David has been practicing and teaching contact improvisation since 2005, having begun his journey in Sydney, Australia. Over the years, he has participated in numerous workshops and festivals in countries such as the U.S., the UK, and Germany, and his investigation into the form is primarily influenced by his studies with some of the most well-known first and second generation of contact improvisers, such as Nancy Stark Smith, Daniel Lepkoff, Scott Wells, and Ray Chung. Apart from being the organizer of the oldest contact improvisation festival in Southeast Asia (Contact Festival Kuala Lumpur, since 2011), David has taught contact improvisation workshops in Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Germany. He has also performed in or created dance works in over 30 locations spanning six countries. David loves to discover the ease and efficiency in moving, and to chance upon the pleasures of not knowing.
Working with gravity and utilizing simple movement patterns, we will explore concepts like folding and unfolding, reaching out and reaching in. We will do this with solo exercises, in multiple levels of height, and eventually explore these movements with our partners. This will aid us in our solo dances, by increasing our vocabulary for solo dancing and helping us to move in and out of the floor. When applied to our partnered dances, we will explore ways of grazing, of entering and exiting dances, and of sharing weight and going into lifts.
Headshot by Anastasia Rytenkova and dance image by Raphael Olivier.
Jo has been practicing Tai Chi since 1980 and teaching it since 1997. He fell in love with CI in 1998. He has since been trying to understand the connections and delights of both these life practices. His early CI teachers were Helen Clarke Lapin, Sara Chesterman, and Andrew Harwood. Later influencers include Joerg Hassman and Nita Little. He has enjoyed dancing CI and performing in many parts of Australia, and in short visits to the US, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Japan. His other project-based work has taken him to many countries including remote areas of Australia, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Mozambique, Aceh, and Bangladesh, but especially Timor Leste and Cambodia. In many of these places, he could not dance CI but was sometimes able to introduce the practice of following and leading. Jo has ongoing interests in waiting in awareness and in dances with more than one person.
Dancers in dance image are Hannah, Kathryn, Jo.
Mimi Lo @ MimiLOPADF (Mimi Lo Performing Arts Development Foundation) teaches contact improvisation at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is a graduate of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts modern dance program, majoring in choreography and dance directing. Mimi followed Nancy Stark Smith in 2016 and 2018 to practice CI at EarthDance in the US and undertook the Long Dance Research project at The Dragon's Egg Studio, also in the US. She completed her DanceAbility® Teacher Training in Helsinki, Finland and her ContaKids Teacher training in Arezzo, Italy. Her current focuses are on contact improvisation and somatic dance and movement.
In the practice of contact improvisation, the application of momentum is generally emphasized. When you can master timing and make good use of momentum, your movements would become easier and more comfortable. But what if momentum is removed from the equation? Will you be able to better understand the different resources available to your body and find new possibilities? And then use them to dance in and out of momentum freely?
Sanat Mehta is a movement and a theatre practitioner, trained in jazz, ballet and modern contemporary, with a rich background in meditative and mind-body practices inspired by Buddhist, Advaita-Vedanta, Yogic, Javanese, and Taoist cultures and philosophies. In his pursuit to apply a holistic understanding of the living body towards his artistic development, he is currently studying and embodying contemporary theatre practices from the West and traditional theatrical practices from across Asia at the Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore. For the past few years, Sanat has been developing and sharing his knowledge of self-transformation through performing arts practices. He aims to create inclusive spaces, foster body-mind connections, and promote embodied empathetic language, while decolonizing minds along the way.
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