As We Touch
2023-04-24 - 2023-04-30 Divadlo Pôtoň, Bátovce, Slovakia
As We Touch is a week-long workshop-lab in which we will focus on exploring touch and its philosophy in somatic/hands on approaches. We will look at its protocols, techniques, methods and also how we can distill this knowledge into creative processes and artworks.
The intention of the workshop is to have a dialogue with the dance practices of the lecturers, who are both makers/performers and somatic practitioners/therapists. What is the specificity of ‘their’ touch?
We are interested in how it is formed when the two approaches (therapeutic and artistic) overlap.
The thematic starting point for this lab was the personal curiosity of Zden Brungot Svitek (researcher, or philosopher in motion as some refer to her, performer). In her work she is interested in perception, perception, the phenomenon of touch and the use of somatic approaches in the context of dance art and performance.
Together, we are curious about the responses that emerge from these two uses of touch, their expressive potential, as well as the re-imagining/re-embodiment of what we discover in the body(s) between bodies.
The workshop is loosely related to the AS WE TOUCH – In Forming and Re-Forming the Body project (supported by the Saari residency program and the Fund for the Support of the Arts).
Lecturers: Malcolm Manning, Peter Krč, Zden Brungot Svíteková
Schedule:
24 April: arrival, 4:00pm - 8:00pm: warm up
25 - 29 April: schedule by mutual agreement of the group
29 April: workshop closing
30 April: departure
Participation Fee:
180€ /adults
150€ /students, unemployed, and other disadvantaged groups
Capacity: 15 participants
The accommodation in the theatre possible (with one's own mattress and sleeping bag)..
Contact: sashisko@gmail.com, +421 907 313 909
About the Lecturers:
Malcolm Manning
Currently calling himself a somatic movement researcher, educator and artist. He has been consciously working with movement for almost 30 years. He has studied mime and physical theatre, and is interested in contemporary dance and somatic disciplines, research and improvisation as a mode of performance. He was instrumental in the development of the one-year Education In Dance And Somatics program at ISLO in Joensuu, where he is still teaching. From 2008-2012 he was a part-time associate professor in the Department of Dance at the Theatre Academy of Finland (TEAK). Since mid-2015 he has been teaching regularly at the Department of Contemporary Dance at The Danish National School Of Performing Arts in Copenhagen.
Outside of the performing arts, he has led the practical component of a year-long somatic seminar for the Department of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, contributed to the Situation Lab course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland, and taught somatic approaches to embodiment at various conferences and trainings for professional associations of psychotherapists and psychologists.
Malcolm Manning’s practice includes Feldenkrais Method, Body And Earth, Authentic Movement, Experiential Anatomy, Movement and Dance Improvisation, Relaxation Technique, Qi Gong, Movement Shiatsu, Developmental Movement, Contact Improvisation, Elsa Gindler’s work, Body-Mind-Centering.
More Information
Peter Krč
At the age of 11 he started training karate. He dedicated himself to competitive wrestling – kumite. He finished his career as a representative in the army sports club DUKLA Banská Bystrica. Later he started to study, practice and teach Tai Chi. Both martial arts are a way for him to understand the deeper meaning of movement, a way to achieve the best use of the human body guided by the mind and spirit. He is currently practicing the traditional Okinawan style of Goju-Ryu Karate, regularly visits his teachers in Japan, and has achieved a technical level 5. Dan. He runs a karate club in Banska Bystrica. He is a co-founder of the traditional karate organization SSTKK. In 1994, in addition to Karate, he started to practice Tai Chi regularly and since 1998 he has been leading a Tai Chi group. He also cooperates intensively with dancers, for whom he conducts international seminars and occasionally teaches at the SEAD Academy in Salzburg, where he brings martial arts experience to the students.
Zden Brungot Svíteková
Zden lives as a dance and movement artist. She graduated from the Faculty of Music and Dance of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She continued her studies in France (choreographic research and creation) in the USA (performer’s training) and in Norway (creative partnerships program). Since 2015 she has also been involved in process facilitation and upwording.
Through engagements, collaborations, residencies and fellowships, she has been working internationally in Europe and overseas as free-lancer; dancing, performing, collaborating and creating works. She is interested in research, fascinated by the knowledge generated by the dance field. One of the leading interests in her artistic approach is to create and to cultivate space for personal, embodied expression of individuals as well as collaborative environments within collectives. Her artistic reflection is being nourished by somatic approaches, interest in natural and human sciences (geology, physics, psychology, language and communication a.o.) and always, with greatest curiosity and respect, by encounters with different beings, cultures and landscapes.
Zden is one of co-founders and co-directors of Ostružina, an art association which focuses on contemporary dance and movement creation for audiences across age. Ostružina’s works are characterized by interdisciplinarity, openness to innovative approaches, new formats and interest in presenting works in non-traditional spaces.
She also collaborates with the Centre for Choreographic Development SE.S.TA and Tanec Praha, for which she leads projects and activities in the context of creative education and the process of artistic creation.
More Information
www.ostruzina.eu
Supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.
