1X3: Masterclass with Three Contemporary Dance Artists

Join Kristen Lewis, Jennifer McLeish-Lewis and James-Amzin Nahirnick for a three hour Masterclass in Floor Work Technique, Contact Improvisation Skills, and Contemporary Performance Practice. Each teacher will offer one hour of their own unique skill set and experience.

No prior dance experience is required, but a strong level of focus, concentration, physical rigour, and commitment to staying present are required.

The goal is an aware, alert, and embodied presence that uses the full capacity of the mover as a human being awake in the world. More sensitivity is reached through relaxing the nervous system. More alertness is reached through waking up the mind with moment-by-moment choice making. Deeper embodiment is reached through a deep listening to the relationship to the earth, each other, and the space around us.

There will be lots of time for practice and open dancing. Please wear bare feet and comfortable clothing. A water bottle is always nice to have, as is a notebook. Dress in layers so that your body can stay regulated with the temperature of the room that day. All levels, abilities, and genders are welcome and encouraged. This workshop is LGBTQ+ inclusive.

Who: Dancers, Movers, anyone interested in expanding their embodiment practice

What: A three hour masterclass with a local Victoria teacher and two visiting teachers from Vancouver

Where: Camosun College Dance Studio

(3100 Foul Bay Rd, Room 114 of the Young Building, # 18 on the map here: https://camosun.ca/about/our-campuses/lansdowne-campus)

When: 12noon-3pm

Why: To come together in practice to enhance our skills, for the love of dance.

How: $40 including all taxes and fees

Jennifer McLeish-Lewis has been a teacher of Contact Improvisation since 2006. Since 2002 she has studied and has had an ongoing practice under master improviser and contact teacher Peter Bingham. She has also trained with international teachers such as Ray Chung, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken, Karl Frost, and Allen and Karen Kaeja. Jennifer was a performer from 2002- 2012 with the contact based company MACHiNENOiSY in Vancouver, directed by Delia Brett and Daelik, performing in works inspired and underpinned by Contact Dance. In 2005 Jennifer was a performer in Karl Frost's improvised participatory performance, Axolotl, a show that toured the west coast of Canada and the U.S.A. She taught on Lasqueti Island at Leviathan Studio in 2012 and 2013, and was a guest teacher at the Elsewhere Canadian Improvisation Festival in 2013. Her unwavering commitment to Contact Improvisation has led her to teach classes and workshops up and down the west coast, across Canada, and in Mexico. As a student of EDAM and Peter Bingham, Jennifer takes her place in the lineage as second generation to the originators and innovators of this postmodern partnering form.

James-Amzin is a contemporary dancer, tap dancer and improviser from Vancouver Island, BC. James-Amzin’s aim in dance is to materialize the inner preposterousness. Dance, for James-Amzin, is one of the last socially acceptable bastions of modern magical practice.

James-Amzin’s class offering may consist of functional patterns in, out of, and through the floor. Exploring varied movement pathways, observable in other animals, and those unique to our dancing bodies. Gaining strength and mobilizing against risk in preparation for the unknown. We will gain competency in being upside down, practice utilizing the energy of falling, as well as tap into our dynamic range. This practice will be intended to exercise a dancer’s physical and decision making pliability to follow through into their contact improvisation practice. Through set forms of movement and intentional improvisation will inform how we interrogate our relationship to space and our capacity within it.

Kristen is a performance and dance artist based, at the moment, in Victoria, B.C. Her teaching practice aims to expand perceptual awareness to include a wider scope of the reality which forms the context for our performance, on stage and in life and points in between. She teaches performance art practice, contemporary dance, liturgical dance, and contact improvisation. She values rigour, discipline, deep emotional honesty, a sense of humour, a connection to tradition, courage, and a certain audacity that wills itself beyond the known. She loves welcoming students at all stages, from raw beginner to professionals; her youngest students have been babies, her oldest to date has been 92. She is the artistic director of Gull Cry Dance.

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Host or Publisher Gull Cry Dance