The Movement of Imagination

Join us for two days of movement workshops with Contact Improv and performance artist, Arash Khakpour, and put your creative flow in motion!
All levels welcome!
Come experience a movement and imagination based way of building consciousness in community!
Be guided in exploring the joy of movement, expanding pleasure and self discovery within a safe, non-judgement container.
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TWO WORKSHOPS!
Wednesday evening + Thursday Afternoon
1) Wednesday, June 10th, 6:30pm - 9:30pm
DIMENSIONS OF IMAGINATION
~ Contact Improvisation Workshop ~

In this workshop we will bring the value of agility and tactility to awaken our intuition. This practice invites us to lean into and remember to follow our biology as a space that expands our perceptual possibilities. This awakens our embodied trust and empathetic body that reveals the nature of interdependence with all that is. We will work on physical partnering by using specific skills such as bridging, yielding, tone modulating, and weight-sharing to sharpen our awareness and dexterity. These skills allow us to practice autonomy, personal responsibility and a deeper connection to bodies. We will work on enhancing personal suppleness and tuning into the group's intelligence. We will work on expanding our physical skillsets through indulging in the range of our senses, energetic fields in the body, noticing emotions and tapping into imagination. Can imagination guide us to inhabit our bodies of knowledge and generosity? I believe the heart, as an organ, plays an important part in linking us and our paths of dancing together through It’s electromagnetic field. I will share how using imagination initiates dancing Contact Improvisation in a hyper-sensitive state of awareness, which connects us more deeply to the heart-centre and our heartfelt dancing. This cultivates a state of respectful curiosity for ourselves and others and an expansive willingness to call in and welcome the unknown in the dance of reality.
Some things we will touch on in the workshop:
Spherical awareness
Perceptual play
Tapping into the energetic circumference of our bones
Bridging our skeletons as a form of support and generosity
The role of the spine and spirals in contact
Modulating tone as a tool for cultivating respect
Seamless and graceful weight sharing
Finding flow in the mid-rage
How to be 10 percent freer while dancing
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2) Thursday, June 11th, 3:30pm - 6:00pm

DIMENSIONS OF PERCEPTION
~ Non-verbal Movement Workshop ~
HOW WOULD YOU LIVE YOUR WARM-UP IF YOU WERE A GOD?
In a singular, personal and collective action, located in a dance studio, we attempt to get ‘warmed up’ together while maneuvering the inner and outer landscapes of sensation, emotion and perception. In this 2-hour attempt to be non-verbal, non-descriptive, and tender with our humanity, we incorporate and work with the energy in the room as our material for the warm-up. What are the different levels of warming up our attention and tuning into the improvisational mind? What are the habits and tendencies that keep me from seeing the essence of the other? Who is this ‘me’ seeing this ‘we’?
This is not a space that is seeking to be strict and rigid, but a generative space of guidance and awakening. Awakening to the dreams of the night before and nights ahead. From north to south and east to west, above and below, we are steeped in dimensions that guide us and our choices. We are the dimensions. We are the directions that bring love and light to the dark corners of abandonment and despair. What are my limits of comfort in meeting myself and the other? Is there room to lean into the unknown? In an attempt to let go of the need to possess, impress, or dominate, we practice kindness with ourselves and others to experience what warming up means to us today.
“THE INTUITIVE MIND IS A SACRED GIFT, AND THE RATIONAL MIND IS A FAITHFUL SERVANT. WE HAVE CREATED A SOCIETY THAT HONORS THE SERVANT AND HAS FORGOTTEN THE GIFT.” --ALBERT EINSTEIN (OR SOMEONE ELSE)
The exploration in class will include movement with vocalization, physical touch with sensitivity, and improvisation. Please note that this class will be guided completely non-verbally.
The class will be around 2 hours, with a 45 min to 1 hour conversation at the end

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Register in Advance - Enrollment Limited:
FEES:
Wednesday June 10th Workshop - $40 Regular / $25 Students
Thursday June 11th Workshop - $35 Regular / $20 Students
Both Workshops - $60 Regular / $35 Students
Info/ Registration:
Alaris Todar 641-451-0960
PayPal: [email protected]
Venmo: @Alaris-Todar

Bio:
Arash Khakpour (آرش خاکپور)
I am dancer, choreographer, movement dramaturg and facilitator from Tehran and based in Coast Salish Territory (colonially known as Vancouver, Canada). I have been practicing dance and performance for the past 16 years and have been a company member and part of the EDAM Contact Improvisation ensemble since 2017 under the direction of Peter Bingham.
In 2018, I was mentored by Raïna von Waldenburg on presence and embodiment based on the Grotowski method. In 2023, I completed a mentorship project with Benoît Lachambre on deepening his performance and facilitation practice. Most recently, I was one of nineteen participants in ‘The Mystery School of Choreography’ in Lisbon, directed by Meg Stuart and Ana Rocha.
I invest in and tend to the nuances of prejudice within my body as a way of inviting the unconscious into the conscious and as a doorway to embrace unknown emotions. I sees dance as a process of emotional and spiritual discoveries and a mode of transformation. I work with dance as a process that researches the human condition through mythical, social, political and animistic interpretations.
As a first-generation immigrant, I continuously consider what spaces of healing I can bring to the land and communities I works with. I cultivate a culture of relationality and reciprocity that celebrates the multiplicity of presences and approaches. I am the co-founder and co-artistic director of the dance-theatre-film company The Biting School.

We so look forward to sharing this rare opportunity with you!