macro-applications and provide practical experience as a confidence-building departure point to liberated, embodied self expression.
teacher: Baris
Week 2
13th to 18th August
challenges
photo: Barbara Cali
9:-11: "Kinetic Ethics" - Strength, flexibility, range of options, safe management of potential crisis. Studying/sensing into how we are made is the underpinning for ethical physical practice. Knowing what is there, how it is shaped and disposed and what it offers or suggests, allows us to determine what treatment or strategy furthers. We receive respect in return when we offer it to our bodies, the willing support of every endeavor.
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teacher: Frey
11:15-13:15 "Ancient Kinetic Wisdom and Polyrhythm”
This workshop focuses on the fundamental social and spiritual roles in which dance and music are vested in the cultures of West Africa and the Diaspora. Our attention is captured by the structure and phasing of ritual as a performative act where the body, the rhythm, the voice, the gesture and repetition become instruments of evocation, portals for connection and access to collective memory. These processes translate from the person to the collective and although structured, leave space for improvisation.
During the workshop, we will discover the universal bio-mechanical and subtle rhythmic principles on which some traditional motifs are built.
We will go further by relating them to their context (content, meaning, spatial relationship and dialogue with the rhythm) and use the gathered experience to move towards creative collective and personal re-elaboration
teacher: Francesca and live music with Lorenzo Gasperoni
17:00 - 19:00 UNDULATION FREQUENCIES
The science of matter and energy and their interactions...
We begin by observing the poly-articular and curved constitution of our spine that strongly suggests a movement pattern based on the principle of the wave. One of the main characteristics of wave-like locomotion is the seemingly effortless propagation of kinetic energy through the body.
We will explore the efficiency of undulatory movement in the spine and body for its internal attributes such as lowering stress and friction in all the articular structures of the body, better distribution of impact and possibly reducing injury, as well as for its external aspects of broadening physical performance.
teacher: Kira
photo: Anna Maynard
Week 3
20th to 25th August
Spiralling OUT
11:15-13:15 "Kinetic Expansion"
Respect for and knowledge of the body and rigor in the application of that knowledge offers us the possibility to harness gravitation and mechanical forces, to fill the room beyond the limits of skin and the body's dimensions to radiate into the world.
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teacher: Frey
9:-11: INVERSE UNIVERSE
Hands pressed to the earth, feet offered to the sky, we turn the world upside down… a playful, yet gently subversive act. We can then experience the precious reversal of perspectives that Spinoza informed us about more than three centuries ago, accepting his challenging invitation to rethink our presumptions, in this case the human body in movement. At the very least, this possibly perilous attitude where the roles of arms and legs are inverted provokes our sense of balance, reveals our prowess or weakness, challenges our alignment, confidence. Paying attention to the anatomical functions of the hand, the elbow, the shoulder and the spine, I propose to explore our arms as a support and to play with acrobatic combinations that we will integrate into our dance through sensory exploration, improvisation, and repetition of dynamic sequences.
teacher: Jerome D'Orso
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« It is not madness that is capable of turning the world upside down, it is consciousness. »
Baruch Spinoza
17:00 - 19:00 "Airwalks" - falling up… propelling, rebounding, diving to rise, leaning on the air… reclining on the air… walking on air!
teacher: Baris
photo: Barbara Cali