Rajendra

Contact Improvisation, Constant Composition Improvisation

Masterclass with Rajendra Serber (US) & Niamh Condron (IRE) in DANCE THEATRE OF IRELAND, DUN LAOGHAIRE, CO DUBLIN, IRELAND. Mon August 30th - Fri September 3rd 2010.

Contact Improvisation is a dance form, originated by American choreographer Steve Paxton in 1972, based on the communication between two or more moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion—gravity, momentum, inertia.

Constant Composition, drawing from Body Mind Centering & the Alexander Technique, is dance Improvisation that explores your relationship to self, others & the space around you. Includes somatic sensing, bodywork, partner work & group work to awaken your mind, body, & soul.

Dates Mon 30th August - Fri 3rd September 2010 13.00 - 15.00 - Contact Improvisation 15.30 - 17.30 - Constant Composition

Price Full 5 days - 125 euro 1 day - 30 euro 1 session - 20 euro

Booking/Info
thistorsion.com
Phone +353 87 6370567

Location Dance Theatre of Ireland, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland

en français

September 11th to 14th, 2010 - PARIS
with Stéphanie Auberville and Rajendra Serber

Présence and Performance

How can Contact Improvisation be used in performance? Contact Improvisation teaches us how to be present and make choices in the moment. What happens to our dance when we invite witnesses to view it? In this two part class we will practice using the tools of CI in the situation of being seen. Attendance to both sessions is not required.The first session will focus on how CI can help us to get deeper in a communication state. Communication with both our inner state and with our partner. CI has developed a wide range of tools about perceptions; touch, kinesthesis, balance, sight and more subtle energies. All of these senses inform our presence and our choices. By working on presence as the mode of communication with our partner, we will develop a balance between feeling, listening, acting and making choices in an instant.The second session will focus on using these tools in performance. What happens when we are in a performance situation – when there is a little stress of being seen? What kind of switch happens there? As we integrate the sight of a witness while we are dancing, we will use presence and attention to subtle energy as the subject of our performance practice.

Dates September 11th to 14th, 2010 from Noon to 6 pm
Location Point Éphémère (200 quai de Valmy 75010 Paris)

Fees Full workshop = 120 euros
Only the 11th and 12th september = 85 euros
Registration Stéphanie Auberville legrp.b@free.fr / +33 (0)6 50 81 41 08
Registration until the 31th august 2010

I am teaching in london on september 25, 2010.

It’s at Moving East Centre for Dance, Martial Arts and Complementary Medicine, St Matthias Church Hall Wordsworth Road, Stoke Newington, London N16 8DD.

Their website is hopelessly out of date (the still have the 2009 calendar up) but at least there’s some information about which bus to take to get there: contactimprovisation.co.uk

I’m going to be co-teaching a workshop with Stéphanie Auberville (France)

Presence and Performance an Advanced CI Workshop

July 10 – 11 (10am – 1:30pm) 2010

CounterPULSE 1310 Mission Street @ 9th San Francisco, CA

Prices and Registration CIRF

How can Contact Improvisation be used in performance? Contact Improvisation teaches us how to be present and make choices in the moment. What happens to our dance when we invite witnesses to view it? In this two part class we will practice using the tools of CI in the situation of being seen. Attendance to both sessions is not required.

The first session will focus on how CI can help us to get deeper in a communication state. Communication with both our inner state and with our partner. CI has developed a wide range of tools about perceptions; touch, kinesthesis, balance, sight and more subtle energies. All of these senses inform our presence and our choices. By working on presence as the mode of communication with our partner, we will develop a balance between feeling, listening, acting and making choices in an instant.

The second session will focus on using these tools in performance. What happens when we are in a performance situation – when there is a little stress of being seen? What kind of switch happens there? As we integrate the sight of a witness while we are dancing, we will use presence and attention to subtle energy as the subject of our performance practice.

My first evening length collaboration after a long hiatus. Each evening will be a unique event you won’t want to miss!

Danse pour les Mouches (Dance for the Flies )

July 13 – 14 (8pm) 2010

A fly can see 200 images per seconds with 3,000 eyes. Have you ever thought about having this panoramic vision? How would that change your understanding of the world around you? Could that make you happy? Two dancers, two musicians and a video artist are building their own world – a world to fly.

Stéphanie Auberville (France), Bulk Foodveyor, Cheryl Leonard (Antarctica), Rajendra Serber and Matt Davignon.

Tuesday 7/13 Bargain Nite only $10-20 Wednesday 7/14 Including After Party $15-25 ($5 party-only) Tickets CIRF

The Garage 975 Howard @ 6th San Francisco, CA

Presented by Contact Improvisation Research Forum CIRF

I’ll be performing this month in…

Scott Wells & Dancers BALLISTIC

May 28 - June 6, 8:00pm

At CounterPULSE, Tickets: $18 (advance), $22 at the door

Ballistic is:

1) Of the science or study of the motion of projectiles, as bullets, shells, juggling balls and Scott Wells & Dancers.

2) Of… the art or science of designing projec…tiles and training dancers for maximum flight performance.

Winners of the 2009 Isadora Duncan Award for Best Choreography, Scott Wells & Dancers is renown for their high-flying, gravity-defying dance. In their new show BALLISTIC the seven men will be dancing with a stage full of balls of every size imaginable. Bodies and balls will be flying, bouncing, vaulting on the floor, on the walls and on each other. Two world-class jugglers and five amazing dancers will ensure a night of great dance theater.

Dancers: Rajendra Serber, Andrew Ward, Sebastian Grubb, Cason McBride, Cameron Growden, Zack Bernstein, Aaron Jessup

I’ll be teaching a free class as part of national dance week. Check it out…

Contact Improvisation Research Forum (CIRF) is offering 3 FREE taster classes and a Jam April 29 at CounterPULSE as part of Bay Area National Dance Week.

FREE TASTER CLASSES

• 6:30pm: CI Square One with Ali Woolwich (fundamentals)
• 7:30pm: Body-Mind Centering & CI with Cathie Caraker (intermediate)
• 8:30pm: Advanced CI with Rajendra Serber
• 9:30pm: Round Robin

10pm-midnight: Open Jam

WCCIF 2010 Registration, Work Exchange (WEX) sign-ups, and Scholarship applications will be available all evening.

Thursday, April 29th in San Francisco at CounterPULSE 1310 Mission Street at 9th, SF, CA. 94103, RSVP here

More info at ciresearchforum.org

There’s a nice article about my work on sf360. Read all about it…

I will be premiering my latest dance film, Dolores Sugar High, at MOVE(MEN)T3 this Saturday and Sunday (April 17, 18).

Dolores Sugar High features Kira Kirsch and Hana Erdman eating ice cream and dancing with wild abandon in Dolores Park. I will also be showing Just Off – a collaboration with Eric Kupers, Iu-Hui Chua and Dandelion Dance Theater. see below for info on the event and the rest of the interesting work that will be in the festival…

MOVE(MEN)T3

The third annual Move(men)t Festival opens this coming Thurs.! Move(men)t is a festival of dance that features male choreographers from around the Bay Area and abroad. We have two different programs over four days. The Thurs. and Fri. program features some of the most exciting and emerging choreographers working in the contemporary idiom. The Sat and Sun. program features seasoned and zany works of improvisation and with postmodernist underpinnings. We encourage you to come and see both programs as they offer different takes on how male choreographers may create. Or it offers a chance to see what similarities we all share. Only you can decide.

Where: The Garage, 975 Howard, SF CA When: April 15-18 2010 @ 8pm Tickets: $10-20, brownpapertickets.com

April 15-16: David Herrera Performance Co., MOVE: the company, Dance Continuum SF, FACT/SF, Michael Velez, Labayen Dance/SF, Jose Navarrette

April 17-18: Folawole, Andrew Ward, Rajendra Serber, Dance/Theater Shannon- ME, Kegan Marling, Cali & CO, Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos

this week i’ve decided to free free myself of all regrets. i’d like to pluck them from my body and leave the remaining empty voids empty voids. come purge yourself with me…

I’ll be performing a solo dance at VERGEfest…

VERGEfest @ TheGarage

The Garage presents a new festival featuring contemporary dance, improvisation and performance.

Saturday March 20, 2010 rajendra serber / andrew ward & sebastian grubb / christine cali & melecio estrella & a new workshop score designed by sara shelton mann

Sunday March 21, 2010 christine bonansea / rajendra serber + workshop performances

I’ll be one of the the non-ballerinas in…

Scott Wells and Augusta Moore present:

Double Booked, a ballet and contact collision

6-7pm at ODC Commons, Argyle Studio, Saturday March 20 2010

FREE

Scott Wells is this years recipient for San Francisco’s most prestigious dance award, The Izzy for Best Choreography and a long time contact fanatic. Augusta Moore is a former member of SF Ballet and one of the highest regarded ballet teachers in the Bay Area.

The dancers include local contact superstars and ballet phenoms.

A study in contrasts; presentation vs somaticism, form vs function, etherea vs groundness, extension vs intention, the transitions and meetings.

I will be teaching at Somatic Movement Arts Festival, L.A. October 6-11, 2009 in Santa Monica.

Contact Improvisation – Integration of the Senses

In the class we will use contact improvisation to explore somatic communication. The focus will be on integration of our senses to heighten our perception of ourselves and our partners. We will warm up with sensory exploration and practice techniques for learning, and playing with, the unique qualities of a partner – moving beyond a static understanding of physiology to a holistic perception of kinetic, energetic and emotional bodies. We will develop our awareness of what our contact communicates, and practice listening skills to respond to what is being offered. Then we will use that as a guide to dance in a playful dialog with our partner.

This is the Contact Improvisation phase book that I used in my class “Contact Communication” this year at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival. I like to think of contact improvisation as a dialog in a physical language. Use these phases to explore what can be expressed in contact improvisation. Try to see how a specific body part can translate these questions from english to a physical expression. Then take the time to listen for the answers.

Can I touch you?

How much do you weigh?

What is your range of movement?

What are you connected to?

Is there tension here?

Will you move with me?

Where are you going?

Where is your center of gravity?

Where does your weight meet the floor?

What is your frequency?

I’ll be teaching Contact Improv at CounterPulse in San Francisco. Every tuesday in June 2009. The class starts at 6:30pm, followed by the jam at 8pm.

How do we move from reenacting tricks to a physical dialog? This class will focus on the Improvisation aspect of Contact Improvisation. We will warm up with basic contact improvisation skills and explore techniques for learning, and playing with, the unique qualities of a partner’s physicality. We will develop our awareness of what our contact communicates, and practice listening skills to respond to what is being offered. Then we will use that as a guide to make the dance a playful dialog with our partner. The workshop is open to all levels.

Hope to see you there.

I’ll be dancing in “What Men Want” choreographed by Scott Wells & Dancers.

Macho Ballads; dances with aggressive overtones and romantic undertones. New works and the recent Litquake collaboration with writer, Michelle Tea—

ìan aesthetic-pleasure-overload fantasyî SF CHRONICLE.

The dances for 10 men and the premiere with world class jugglers will rock CounterPULSEóìbouncing off walls and flying in your faceÖelectrifying!î, SF WEEKLY

May 22, 23, 24, 28, 29 30, 31 2009
8pm

Tickets: Advance: $20, at the door $25