Name: Kinetic Composing / Contact Improvisation and Ensemble Thinking™
Start: 2026-05-30T10:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-05-31T17:00:00+02:00
Location: PRAXIS Oslo

$Kinetic Composing \/ Contact Improvisation and Ensemble Thinking\u2122$

Kinetic Composing
A performance lab
with Lower Left Artists Andrew Wass and Karen Høybakk Mikalsen
The morning sessions, facilitated by Andrew, will begin with Paxton’s Material for the Spine to help us awaken and sink into movement arising from the center. Transitioning outwards we will dive into the space between intention and action by investigating triadic processes. These simple, yet rich, processes will clarify our choices in the moment, allowing us to springboard beyond the moment.
During the afternoon sessions, guided by Karen and Andrew, we will practice creating improvised movement compositions together. Approaching the time in the studio as a laboratory, we will use the scores of Ensemble Thinking™ to research collaboration, awareness, power, and choice. By practicing different (physical) perspectives, experimenting with shape, space, time, and CI, and articulating our observations and experiences, we broaden our range of awareness and movement, empower individual choice-making, and increase capacity for shared clarity and collective engagement.
This performance lab is intended for people who are interested in contact / group improvisation and are comfortable being viewed and viewing others while engaging in embodied investigations.
for more info on Ensemble Thinking - ensemblethinking.org
Dates: May 30 and 31, 2026
Times: 10:00-13:00 / break / 14:00-17:00
Location: PRAXIS Oslo, Vestre Elvebakke 10, 0182 Oslo
Cost:
Full workshop:
1600 NOK Early-bird before April 15
2100 NOK after April 15
Only mornings/afternoons:
900 NOK Early-bird before April 15
1100 NOK after April 15
Registration: email [email protected] telling us if you will do the whole workshop, just the mornings (CI), or just the afternoons (ET). Once you are registered, you will receive information for payment. Registration is binding.
A dancer and researcher, Andrew Wass blurs the boundaries between empirical inquiry and embodied experience. With a background in Biochemistry from UC San Diego, an MA in Solo/Dance/Authorship from the HZT in Berlin, and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University, Wass situates his inquiries in the intersection of philosophy, cognitive science, and process-oriented concert dance. He has explored and taught contemporary technique, Contact Improvisation, and Ensemble Thinking for over two decades across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. He frames movement as both a site of investigation and a generative medium, dissolving the divide between analytic method and lived sensation. Wass has performed with dance luminaries Jess Curtis, Ray Chung, Scott Wells, Nancy Stark Smith, Nina Martin, Kirstie Simson, Ka Rustler, and Chris Aiken. An avid collaborator, he is a member of the Lower Left Performance Collective, based in Marfa, TX. His performance work has been produced at venues such as Danspace at St. Marks, Martin Gropius Bau, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art, Sushi Performance and Visual Art, the Crowley Theater, and La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.
wasswasswass.com
lowerleft.org

Karen Høybakk Mikalsen is an Oslo-based dance artist, choreographer and teacher educated in Stockholm, Salzburg and New York. Throughout the last 20 years she has been deeply invested in ensemble work/Ensemble Thinking (ET), collective processes, performance practice and signature research, and been teaching workshops and classes for institutions and colleges nationally and internationally. She’s collaborating in various artistic constellations (music, theater and narrative art), and has a huge heart for community work and art in public spaces. From 2018-22 Karen was part of the Nordic Network Lonely Riders – an artistic community project about loneliness and togetherness with refugees and immigrants. For many years she was facilitating practice sharings, events and performances through PRAXIS Oslo, ImproLAB, PRAXISfestivalen and Mind the Gap, and from 2015-17 she was a recipient of a 3 years artistic grant from the National Arts Council of Norway. Karen has been a member of Lower Left Performance Collective since 2019, and currently she teaches movement, performance practice and Ensemble Thinking as an associate professor at The Theater Academy at The Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Norway.
www.livingmovement.no