LANDING INTO CONTACT TIME
April 23rd to 27th 2025
Contact Time @ SerVivo
April 28th to May 4th 2025
Contact Improvisation and Body-Mind Centering®
Dancing on
fertile Ground
Dancing on fertile ground
Contact Time April 28th to May 4th 2025
7 days to explore Contact Improvisation as a movement practice, that is based on artistic and somatic approaches.
We imagine to create a fertile ground together for dances that are friendly and chaotic and fun. Because fertile ground is good to have everywhere, in us as well as around us for something useful to emerge like resilience or clarity or the ability to communicate appropriately. We wish to offer space to embody the poetics of nature and the joy of simply moving.
A structure of workshops, lab time and jams will carry us as a group through the days.
We will dance in the beautiful studio of SerVivo and outdoors, inspired by the landscape of Arrábida Nature Park and stunning sandy beaches.
Situated in SerVivo, a 40min drive south of Lisbon, Portugal we meet with 30 to 40 people. This size of a group gives the opportunity to connect to most of the others without getting overwhelmed easily. Whenever you feel the need to rest, walk or be on your own, there is plenty of nature around to enjoy.
Our festivals welcome all bodies and genders.
Any level of experience is welcome. If you never danced Contact Improvisation before, we invite you to arrive rather early during landing time. Like this you can join the beginners class and slowly arrive as well in the practice.
Do you want to stay updated about our events? Click here for our newsletter (more or less four times a year).
More about:
Contact improvisation is a form of improvised partner dancing that has been developing internationally since 1972. It involves the exploration of one’s body in relationship to others by using the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch, and movement awareness. It has evolved into a broad global community of social dancing around “jams” characterized by their welcoming attitude towards newcomers to dance, as well as seasoned practitioners.
American dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton originated contact improvisation, drawing from his past training in Aikido, a martial art form, to explore and push boundaries with his colleagues and students to develop this new practice. Contact improvisation plays with the artistry of falling off balance, counterbalance, finding the shelves of the body, learning the mechanics of the body in order to handle someone else’s weight or be lifted, breathing techniques, and can involve the art of getting to know your partner past the physical point through the physicality.
Steve Paxton, along with other pioneers Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, Peter Bingham, and Ray Chung, thus participated in creating an “art-sport,” oscillating between different emphases depending on the moments and personalities.
Body Mind Centering® (BMC) is based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical and developmental principles.
BMC® explores movement, touch, voice and mind and teaches us to recognise ourselves and interact with others, through focusing attention and intention.
Developed by dancer and occupational therapist Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, BMC® fosters a dynamic body mind awareness for processes of learning and repatterning. The approach takes place in dance and movement training, bodywork, physiotherapy and occupational therapy and is constantly evolving.
Let's Land
Landing into Contact Time April 23rd to 27th 2025
Any day from April 23rd on, we warmly invite you to come to SerVivo. Take the time to arrive, go to beaches (15-45min. drive away), dive already in CI in jams and enjoy the growing group, become a short term member of the community of SerVivo. We will gather in the mornings to meet each other, connect and plan activities for the day.
This time is for people who want to feel already more arrived when the festival starts.
Food will be self managed. This means we organize together shopping (10-15min drive away), cooking and cleaning. You can already set up your tent, move into the dormitory, park your camper. Paying just 15€ per night plus food.
Landing into Contact Time is connected to Contact Time and not to be attended separately.
Facilitators
Aude Fondard
Nature Immersion
Aude trained for stage acting in France and in London (2005-2009). They reconnected with dance, thanks to Mira Mansell, Entity Dance Company, Sydney. From 2011 Aude delved into the contemporary dance world with Stella Zannou, Britta Pudelko and Rakesh Sukesh, at Tanzfabrik, Berlin. They eventually joined Atsushi Takenouchi’s Jinen Butoh School in Tuscany (2016-17).
One of their focus as a dance artist is landscape. Aude is especially interested in the spirit of the place, and its impact on human beings. When they are not performing or writing poetry, Aude facilitates Contact Improvisation jams and classes, butoh-inspired dance journeys and dance with nature sessions.
Aude launched Cie Amako! in 2020, an association based in Marseilles, supporting their poetic and dance performances. This videoclip gives an idea of a recent production.
Jennie Zimmermann
Somatics and Dance / Body Mind Centering®
Jennie has been dancing Contact Improvisation for more than 15 years and is a Body-Mind Centering® Somatic Movement Educator. Her work is mainly somatic and improvisation based and offers spaces to explore and reflect on elementary and dynamic processes of communication, activity and regeneration, self-care and relationship.
She followed the Laban Bartenieff Movement Analysis Programme at Eurolab Berlin and studied naturopathy, intuitive and process-based bodywork approaches and herbal medicine since 2001.
For many years she co-organized and performed in the street theatre company mosaique in fire, dance and stilt shows.
Together with Jo Bruhn she organizes Contact Time.
Jo Bruhn
Contact Improvisation
Jo Bruhn is a passionate dancer, performer and CI teacher.
Since 2001 he dedicated his life to performing arts in various facets. As acrobat, fire show artist, as stilt walker, as actor, choreographer and most important – as dancer.
The intense work with Nancy Stark Smith inspired Jo’s teaching, dancing and his artistic approach to dance.
Jo took part in the Contemporary Dance education “Dance Intensive” at the Tanzfabrik Berlin and in countless workshops in CI, Axis Syllabus, Klein Technique, acrobatics with various teachers like Jörg Hassmann, Frey Faust, Britta Pudelko amongst many others.
Recently deep inspiration came from Atsushi Takenouchi and his work with Jinen Butoh.
Jo is part of the “Contact companI” and co-organizer of CI festival “Contact Time” and works as a solo artist and in collaboration with others like Aude Fondard (Dance – theater „Designed to Die?“), Jennie Zimmermann (mosaique, Contact Time).
Rita Vilhena
Contemporary Dance researcher
A professional dancer since 2003, her main motivation is the idea of transformation and participation, driven by intuition and pleasure. Her latest works #VIBRA #DOR and CORPO SANTO are a mark of her artistic career with an interest in ritual and performance, with MA-MA and Pela Nossa Pele, in the anthropocene and ecofeminism and, more recently, research and creation on the autobiographical.
In 2005 she created and directed Baila Louca improvisation and performance in Rotterdam, a platform that has nurtured various international collaborations with choreographers, dancers and musicians. She won first prize in the Solo Dance Contest (2012) at the Gdansk Dance Festival – Club Zak , Poland. In Portugal, she is the artistic director and founding member of the Partícula Extravagante association and the program maker of Partícula no Açúcar an experimental platform.
Since 2005, she has been an active member of the Contact Improvisation practice, facilitates CI around the world and co-organises the Portugal Contact Improvisation Festival and Contact Improvisation Portugal Extravagante. She divides her time between teaching and studying. She is a guest teacher at the Escola Superior de Dança, at similar colleges in Holland, as well as at various international festivals. She has a Master’s degree in Performing Arts from FCSH, is a PhD candidate in Artistic Studies – Art and Mediations at Faculdade Nova de Lisboa (FCSH), and is a researcher at ICNOVA – Performance and Cognition.
Daniella Kassif
Guest teacher
Daniella is a CI dancer and teacher, seeking freedom and expression in human relations through movement. She has been dancing and training in various dance techniques since childhood, practising all the range from ballet to contact Improvisation.
After graduating with her BA in ‘Cinema and Choreography’ (2020), she took part in the bi-annual choreography program of ‘Kelim Center’ where she explored the relations between the open form of Contact Improvisation and the performative space.
Inspired by the perspective of Deep Ecology, Daniella is integrating those ideas into her movement practice and creation.
Since November 2023, Daniella has been based in SerVivo, Portugal, where she continues her choreography practice and teaching of CI in BONA Project, Lisbon.
Chris Gaber
Guest teacher
More coming soon
details
Language
Apesar dos nossos esforços para aprender português e devido à diversidade linguística dos convidados que visitam o SerVivo, o inglês internacional será utilizado para ensinar durante o Tempo de Contacto. A página web e as descrições estão, portanto, todas em inglês. Obrigado pela vossa compreensão e vamos misturar línguas e culturas uma vez juntos.
Despite our efforts to learn Portuguese and due to the linguistic diversity of guests visiting SerVivo, international English will be used to teach during Contact Time. The webpage and descriptions are therefore all in English. Thanks for your understanding and let’s blend languages and cultures once together.
Costs
The costs for the whole Contact Time festival (April 28th to May 4th 2025), accommodation and mostly organic food are 420-500€ depending on how much you can pay. We are aware that the amount is much higher than last year. It’s due to the length of the festival (1 day more than last year) and the much higher costs for food.
The price for the Landing into Contact Time (April 23rd to 27th 2025) is 15€ per night plus 10€ for food per day. (It will be bought collectively but prepared self managed).
Food
During the festival, Yentl, our wonderful cook, will prepare delicious vegan and vegetarian meals from mostly organic and locally sourced ingredients.
If you have any allergies, please let us know beforehand.
During Landing into Contact Time we will manage the cooking as a group or individually.
Dates & Times
Landing into Contact Time starts on Wednesday April 23rd noon.
Contact Time festival starts on Monday April 28th 5pm.
We invite you to arrive latest in the early afternoon and take your time to land in SerVivo. The first common meal will be dinner.
The festival ends on Sunday May 4th afternoon.
Please understand that there is no possibility to stay an extra night. SerVivo needs a clear ending of the event to have a happy rest after.
Where to find us
All details how to find SerVivo here:
https://www.servivo.earth/directions/
Scroll down for a detailed directions.
Accommodation
You are welcome to bring your own tent, sleeping bag and mat and camp outside. Be aware that it can be cold at night.
If you would like to sleep in the house, we can offer you a space in a dormitory (bunk beds for 6-8 people per room).
What to bring
- Comfortable clothes for movement in- and outdoors
- Sun protection
- Mosquito repellent
- Swimming suit
- Towel
- Bottle for drinking water
- A food box to take lunch to the beach
- Torch
- Enough clothes we cannot do laundry!
- Warm cloth, yes it might get chilly at night…
After having sent the registration form please pay a deposit of 80€ to:
Jennie Zimmermann, Johannes Bruhn
IBAN: DE70 2802 0050 8227 7419 00
BIC: OLBODEH2XXX
Subject: Deposit Contact Time
Amount: 80€
If the transfer costs you a big fee, don’t do it and let us know, we will find a different solution.
Should you cancel until two weeks before the festival (which we do not hope, of course), we will transfer you 70€ back. Should you cancel later, we keep the deposit. If you cancel less than 48h prior the festival, you are obliged to pay the full festival price.
Before the festival we will send out more information.
Do you have questions?
Timetable
This timetable gives you an overview about the structure, details will be added. There might be changes.