Sculpture and Dance

Exquisite partnerning in this dance, Flesh. Choreography by Iván Pérez

Nederlands Dans Theater II
Premiered 24th of Februrary 2011
Lucent Dans Theater.

Choreography Iván Pérez
Music: Arvo Pärt, Eric Withacre
Dancers: Sarah Murphy, Chloé Albaret, Astrid Boons, Meng-Ke Wu, César Faria Fernandes, Quentin Roger, Spenser Theberge, Marco Blázquez.
Costume design: Carlijn Petermeijer
Light design: Tom Visser
Decor concept: Iván Pérez
Poem: Keith Douglas
Voice: Sarah Murphy
Sounds editing: Thijs Scheele


www.ivanperezaviles.com

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Contact Improvisation

Exquisite... this duet is based in contact improvisation.

See how they never loose their connection to each other. That's what makes it safe and allows such extreme risk in their dancing.



Here the dancers, Sharon Fridman and Arthur Bernard Bazin, are talking about Haste Donde.

Sculpture and Dance

I'm off to the snow next week. I am teaching with Carolyn Stuart our 
5th Annual WOW of Contact Improvisation with Touchmonkey

The WOW will be January 22 to 27 at beautiful Breitenbush Hot Springs in the mountains of Oregon

Patrick Gracewood and Carolyn Stuart

The dance of Contact Improvisation offers the experience of belonging and freedom. When in contact we belong, when improvising we are free. Wow!

This week long immersion focuses on developing awareness in order to study and expand our capacity for mutual well-being. We’ll use intention, research and relationship to refine our ease and accuracy in the dance.

Relationship supports expression. The unfolding of expression is infinite. We explore options to enhance our interbeing. Being where we are, becoming happens.

Resting in the ride of mutual well-being is the ahhh of C.I. Wow!

Come celebrate your self-awareness and ability to improvise, on and off the dance floor.
Give yourself the gift of Contact!

Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood are the Touchmonkey limb of C.I., a dance duo exploring, teaching, performing the ‘wow’ of contact improvising for 25 years. They’ve found the play of inquiry, experimentation and discovery to be intimate, infinite and life saving. Currently they offer C.I. events at Gracewood Studio in Portland, OR.
REG: Breitenbush 503.854.3320
INFO: Carolyn 503.282.2938 or touchmonk@yahoo.com

ENDS: Wed or Fri lunch
COST: Sun - Wed $90, Sun - Fri $120, plus lodging
DEPOSIT: cost of lodging

Sculpture and Brietenbush

This week I've been at Breitenbush Hot Springs for the annual Fall Contact Improvisation Jam.

Here's Carolyn Stuart improvising with the studio wall.

Watch how sustained her movement is, no part of her body is unaware.... (It's a lot harder to do than it seems. Try dancing with the nearest wall to see for yourself.)

Sculpture and Dance

Is it surprising that sculptors love movement?
I'll be part of Now Repeat in Steinese  this weekend at Performance Works Northwest 

Now Repeat in Steinese uses one of Stein’s most unstageable works  "White Wines" written in 1913. It has no plot, no characters, no setting – and no meaning other than the experience of her art and how to interpret it. Carolyn and I worked with the line "Build a best container with no speed."to shape our dance.

Under performance artist Drew Pisarra’s guidance, this concept was initially executed in New York in 2010 where it was hailed as an “entertaining collation of pure theater” (nytheater.com) and played for a month to sold-out houses.
This production reinvents the idea by having four West Coast theater artists/choreographers/filmmakers interpret the play anew, thereby revealing a completely new set of artistic sensibilities. Pisarra, a fixture in Portland’s dance-theater landscape in the ’90s, returns from NYC to host this one-of-a-kind evening with his longtime collaborator Katherine Gray.

Alembic is an ongoing series of performances curated by guest artists from the worlds of dance, theater, visual and media arts invited to program and produce an event at Performance Works NorthWest.

WHO:
Drew Pisarra, curator
Katherine Petersen, co-host
The SteinWays, musical collective
Kyle Delamarter and Starr Ahrens, theater artists
TouchMonkey: Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood, dancers
Austin Newsom, filmmaker
 

WHEN: April 29 and 30. Friday and Saturday. 8pm.
HOW:Tickets $12-$15 (discounts for Boris & Natasha Fan Club)at the door or at hulahub.com
WHERE: Performance Works NorthWest  (www.performanceworksnw.org)
4625 SE 67th Ave., Portland, OR 97206
503.777.1907

Contact Improvisation at Breitenbush Hot Springs

Carolyn Stuart and I will lead a Contact Improvisation Exchange at Breitenbush Hot Springs, January 10 to the 15th.

Contact Improvisation is a dance form that invites us to explore movement while in physical contact. All levels of experience welcome and appreciated! Come as you are and begin from there, each moment.

Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood have been researching Contact Improvisation for over 20 years, logging hundreds of projects along the way. The process of inquiry and discovery never ceases to inspire and delight them. They are excited to facilitate a lively investigation of how the dance of contact is co-created, moment-by-moment.

REG: Breitenbush 503.854.3320
INFO: Carolyn 503.282.2938 or touchmonk@yahoo.com
BEGINS: Sun dinner
ENDS: Fri lunch
COST: $110 Sun-Fri (5 nights), $85 Sun to Wed (3 nights), $75 Wed to Fri (2 nights) plus lodging

Contact Improvisation and CITV

Years ago, after seeing us dance, a child asked us if "we danced in the river?" We both loved that question. Here's a performance
Carolyn Stuart and I did at The West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival.
This video resurfaced after a couple of years... The color is off ( we're wearing soft blues) and the camera shaky, but it's better than that vanished space dance disappears to when it's finished.

A lot of Contact Improvisation performance is high flying, high energy. We wanted to create a gentle flowing dance instead, and called our piece "in the River".

Contact Improvisation

My French is rusty, I think the title translates to "Taken by the Body"

It's a nice male duet, though the snap cuts ruin the sense of a continuous dance. They strike a good balance in their improv between big actions and taking their time to discover the truth of the moment and the movement.

More on the Youtube site, en francais.

Contact Improvisation at Performance Works NorthWest

Martha Ullman West reviews the Alembic Series, part of thePortland Project on Art Scatter.

She writes of our dance, Special Alembics, "The performance was at once sensual and intellectual, and downright suspenseful. My God, what are they going to do next? I thought at one point, as they entwined and re-entwined their bodies on the floor, becoming at times a single body that appeared to have eight misplaced limbs. Nobody “wired for skepticism” can dance with a partner blindfolded, it seems to me, particularly one on whom she depends to shape the next step in the dance."

The review also cover Tere Mathern's Phase Phrase and Gregg Bielemeier's Tracings

Sculpture and Mental Health

STRESS.

Two Dance Performances and Two Sculpture Shows in a week and a half. The sculpture show is actually the same work just put up and taken down twice, once for the media pretour and the actual GARDEN TOUR. It's still a lot of work.

After scraping myself off the ceiling and floor, I realized several things. It's hard to move after hours at the computer. It's hard to open up to improvisation in movement or art when seeing the world and the work as an endless check list.

So when I was an hour early for a meeting, I spent it just walking in the nearby park.

I noticed barn swallows zooming closer and closer to me, flying a foot off the ground. It dawned on me that they were after any insects that my feet had disturbed. "I'm not alone" was the thought. Surrounded by the mundane beauty and life of a small suburban park, it became a game to see if I could "catch" the swift birds with my slow delay camera. Keep walking and try to click on where the bird will be, not where they are.

My awareness had to expand considerably to encompass the birds, the camera, the sloping terrain, my steady walking, to be aware of every thing around and within me. Then I played on the swing set- built so grown ups can swing. That got me looking at the clouds. I've been feeling better ever since.

Dance at Performance Works NW

Taylor Young and Gregg Bielemeir 's duet in Alembic #2 .
Carolyn Stuart and I are also performing this Friday and Saturday nights, June19 & 20th as part of the Alembic Series. Produced by Anne Furfey, Alembic #2 is part of Linda Austin's commitment to bringing improvisional dance to Portland Audiences. Go here for more info.

Sculpture and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation

I made this wooden green dance angel for Dance Art Group Benefit Dance Concert. Someone will want a little moveable guardian angel to help oversee their jumps and balances. I caved the initials SFoDi (Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation) cut the eyes, nose and mouth and added the wings and paint on an artist's mannikin and mounted it on a walnut base. From plain to a specific present.

The 15th annual Dance Art Group Benefit Dance Concert will be held on May 23, 2009 at the Annex Theatre, Seattle, featuring some of the Northwest’s most exciting and innovative dance artists and special guests.

All proceeds from the DAG Benefit Dance Concert go toward producing the 16th annual Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (August 2-August 9, 2009), six days of dance classes taught by internationally renowned dance artists, public performances, and improvisation “jams.” This is a world-class, internationally recognized festival that needs your support! Any donation is greatly appreciated.

28th Breitenbush Jam Contact Improvisation

The 28th Breitenbush Jam is happening this week, March 5 through 11.

Contact Improvisation dancers from all over the USA, Europe, and even New Zealand are flying in to converge at Breithebush Hot Springs, Detroit, Oregon. Eight days of dancing and soaking and relaxation with good vegetarian food.

Jacqueline McCormick ( above left) and Carolyn Stuart (above right) are facilitating the 2009 conference "State of Inquiry: How does a state of inquiry inform our dancing?".

We will focus on, share and explore out personal investigation and its relationship to our partners.

What / how can we learn from each other?

What unfolds as we embody our curiiosity, physically and verbally?

We wish to honor our diversity, your perspective is unique.

Come as you are, bring your curiosity.

Contact Exchange at Breitenbush Hot Springs

Carolyn Stuart and I will be faciltating the second Contact Exchange at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit, Oregon.This is a gathering to explore the experience of contact and the act of improvising. Contact Improvisation is a dance form that invites us to investigate movement while in physical contact. It is based in personal responsibility and mutual well-being.

We’ll use the heart of winter to luxuriate in the depths of contact, discovering what we are doing and what is possible with improvisation.

Come in order to exchange, to teach and to learn, to co-create. Come as you are. You’ve had experience with contact since you’ve had body! Come enjoy this time to allow the contact to reveal and nourish your being and belonging.

Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood have been researching contact improvisation for over 20 years, logging hundreds of projects along the way. The process of exchange and discovery never ceases to inspire and delight them. They are excited to facilitate and participate in this laboratory, an opportunity to settle into a lively investigation of how the dance of contact is co-created, moment-by-moment. Currently they offer C.I. events at Gracewood Studio in Portland, OR.

INFO: Carolyn 503.282.2938 or touchmonk@yahoo.com
REG: Breitenbush 503.854.3320
BEGINS: Sun dinner
ENDS: Fri lunch COST: $110 Sun-Fri (5 nights), $85 Sun to Wed (3 nights), $75 Wed to Fri (2 nights) plus lodging
DEPOSIT: cost of lodging

Margaret's Ghost

Carolyn Stuart and I performed "Margaret's Ghost" in L.A. and Seattle at the Seattle Festival of Dance Improv  earlier this year. We're still exploring who and what the ghost is.

For Youtube we divided the 15 minute performance into parts 1 & 2. # I is the intro and setup for #2. It's a single camera from way back in the lighting booth, but it captures a bit of the magic when things go well on stage. At the end because of the close up, you can't see that I'm holding Carolyn, apparently by her head, a foot off the ground.

Dance reviewer, Michael van Baker at Seattlest said, "Two outstanding performances left us convinced the fun isn't just for dancers and dance groupies, though. "Margaret's Ghost" by Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood, is a study in the quicksilver side of contact improvisation-

a duet that abstractly could be viewed as the work of a single organism. But it's also very much modern dance in it's reflections on age and the body and relationship. At one point, Gracewood is cradling Stuart as if she's in a bath, slippery as an infant; she's buttery-jointed, and almost mindless in her emotive presence: playful, fearful, trusting. You love art when it makes you feel as alive as that."