Voice-Off Contact Improv Workshop with Juliana Frick and Vitali Kononov

Name: Voice-Off Contact Improv Workshop with Juliana Frick and Vitali Kononov
Start: 2025-01-19T13:00:00-08:00
End: 2025-01-19T16:00:00-08:00
Location: Berkeley Finnish Hall

Schedule

Sun Jan 19 2025 at 01:00 pm to 04:00 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

Berkeley Finnish Hall | Berkeley, CA

In this workshop, we invite you to explore contact improv in a non-verbal learning environment. The workshop is for everyone, including hearing and Deaf people. Most instruction will be given through visual demonstration. We will also use tactile feedback, writing and gesture as tools for learning.
We would like you to see the limitation of 'no words' as a gift, not a restriction. Our intention is to cultivate an attention to detail by employing your multiple somatosensory channels and emphasizing rapid sensory processing for self-guided embodied learning.
Sunday January 19th 1pm-4pm
The Finnish Hall
1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley, CA 94702
Taught by Juliana Frick and Vitali Kononov
COST:
$50 before January 10th
$75 after January 10th
***If cost is prohibitive, please email Juliana at [email protected]***
PLEASE FILL OUT THE FORM TO REGISTER
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-tPNtY5iRaDotC91c4kgKnBiRa-cBnCUR41KXME8U41TTRg/viewform?usp=header
Why?
From Juliana: I have been experimenting with Voice Off teaching for 2 years, inspired by my own experience as a Deaf person attending movement classes for hearing people. As a learner, I have found that, in the right classroom environment, my Deafness enhances my practice of Contact Improv. As a teacher, I have found that turning off my voice and guiding my students to learn from observation rather than being told what to do produces exactly the state we are looking to cultivate in a dance.
From Vitali: In my own classes and in the classes I've taken with others I notice that verbal instructions can be very helpful, but sometimes they create a barrier between our cognitive intelligence and our other intelligences. I find it fascinating and I have been experimenting with using non-verbal teaching since my early years as an educator. I am inspired to create a learning environment that cultivates embodied states instead of relying on verbal instructions.
About the teachers:
Juliana Frick is an award-winning physical theater artist, acrobat and former musician based in Berkeley, CA. She is passionate about the creative process and works to build an environment of fierce commitment and wild imagination among collaborators. She is a founding core member of UpLift Physical Theater, the founder and director of Pinecones and Portals Hiking Theater company and produces independent work as Juliana Frick Performance. As a teaching artist, she has experimented with Voice Off teaching in Egypt, Pakistan and at Vassar College in New York. She discovered her love of Contact Improv after becoming profoundly Deaf in 2022.
Vitali Kononov is a movement artist, bodyworker and somatic movement educator, working with improvisation as a performance discipline, therapeutic tool and contemplative practice. He has been teaching contact improvisation since 1997 in Russia, Europe, USA and Mexico. His background includes contemporary dance, physical theater, contact and ensemble improvisation, as well as various somatic disciplines and yoga. Vitali has completed the Somatic Educator, Developmental Movement, Embodied Anatomy and Yoga programs from The School for Body-Mind Centering®. He taught at Moving On Center – School for Participatory Arts and Somatic Research since 2002 and was a faculty member of American Dance Festival (2003-04). Artistic and co-teaching collaborations in the field of CI include Brenton Cheng, Carol Swann, Rosemary Hannon, Andrew Wass, Erika Tsimbrovsky and Vadim Puyandaev, Scott Wells, Taja Will, Jo Kreiter and others.