Vesuvius Contact Festival

Vesuvius Contact Fest, 6 days of Contact Improvisation on the slopes of Vesuvius to celebrate the end of summer by dancing!

They will be days of study, sharing, research and fun just a stone's throw from the archaeological park of Pompeii and the sea.
In this third edition, the intensive will be held by Thomas Mettler; in the afternoons will take place the classes of Elisa Ghion, Jurij Konjar e Caterina Mocciola and the proposals of the participants that we will collect together. In the program there is als an Underscore practice and a Talk. And every night... JAM!

The event will be hosted by the Sharing Art association in a new space surrounded by nature, equipped with two dancefloors, a bar and space for tents; the cuisine will be vegan with vegetarian options.

The event is organized by CI.NA - Contact Improvisation Napoli in collaboration with Klimax Dance and Sharing Art Pompei.

Practical Infos

• DATES: From 3th to 8th September 2024 (5 nights / 6 days), arriving on the 3th afternoon and leaving on the 8th afterlunch
• WHERE: Pompeii (Naples, Italy) - reachable from the A3 motorway, or by trains leaving from Naples directed to Sorrento (Circumvesuviana line) or Salerno (Trenitalia) - closest airport: Naples (NAP)
• PROGRAM: Intensive Courses in the mornings and some afternoons - Single classes and participants' proposals in the afternoons - Jam every evening and some mornings - plus an Underscore practice, and a Talk about Contact Improvisation
• SLEEPING: in your own tent, or in a sleeping bag and mat in a pre-assembled tent (limited places, at the time of registration we will notify you if your choice is confirmed)
• FOOD: Vegan with Vegetarian options - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snacks - meals included are from dinner on the 3th to lunch on the 8th September
• COST: Early Bird Sliding Price (available until June 30th): from 340 to 380€ | after June 30th: 380€
  Sliding Price: those who can pay more support the event and people who are in more difficult situations; pay as much as you can, knowing that your generosity makes the event possible!
  We are willing to support Ukrainians dancers, if you are one of them write to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more infos.
• REGISTRATION: registration page
• CONTACT: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

THE TEACHERS:

THOMAS METTLER (Svizzera) - 9hrs Intensive
"The fluid body"

How much tenderness and at the same time strength water can contain!
It flows, settles, meanders, swirls, supports and transports, and at the same time penetrates into and through mountains, moving blocks of rock.

We ourselves are made up of around 70% water, but recent research even suggests there is 88-90% liquid in the body! How can we embody all these qualities of water in ourselves and in our dance, how can we bring the qualities of flow and transportation into our Contact dances and solos? Dancing fluidly, lightly and strongly.
In these days together we will look for answers - and a quality - by practicing tenderness with our own body, truly listening to each other to become a single person with our "partner", in immobility and in movement, slowly and quickly, on the floor, in space, in the air.
Becoming one with the great river (or sometimes a small stream) that is dance.

Our starting point in this research is un-doing. Through a deep listening to our bodies, to our senses, we open ourselves to an internal and external search - not towards perfection - but towards understanding the basic foundations and principles that make lighter lifts possible. Through an awakened consciousness and listening to the energy of the other dancer, we can dance Contact Improvisation gently and effortlessly.

Through in-depth work with our fascia we seek appropriate muscle tone. We discover new possibilities for working with free floating bones and a lightweight skeleton, within a system of fluid connective tissue and malleable muscles.

The technical principles taught aim for the movements of one to float on those of the other, instead of "climbing" on the partner. Technique and strength come from within - from and towards respect for your own body as well as your partner's body.

An important part of the work in this dance is the use of breath - getting in touch with our breath, with the breath of the partner's movement - "to take a ride on that breath" - TOGETHER.

it's a work about joy
it's a dance about less work
it's the joy of dance
it's a dance of joy

let's share the dance

BIO THOMAS METTLER

He has been working in Theater and Dance with uninterrupted continuous research for over 42 years: 38 years of teaching, of which 4 years full time at professional theater and dance schools in London and Paris, and over 150 intensive workshops, and his numerous creations have taken him to Colombia, France, England, Italy, Germany, the United States, India, Greece, Portugal, Finland, Spain, Israel, Palestine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Switzerland. He meets artists of different cultural backgrounds all over the world for joint projects or invites them for creations in Switzerland, his country of origin: in this way, he constantly tries to realize his dream of a world without borders.

"Contact Improvisation is for me - even at this moment in my life and for my dance - always more: LESS is MORE!
More with less (less strength / less effort / less obstinacy = more lightness, more fluidity, more together) - or, in other words, listening instead of doing doing doing..."

www.keep-searching.ch - To see him dance / improvise, take a look at his Vimeo page: https://vimeo.com/user47646252

ELISA GHION
"A second skin"

Ahh, the skin!
Each adult has about 2 square meters fo skin, intimately embedded of meanings and symbols.
During this meeting we will bring our attention to some aspects:
The skin as a permeable territory that connects the internal space and the external one: no longer a border, but a place of constant exchange.
The presence of skin receptors: small sentinels of our nervous system able to decipher the stimuli that tickle our skin. Each type of touch awakens specific receptors, a prefect and refined system of reading and understanding of what happens on our surface.
The skin as a meeting place. Touch is the sense of reciprocity: the moment I touch you, you are touching me. It cannot be otherwise.

We will meet, we will be wrapped by a second skin, both working in solo or in couple or trio.

BIO ELISA GHION

She discovered contact improvisation under a tree, during a juggling convention, in 2004. She immediately fell in love with it and gave up the charm of jugglers in favor of the wonderful practice she had just discovered. She studies with many trainers in Italy and abroad, integrating Contact Improvisation with somatic practices, parkour, mountain walking and any other practice that trains the body in all its aspects: physical, perceptive, imaginative, emotional, collective. She considers improvisation one of the most powerful tools of contemporary resistance, which prepares one to be rooted and ready for an increasingly unstable and unpredictable, fragile society. She collaborates with theater schools, integrating the work of the actor with the study of the body as a creator of narratives. She teaches at many international CI festivals (Israel, Romania, Freiburg, Italy, USA). Since 2017 she has been a Fascial Integration operator. She has been an organizer of CI events for many years, in 2018 she founded the CorPoetica association in Milan and since 2020 she has been a CI teacher at the Artemente dance academy.
She is passionate both about the performative aspects, but even more about the pedagogy of Contact, she considers a privilege to transmit this practice and witness the amazement of those who discover it for the first time.

JURIJ KONJAR
"The essentials"

What is particular to/about the dance/practice of Contact Improvisation? I find that to be communication through an exchange of weight, and working with the fall - both to the ground, and through movement.
Relating to these topics, I like to keep the dance in the reflexual, pre-thought chronology - to support and go with what I recognise is already happening, rather then decide in advance. For that, we need an awake, responsive, and therefore soft body. So that is something we train.
I also like to work in particular with the horizontal transmission of weight... and when working with the vertical exchange of weight, I teach only a partial transmission through the body of my partner. Since that allows for a wider range of bodies to dance together without injury, at least while still learning.

BIO JURIJ KONJAR

Jurij Konjar is a Slovenian dancer, improviser, choreographer and producer. He studied dance at PARTS in Brussels and later with Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, amongst others. He restaged several of Paxton's works and is at present still touring the Goldberg Variations improvised solo.
He performs improvised performances and his own work internationally. His own performances also include Ulysses, Still, For Juliano Mer-Khamis, Monday at Eight (co-directed), Poka (co-directed), Biodegradables and A report from Contactfestival Freiburg 2023.
His teaching includes elements of his performance-of-improvisation and writing practices, the Tuning Scores of Lisa Nelson, Material for the spine of Steve Paxton and Contact Improvisation.
Jurij is a part of the worldwide Contact Improvisation community and is a creator of the shared, nomadic working space called Habitat.
More information and current news on www.jurijkonjar.com

CATERINA MOCCIOLA
"Reaching the Underscore"

In this class we will approach the study of the Underscore, a practice bequeathed to us by Nancy Stark Smith. Trying to grasp its essence, Underscore is a particular way of jamming that allows us to integrate the Contact and Improvisation components of CI in an increasingly conscious way. It is a practice that creates space for group improvisation, with a focus on composition and the different possibilities of interaction between participants that are not limited to the duet.

It is a wonderful tool that supports us, guides us in an always unpredictable way, offers us a language to deepen our understanding and sharing of the events and states we go through in dance, increasingly opening the doors to research.

It will be an opportunity to gain direct experience in dance, combining and playing with different phases of practice, theory, observation and sharing.

 
BIO CATERINA MOCCIOLA

She has been a dancer, researcher, performer and CI teacher for 20 years. Her practice has a profound connection with the Underscore which she had the pleasure of studying and deepening directly with Nancy S. Smith in the United States, and on several other occasions, including the research project on the Underscore organized by Nancy at the University of Roehampton in London. She has facilitated practice and taught CI in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Japan and the US. She is currently studying Underscore through the lens of the Laban Bartenieff Motion Analysis System, in which she is training as a Motion Analyst.

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