Join contact improvisation pioneer Nita Little for 3 weeks of workshops at The Drill Hall and MARCS from 13 – 31 January in 2025.
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Nita Little investigates embodied attention and creative relational practices within movement, particularly in Contact Improvisation (CI). With 50 years of experience, she has helped shape CI’s early development alongside Steve Paxton.
In January 2025, she will teach a 3-week workshop at Critical Path and MARCS Institute
- Week 1: Relational Intelligence in CI (13–17 Jan)
- Week 2: Contact Improvisation Meets Ensemble (20–25 Jan)
- Week 3: How Dancers Do Research (28–31 Jan)
More information about each program and their dates are listed below.
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REGISTER HERE: 🔗: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdw3BbWGYupV6QaPh540h5AvmtDqcTVZxpGtd5Gt9TUh7ktFA/viewform
DATE: 13 – 31 JAN 2025
LOCATION: The Drill Hall & MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development
COST: $1500 – $2100
If you have any questions or issues, please contact Lee-Anne Litton at [email protected].
Week 1: Relational Intelligence in CI
13 – 17 JAN 2025
The Drill Hall
1C New Beach Rd, Darling Point, NSW, 2027
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This workshop dives deep into the relational practices inherent in Contact Improvisation, focusing on co-creativity, trust, and emergent phenomena. We explore how embodied attention shapes our meetings and awakens communication that moves faster than body language. Through training specific practices, working with scores, discussions, and showings, we engage in topics such as the ethics of care, decolonizing our embodiments, and reWilding our moving presence.
This immersive learning will be anchored in the core principles of Contact Improvisation, taking you from the concrete to the sublime, stretching the reach of your dance into every moment of your life.
Week 2: Contact Improvisation Meets Ensemble
20 – 24 JAN 2025: workshop
25 JAN 2025: open sharing and artist talk – optional
The Drill Hall
1C New Beach Rd, Darling Point, NSW, 2027
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This workshop introduces a body of material that merges Contact Improvisation with Ensemble Practices. Moving beyond individual improvisation, we explore how somatic intelligence allows dancers to come together in powerful ways that combine CI’s functional orientation with the vast physical range of western dance forms. This integration fosters relational intelligence and embodied freedom. Through this work, we aim to uncover new possibilities for dance relations from their somatic roots.
Week 3: How Dancers Do Research
28 – 31 JAN 2025
MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development
Western Sydney University, Westmead Innovation Quarter, Building U, Level 4, 160 Hawkesbury Rd, Westmead NSW 2145
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This Research Training Workshop provides dancers with the tools to study the physicality of somatic communication within improvisational ensemble practices. Focusing on how dancers develop physical attention to communicate beyond verbal language, the workshop delves into research methodologies, including listening skills, framing research questions, scoring techniques, and more. The goal is to enhance dancers’ co-creative practices and offer access to CoLab research groups under the ISSC.
HERO IMAGE: Nita Little; courtesy the artist.