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Deepening on the Principles of Contact Improvisation (CI)First 3-month Cycle of Weekly Training CI Classes
With Christina Klissiouni (second generation CI educator, movement researcher, Somatics teacher, performer/contemporary dancer, choreographer, body-psychotherapist, trauma therapist, Shiatsu practitioner)
Suitable for: both beginners and those with some movement experience
Every Monday at 19:30 – 21:30
January 13 2025 - March 27 2025
Workshop Dates
13/1, 20/1, 27/1, 3/2, 10/2, 17/2, 24/2, 3/3, 10/3, 17/3, 24/3, 31/3
Price: 12 classes for the 3-month period: 180 EUR (+20 EUR VAT), early bird 185 EUR (incl. VAT) if prepaid until 27/12/2024
Contact Improvisation is an evolution of contemporary dance and improvisation, widely practiced internationally. This year, we are celebrating 52 years of CI. The practice is based on an open framework that combines somatic techniques, martial arts, contemporary dance, performance art, and therapeutic approaches based on the meditative aspects of movement. It focuses on the dancer’s physical training, cultivating a body that is both “soft and strong”. The dancer’s skills develop through the sensorial awareness and one’s expansion of physical perception brought by touch and expanded attention.
Our goal is for the learning of this technique to be an exploratory process, where the dancer can apply their experience from contemporary dance or any other movement system in a creative way, allowing themselves to reposition and redefine their relationship with dance and self-expression.
In this lab, we propose a systematic approach with weekly lessons designed to deepen and expand our experience of Contact Improvisation. We'll focus on our relationship with gravity, exploring the forces that shape our movements. Using somatic techniques, we create an awareness-based framework that enhances the functionality of our movement. We connect the center to the periphery, as we cultivate sensorial movement perception; we nurture the flow of energy, drawing on Steve Paxton’s practice of 'small dance'—the meditative quality in CI.
Our aims and our approach
The intention of this educational training practice program is the creation of a supportive and safe space, where the dancers may discover the sources that empower and nourish their talents and their skills. These meetings strengthen interrelations and a sense of community, where exchange with colleagues is very important for the dancers’ development.
Contact Improvisation is a relational practice, where each person may offer his/her personal connection to the art form cultivating knowledge, the dynamic and creative coexistence that establishes a more fertile ground for the CI community in Greece as a whole.
In the workshop we cultivate self-awareness skills which emphasize connection of the self with the environment, exploring our physicality in depth based on the principles that underlie the teaching methodology of CI. We ask questions wishing to generate new questions through the resulting answers that come up from our experiential work. In the process of each workshop, we discover the personal way in which the participant relates to the practice of Contact Improvisation; how each dancer/performer perceives questions around contact, weight, flow, connectivity, the performative aspect of CI etc. through his/her senses. We share creatively our understanding of the technique and the philosophy of the practice that supports relational expression and inspiring dances.
In these workshops, we discover how the dancer expands his field so that he can become more receptive and available to process with sensibility the stimuli he receives while improvising in contact with a partner. In the laboratory it is important that we create a sense of boundaries and a safe space that enhances trust while deepening into the movement research. Change is continuous and our dances reflect the choices we make while improvising. Entering a state of presence, we constantly manage the physical, but also the implicit messages emitted by each individual and by the whole group.
While the practice of CI embraces a very wide range of techniques derived from other modules such as contemporary dance, Somatic practices, contemplative movement and meditation, martial arts, therapeutic methods, etc. we intend to offer diverse and effective training tools, which cultivate more clarity and physical articulation. Our aim is to support both the analytical and the synthetic abilities of each participant.
Through the evolution of our somatic awareness, we aim to cultivate presence and clarity in movement. By activating the senses through touch, we uncover the expression of both imagination and instinct.
Topics we explore include:
• The practice of listening and expanding attention in an environment that is constantly in motion.
• Developmental movement.
• Counterbalancing, rolling, sliding, surfing
• Elasticity and connectivity (fascia web system).
• Support with flow.
• Balancing forces.
• The relationship between the center and its periphery.
• Awareness of habits embedded in body posture.
• The neutral space and its importance for movement expression.
• Playing with gravity, pressure, and variations in energy intensity, we explore how the tone of our touch and the way we meet another’s body create a framework for kinesthetic dialogue. This becomes a vocabulary of communication rooted in connection, where we experience ourselves deeply as our physical responses are mirrored by the other dancer through contact.
• Techniques/skills that allow the dancer to suspend in the air effortlessly while being supported. We practice movement patterns that enhance connections in the body to allow natural movement expression, such as rolling, spiraling, ways of using leverage for support, dynamically falling with momentum, jumping, and balancing forces.
• How can we creatively and safely shift the ways we react or respond to movement?
• Stage presence and interpretation. Improvisational scores.
Contact Improvisation fosters fluid, three-dimensional movement, allowing the journey to unfold organically and functionally within the body. The dancer flows effortlessly, shifting between levels, ways of support, playing with rhythm and time, dynamics, and directions. Each movement choice is guided by the body’s structures and the relationships of forces within it, shaped by our somatic self-awareness. Through this process, improvisation invites us to explore the unconscious patterns that influence our decision making. Grounded in research, curiosity, and playfulness, Contact Improvisation broadens our expressive potential. Dance becomes captivating, rich with meaning, and creates space for the new, the changing, and the transformative.
Biography
Choreographer, Dancer, Somatic Movement educator, Body Psychotherapist, Gestalt and Trauma therapist, Shiatsu practitioner, Contemplative movement teacher from Athens, Greece
Christina Klissiouni is a movement/Somatics/dance/contact improvisation educator focusing on the embodiment of movement with the aim of developing mindfulness and awareness through improvisation/movement awareness practice. Her work expands in exploring performance tools as well as healing practices. For the past 40 years, she supports the individuals’ evolution towards self-expression, being in contact with one’s self, allowing change and transformation in a creative and therapeutic process.
She studied contemporary dance, Contact Improvisation, Somatic practices, Developmental Movement in New York City from 1986-1991 being taught by the pioneers and founders of CI, and other modules such as Alexander technique, Body-Mind Centering, Authentic movement and Voice.
She introduced Contact Improvisation practice and Somatic work in Greece in 1990-1. She belongs to the second generation of Contact Improvisation teachers being recognized by the international community. She is an active member, being invited to teach and perform at the most prominent festivals and venues in Europe, US and Asia.
Since 1991, she has developed her own methodology in the training of the dancer/performer as well as the amateur who is interested in self-development and training of body-mind practice.
For 25 years now, she has been working simultaneously as a Body and Movement Psychotherapist. She is an active member of PESOPS and EABP (European Association of Body Psychotherapists). She has been trained at the E.I.N.A. (Psychoanalytic approach Wilhelm Reich center in Athens, Greece. She completed 2 two-year Master Courses with the distinguished trainers-therapists, Alberto Torre (Italy) and Barry Simmons (Gestalt technique). She has also been trained as a Body Psychotherapy supervisor by Jenovino Ferri (Italy).
In 2004, 2016 and 2023 she taught labs in EABP conferences in Greece and Bulgaria.
Since 1994 she has been working as a Shiatsu therapist, a practice she creatively applies to movement and therapy groups.
Since 1997 Suprapto Suryodarmo (Indonesia) has been a very important mentor, colleague, spiritual teacher for her. The study of contemplative, meditative movement connects creative expression through dance and body, mind-body connection and healing.
In April 2024 she completes Narm professional training in trauma therapy (Lawrence Heller approach). In 2021-22 she completed the first 3 levels in Cranio-Sacral Therapy (Upledger Institute) claiming that apprenticeship needs to be a lifelong process.
Christina Klissiouni offers individual, group and couple body psychotherapy sessions as well as continuous movement labs for professionals and amateurs at Present Body studio that she created in 2009 in the center of Athens.
Since 1993 Christina teaches and organizes retreats and intensive workshops with prominent teachers from the US and Europe whose work is based on Somatic practices/dance and therapy. She supports sharing of knowledge and embodiment creating space for growth in the Greek as well as in the international communities she is being part of.
Through all these years of her professional life she has been a very active member and acknowledged teacher of the CI community, as well as Suprapto Suryodarmo’s international community. She has also created and supported CI and therapeutic communities in Greece through her work. She has introduced practices of embodiment such as Contact Improvisation and Somatics in Athens, educating professional and non-professional people/artists/therapists, who love movement exploration to bring self-awareness and self-expression in their life process.
Christina understands the complexities that appear in relationships, when we explore ourselves experientially. She strongly believes in what group work can offer in one’s process towards transformation. It is often challenging but she is always interested in human exchange and sharing, the significance of creativity that connects oneself to the infinite possibilities of life.
For more information:
Mobile: +30 6932190273
Email: [email protected]
Address: 16 Eressou St., Neapolis Exarchia
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Ερεσού 16, 10680 Athens, Greece, Ερεσσού 16, 106 80 Αθήνα, Ελλάδα,Athens, Greece
