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Western Mass. Moving Arts Festival
Intensives with Martin Keogh, Angie Hauser, & Leigh Evans
August 5 (Thursday evening) - August 8 (Sunday afternoon)

photo: William Federking

photo: Thomas Hantzschel

photo: Ryan Jensen

This festival has something to offer everyone: a chance to study a variety of improvisational dance and theater forms intensively, with local and national teachers. If you've never been to Earthdance before, WMMAF is a great introduction. Morning intensives are an opportunity for deep study, while the afternoon schedule offers a multiplicity of classes to explore. Evening events include a performance by festival faculty and a jam with live music. Faculty will include: contact improvisation with Martin Keogh, performance improv with Angie Hauser, contemporary Butoh with Leigh Evans, and more.

Come for the whole festival, or just for individual classes and events! This event is also a part of a longer week of activities featuring DWELL with Chris Aiken & Angie Hauser. Visit the DWELL page for more information or to register for both DWELL and the WMMAF. (A $100 discount is avialable for individuals who participate in both events).

The schedule is listed below, along with class description's, teacher bio's, and registration information:

		Friday	Saturday	Sunday
8:00 - 9:00am	Breakfast
9:30 - Noon Intensives	S1	Intensive 1 - *Sea Inside* Contact Improvisation with Martin Keogh
	S2	Intensive 2 - Performance and Improvisation with Angie Hauser
	O	Intensive 3 - Anatomy of Presence with Leigh Evans
Noon - 1pm	Lunch
2:00 - 4:00 Class	S1	Barefoot Salsa Christina Montoya	Contact Improvisation Martin Keogh	Lightening and Deepening Felice Wolfzahn
	S2	Clown in Contact John Leo	The Performer's Presence John Leo	Cycles of Energy Cynthia McLaughlin
	O	The Poetic Body Jennifer Hicks	Layers of Listening Cyntha McLaughlin	Outdoor Tuning Scores Melinda Buckwalter
3:45 - 4:30	Break			Festival Conclusion
4:30 - 6:30	S1	Performance and Improvisation Angie Hauser	The Poetic Body Jennifer Hicks
	S2	Introduction to Action Theater Eric Huther	Suzuki/hara Leigh Evans
	O	Vocal Heresy Heather Kuhn	Contiguous Observations Felice Wolfzahn
6:30	Dinner
8:30pm		Movement and Improvisation Jam with Live Music	Faculty Performance and Jam	Monthly Movement Jam with Live Music

S1 = Studio 1; S2 = Studio 2; O = Outside/Studio 3

Morning Intensives:

* SEA INSIDE* Contact Improvisation with Martin Keogh. With games, some sweat, and the unique physicality of the contact body we will savor and rock the boundaries between states of allowing and mindful intention. We will explore:

o Moving from a base of sensation
o Dancing with a shared central axis
o Seeking ease in going off balance
o Finding the spontaneous acrobatics of the form
o Spending more time in nuance, disorientation, and extended follow-through

Performance and Improvisation Intensive with Angie Hauser. Have you ever had moments in performance when things seemed to be happening in slow motion, when your movements feel in tune and your mind is alert and relaxed at the same time? You are simultaneously aware of the audience, yourself and your fellow performers as part of an interconnected whole. The ability to sense, to imagine and to create through movement feels effortless in these times. This intensive is designed to lead us toward heightened states of being in performance.  Through training, students will develop greater confidence in their ability to respond intelligently and poetically to what is happening around them.  

Anatomy of Presence with Leigh Evans.What is presence? How do we awaken presence in the body? How can we cultivate this intangible quality that draws people in and leaves an image burning in the mind? Streams of awareness dissolve the rockbed of forgotten inner landscape. Breathe into the space between the thoughts, the words, the bones. Rest in the stillness, the emptiness, and that born in emptiness,. Breath, blood, silence, listening, pulse, impulse, still. Drink from the well of primordial presence, radiance, and shadow. Invite the dance to reflect the shifting inner landscape of your being.
Contact the energetic source of your creativity and cultivate inner presence. Develop an intuitive, awakened body, through Butoh, Suzuki Theater Method, Indian Odissi Dance, Yoga, and Authentic Movement. Increase the permeability of the membrane between the inner and outer life. Awaken awareness practices to integrate unconscious impulse with conscious creative expression. Tap into the energy of the Hara center, and open currents of sound and movement in your body, making the invisible visible. Learn awareness techniques to track your internal states and manifest the waves of shifting imagery and characters from the unconscious. Bring the darkness and the hidden to light, feel your cellular memory awakening.

Friday Afternoon

Barefoot Salsa with Christina Montoya. Barefoot Salsa is a unique dance/ movement experience that uses Cuban style Salsa as a structure to cultivate our sense of rhythm, connection to the ground, and a body/spirit full of connection and expression. You can expect an in depth warm up that will involve some traditional modern movement, breath connected movements, sound, African dance, and good bit of hip shaking! No partner or shoes are required for this class.

Clown in Contact with John Leo. Haven't you looked at contact and said to yourself, "this stuff is WEIRD! and really FUNNY!" In this class we'll expand on the comedic potential of contact improv.  Using extreme contrasts, timing and stillness we'll delve into the Comic Duo. Think Laurel and Hardy meets Lucy and Desi meets Pilobolus.

The Poetic Body: Creating New Dance Theater Through Poetry with Jennifer Hicks. The Poetic Body is a movement laboratory for those interested in using poetic text to inspire movement and create dance. Topics of exploration include; personal memory, embodying imagery, awareness training, translating poetry to movement and choreography.  We will explore pure kinesthetic joy of moving and finding connection to space, self, others well as finding a repeatable form in relationship to text. We will let the spirit of the poem speak to us and create our movement vocabulary.  Students will work as a group, solo and in partners. Please bring a short piece of poetry you would like to work with.

Performance and Improvisation Intensive with Angie Hauser. This afternoon session will offer participants not participating in Angie's intensive with the opportunity to experience her work. Please see the intensive description above for information about the material of this class.  

Intro to Action Theater™ with Eric Huther. The practice of Action Theater incorporates the disciplined exploration of embodied exercises that lead to increased skills of strong, clear, spontaneous, and artful communication. Action Theater addresses and expands the vocabularies of expression including: movement, vocalization, and speech.

Vocal Heresy with Heather Kuhn. This class will focus on post-verbal communication using partner work, sensitivity training and deep listening exercises.  Content will be drawn from Shintaido (a martial art created as an antidote to the social/personal effects of war) and woven together with the idea that our voices are capable of transmitting information without the use of words.

Saturday Afternoon:

* SEA INSIDE* Contact Improvisation with Martin Keogh. This afternoon session will offer participants not participating in Martin's intensive with the opportunity to experience his work. Please see the intensive description above for information about the material of this class.  

The Performer's Presence with John Leo. Is there a way to create further dialogue by breaking down that fancy-dancey fourth-wall and creating contact with our audience in a safe, non-threatening way?  Yes. There is. In this workshop we'll play with deepening and opening our awareness to include the audience so that we can share more fully all the danger and glee that's happening inside us when we're tumbling, rolling and flying.

Layers of Listening- Opening the Body to Site Specific Collaboration with Cynthia McLaughlin. We often look to other bodies for moments of collaboration. What of the landscape itself? What wisdom is available to our process if we are able to clear away our own constructs and perceptions and truly listen? What do we hold on to that keeps us from hearing? Together we will gather tools for collaboration between self and site.

The Poetic Body: Creating New Dance Theater Through Poetry with Jennifer Hicks. The Poetic Body is a movement laboratory for those interested in using poetic text to inspire movement and create dance. Topics of exploration include; personal memory, embodying imagery, awareness training, translating poetry to movement and choreography.  We will explore pure kinesthetic joy of moving and finding connection to space, self, others well as finding a repeatable form in relationship to text. We will let the spirit of the poem speak to us and create our movement vocabulary.  Students will work as a group, solo and in partners. Please bring a short piece of poetry you would like to work with.

Suzuki/Hara - Leigh Evans. This afternoon workshop unleashes the energy rising from the Hara Center and guides us to manifest all movements and sounds from this source. According to Chinese Medicine as well as yoga, many of the meridians or nadis (channels of vital energy, i.e Ki or prana) in the body originate at the navel center and spread out in all directions from this root. Drawing from the techniques of Suzuki Theater Method and yoga breathing exercises (pranayama), we will tap into the energetic core at the navel center and open currents of sound and movement in your body into the fullness of self-expression.

Contiguous observations of our moving selves -  Explorations with Contact Improvisation and Authentic Movement with Felice Wolfzhan. This class will explore the blending of scores that are the basic premises for both Contact Improvisation and Authentic movement. Both forms allow for a deep connection to self and other and combined create a pallet for spirited awareness, deep listening and opening to new territories of movement and connection. The weaving of tactile sensations, weight sharing, awareness of energies, and blending of inner and outer stimulus offer a fascinating unfolding of new and dynamic expressive possibilities! Come and play. A little experience in both forms are helpful.

Sunday Afternoon:

Lightening and deepening with Felice Wolfzahn. This class will explore contact improvisation with a focus on the 'Depth of touch". Initially, we'll play with dances that inhibit giving full weight to see what new pathways emerge. We'll see how playing 'on the edge' of light weight can offer new possibilities and choices for movement and connection. We'll also delve into the deeper realms and see how we can use the light touch to inform the fuller pathways of sharing full weight. Some experience with Contact improvisation will be helpful.

Cycles of Energy- Accessing a New Power Source Through Improvisation and Chance with Cynthia McLaughlin. We are all fierce movers. How do we balance the various tempers of energy within us? How do we access layers of potential to create contrast in our personal movement style? Through intense physicality we will strip away the familiar and find new body knowledge and rhythms.

Outdoor Tuning Scores with Melinda Buckwalter. The Tuning Scores, created by Lisa Nelson & Image Lab, are real-time tools for considering composition in group improvisation and, as Nelson says, they are an invitation into the nature of your own seeing. We will use the Score's simple video playback calls to create improvised compositions for each other in the woods and fields of Earthdance.

FESTIVAL FACULTY

Angie Hauser is a dance maker, performer and teacher. She is a member of Bebe Miller Company and received a BESSIE Award for their collaboration in 2006. Together, Chris and Angie's ongoing collaboration includes Dwell, co-commissioned by the National Performance Network.

Christina Montoya has been dancing since she was able to walk, but things really got going around 8 years old when she began her studies of modern dance. She attended High School at Professional Children's School in New York City and continued her studies of modern, jazz, and ballet. After receiving her BA in dance from Bennington College, she also went on to study Massage therapy, Polarity Therapy, Cranio-Sacral therapy, Alexander Technique, Body- Mind Centering, as well as Bio-Energetics. She has also traveled to Cuba and Brazil to study dance, and has a special place in her heart for many kinds of African based dance. This mix of influences and styles greatly informs her teaching and performing. She also LOVES to improvise!

Cynthia McLaughlin has been performing, teaching and creating improvisation and choreographed dance for 25 years. She holds a M.F.A in choreography and performance from George Mason University where she also taught all levels of contemporary technique, ballet, and improvisation. Her work has been presented in N.Y.C., Boston, Washington D.C., San Francisco and many many wonderful small towns including Shepherdstown, WV as well as abroad in Frankfurt, Germany and Sofia, Bulgaria. She was a member of and rehearsal director for Boris Willis Moves in Washington D.C. for twelve years before moving to New England in 2006. She currently is a Guest Lecturer at Amherst College.

Eric Huther is an advanced Action Theater™ teacher, working in the form for the past fifteen years. Other relevent experience includes training as an engineer, professional carpenter, and a solid grounding in the language of E-prime.

Felice Wolfzahn, BFA Juilliard, MFA Bennington College. Felice is a dancer, choreographer and veteran teacher of Contact Improvisation. She has been teaching in the Five College dance department of MA for the past fourteen years and has taught in many colleges in New England. Felice's work combines investigations into Authentic Movement and Contemporary dance technique as well. She is interested in how dance can be instructional as well as healing and incorporate the whole self into its investigations.

Heather Kuhn is a concept musician, holding a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, a 10-year Shintaido (cooperative martial art) practice, and varied ethno-musicological scholarship.  Selected curated projects include SWAMP: New World Impressions, an open-air performance within an installation by artist Eric Wild, and a quiet people, an ongoing music collaboration with performances including instrumental re-arrangements of Shaker music, a 7-piece acoustic chamber adaptation of Roy Orbison torchsong and Dead Pan Allies, a collaboration with butoh dancers and live improvised sound.  Heather is particularly engaged with health and healing through the discipline and experience of expression. 

John Leo is a clown, dancer, director and teacher who creates vital, dangerous and vulnerable work for the stage and the street.  A member for the Big Apple Circus' Clown Care Unit, which makes regular visits to NYC area pediatric hospitals, John also has also co-created a sex-ed burlesque with his partner called "Peg-ass-us" which won Best Comedy at the San Francisco Fringe Festival.  He's also toured with Clowns without Borders to Mexico and Guatemala and has a Clown show "Number's Up!" which he performs with his six pound chihuahua clown partner, "El Macho del Norte."  He LOVES Earthdance and is excited to return there as a teacher. www.johnleo.net or www.packofothers.org

Jennifer Hicks, MFA, RYT, director of CHIMERAlab Dance Theatre, is a performer, choreographer, teacher and visual artist. She has been teaching movement, creating original work and performing for over 25 years. She is a returning guest instructor at Naropa University in the MFA Contemporary Performance Department, teaching Butoh and co-directing The Embodied Poetics Project.  Ms Hicks received her MFA from Naropa University in Contemporary Performance, her BFA from Tufts University and Degree in Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston.  Jennifer won the prestigious The Traveling Scholars Award from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and is an alumni of Franklin Furnace in NYC.  She has been dancing in KASTURA Kans International Butoh Dance Company since 2001 and has been a butoh dancer since the early 1990's.  Ms. Hicks is a certified Shintaido Instructor, certified TranceDance International Facilitator and a Yoga Instructor registered with the National Yoga Alliance. She is also a member of the longest running performance collective in the country called Mobius, which is based in Boston, MA.  She has also studied shiatsu massage and acupuncture at Boston School of Shiatsu and New England School of Acupuncture.  www.jenniferhicks.org

Leigh Evans. At the intersection of dance, visual art, meditation, and theater, Leigh Evans' performance work explores the nature of perception by re-inventing our relationship to viewing the body. Evans' dance theater illuminates the darker aspects of human nature with the beauty of the physical form in rituals of invocation. Her explorations are fed by her fascination with the performance and meditative traditions of Asia. Integral to her work are her extensive travels and studies in the meditative and performance traditions of Asia, including Indian Odissi dance, Butoh, Yoga, Bulgarian singing and North Indian singing. Presented at the SoloNOVA Festival May 2009, her newest work, "Traces", was nominated for three New York Innovative Theater Awards, 2009. (Best Solo Performer, Best Choreography, Best Performance Art Production) Her work has also been presented at The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, PS122, New York Butoh Festival (at CAVE), CRS “Tribute to Butoh”, Manhattanville College, and Studio 303, Montreal. Her Film, Eighth Avenue, created in collaboration with David Rogers, has been presented at the Dance on Camera Festival (2007), BAC International Film Festival (2008), and the Chashama Film Festival (2008). Her work has been presented on the West Coast at the SF International Butoh Festival, Seattle Butoh Festival, Theater Artaud, Tsunami Festival, Women on the Edge Festival, and Noh Space. Leigh teaches workshops and classes in yoga and performance in New York, nationally and internationally.

Martin Keogh has taught and performed contact improvisation for over thirty years. For his contribution to the development of the form he is a Fulbright Senior Specialist and listed in Who's Who in the World. Martin spent time traveling to monasteries in Japan and Korea and was the director of the Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkeley before discovering the world of dance. He has co-facilitated Teacher's Conferences on four continents and is the author of The Art of Waiting , As Much Time as it Takes , and the forthcoming, Hope Beneath Our Feet: Mending Our Place in the Natural World . More info at: www.martinkeogh.com

Melinda Buckwalter, Earthdance publicity coordinator & Contact Quarterly co-editor, has written a book on improvisation practices, Composing While Dancing: An Improviser's Companion. Look for it next fall from the University of Wisconsin Press.

Registration and Fees

Tuition/Room/Board All Inclusive

Entire Festival (3 Tiers Available):
   Student Rate: Economically challenged students and the unemployed: $235
   Regular Rate: Employed but struggling (teacher, librarian, lots of kids, etc.): $260
   Professional Rate: Actually contributing to your retirement plan (support the arts!): $285
Single Day (Includes Classes, Meals and Evening Activities): $75

Deposit Required: $75*

Arrival Thursday, August 5, after 5 p.m.
Last session ends Sonday afternoon August 8

*You will not be officially registered until we receive your deposit. If your registration is cancelled up to 3 weeks prior to a workshop, you may either transfer the entire deposit amount to another event or be refunded 1/2 of the deposit. Cancellations within 3 weeks of the start date are not eligible for a refund or transfer.