I like to dance with a sense of fun, and I am interested in dances born out of personal experiences and bodily sensations. I have been practicing and teaching CI in Japan since 2003. Besides CI, I am also active in improvisational theater.

Let's dance in the moment!

Starting with the basics, we will progress into adventurous yet safe dancing.

We'll begin by noticing the ways we move and sense. We then proceed to delightfully bring our awareness to every moment – how we connect with our partners, the earth and ourselves, how we contact physically with other bodies, how we touch, how we listen to our bodies and the environment, and how we feel. To encourage effortless moving, we'll explore the relationship between body and earth, paying attention to our sense of weight.

After focusing on the basics of CI, we’ll then explore concepts related to conversation and momentum, taking steps into more adventurous dancing. Ultimately, we’ll dance with fun and gentleness, compassion and humanity.

As a dancer, I am richly inspired by other fields of knowledge; having studied architecture and some philosophy and having worked in architecture and fine arts before. I especially love how CI teaches me about the body, other people, and the world. Travelling a lot for dancing, I have worked with many international teachers, taking and giving workshops. I have given courses for and still occasionally give dance workshops at the LAK-theatre in Leiden, the VAK in Delft and a few other places, and organize or co-organize and teach at CI events in the Netherlands and abroad.

One of my favorite metaphors for Contact Improvisation: building a house together
…which keeps on falling down as we build it.
We are normally supported by the Earth …this may not sound so exciting right away.
But what if the access to this support is changing dynamically, out of our individual control?
What if the ones we are leaning on could be falling themselves?
Wouldn’t we then probably be falling together?
Wouldn’t that be ...GREAT FUN?!? In this workshop I would love to fall together with you!
We may find how security, or even stability, might actually be improved by instability…
We might even find how to use the energy of the falling house, to keep on building it;
in a sense even birds in full flight might be considered to be supported by the Earth.
Rather than ‘flying’ however we will firstly make falling and wonderfully failing our ‘home’, our dance!

Defne is a sociologist and a dancer, and also works in therapy and education. Along with her somatic education, she completed an Intermodal training on Art Therapy and Creativity. Her dance practice is focused around contact improvisation, instant composition, Skinner Releasing Technique & Authentic Movement. She has studied with pioneers such as Nancy Stark Smith, Daniel Lepkoff, Kirstie Simson, Andrew Harwood, Martin Keogh, Simone Forti, Julyen Hamilton, and Marcia Plevin. She is also a certified Deep Tissue Release and Trigger Point Massage Therapist.

Based in İstanbul, Defne is a member of KAROSRI, an improvised music and dance ensemble, and teaches at the performing arts department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, where she is currently finalizing her PhD. She also gives workshops in various countries in various organizations such as ImPulsTanz, Wien Konservatorium, Contact Festival Vienna, Tanzhaus Zurich, HaRaKA Cairo, and CID-Athens, working with different populations – actors, dancers, non-dancers and disadvantaged populations from different age groups.

For years I have been joyfully exploring my own body, mind and social skills in CI. Since I frequently teach, organize jams and attend festivals, I've also had the chance to meet and observe many people in their own explorations. One thing I believe very strongly now is that “every body knows”. Every body is able to move and master its own needs. But then this phrase is a bit dangerous for CI. If you think “you know” you may start planning & controlling and letting go of your observant & attentive mind. Then you lose your connection with your own body, with your partner and with the space & dynamics you dance in.

Therefore, in this workshop, I wish to work with any body, from any level of CI experience. I hope to assist participants in figuring out the potential of their own body via some experiential anatomy tips. After this solo exploration (which Nancy Stark Smith would call ‘moving in our skinesphere’) I wish to work with images to let go of our ‘controlling mind’ and start trusting our ‘knowing body’ and relax into a flowing dance (exploring the ‘kinesphere’). We will then find pathways to merge with different partners by utilizing different focuses and qualities of reading & listening, trusting that the joyful puzzles of CI will eventually emerge then and there.

Yeong graduated from Arizona State University with a Master of Fine Arts (Dance) and received an Outstanding Graduate Student Creative Work Award and a Distinguished Teacher Award. He began to focus on contact improvisation in 2008 and has been fortunate to study the dance form with Nancy Stark Smith, Nina Little, Martin Keogh and Tim O'Donnell. He has since facilitated workshops and/or CI jams in the United States, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore. He has also performed and participated in the Underscore research with Nancy Stark Smith at the Bates Dance Festival, i•dance Taipei, and in London. As a dance practitioner, Yeong's interest lies in pushing the envelope of dance practices while continuing to challenge the limits of body physicality.

Yeong will be facilitating the Underscore briefing and the Global Underscore.