17th-21st August

Tai Chi - Chi Kung and contact improvisation in the nature

Franco Zita & Camillo Vacalebre

Tai Chi-Chi Kung (Qi Gong) means energy, breath of life: it's a pleasant system of exercises helping increasing our body functions. It also shows how we can establish an aware and harmonious relationship with nature.
It's in the nature that we will find inspiration during the training: we'll work in centenary olive groves, on the seaside, as well as in other evocative location typical from Apulia region (trulli, stone amphitheater....). We'll practice Chi Kung early in the morning, than we'll continue inside, in the wooden floor studio, more suitable for the floor work we'll do to relax the spine. At the sunset, apppointement on the beach for Tai Chi practice.

Camillo will alternate Franco during the day: the proposition is to integrate thinking, sensing and action. We'll explore our relationship with the hearth and the force of gravity in the physical interaction with our partners.

“Between stimulus and response - any stimulus and any response - between the thought of doing something and putting the thought into action there is a characteristic preparation or "set" ("Ready, on your mark, get set, go!") which strongly affects the character and quality of the response. In fact, you might say that the set determines the response". (DR. Frank Pierce Jones)
Our nervous system ceaselessly processes an extraordinary amount of informations. We translate every stimulus into motor impulse and muscular/energetic activation in preparation for action.  We'll assimilate kinestetic images, anatomical informations and sensory experiences. We'll cultivate calmness and disposition to direct attention, clarify intention, creating the conditions to balance muscular tension and reduce effort while dancing.  We'll use force and counterforce, compression and tension, exploring ascending and descending trajectories, spirals, vertical and horizontal balance, off-balance, acelerations, falls, low flying and landings. We'll practice fundamentals of contact improvisation, diving in the game of ongoing negotiation of energetic states, weight exchanges, points of support and movement dynamics. We'll extpand our limits, still dancing with ease.

Franco Zita, Tai Chi and Chi Kung teacher since 1994, he's Craniosacral therapist (ITCS Roma e Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust, Londra), dancer and performer, in the last 20 years he participated and created performance and projects in improvisation and dance theatre in Italy and Europe. His training in improvisation and instant composition started in the '80es with Institutet for Skenkost, and teatro Nucleo, and continued with teachers like Ornella d’Agostino, Katie Duck and Julyen Hamilton. He studied several years with the pioneers of contact improvisation, amongst the others, Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, K.J. Holmes, Patricia Kuypers and dance theatre with Julie Stanzak, Benedicte Millet (Cie Pina Bausch), Jordi Cortes Molina (DV8 Physical theater) He started his education in Aikido (Aikikai) in '84 and Kung Fu – Tai Chi (Traditional Kung Fu Academy ). He studied as well yoga  -(Iyengar method), Ayurvedic massage in India, and he pratices Authentic Movement, Experiental Anatomy, Feldenkrais. With Germana Siciliani they run Casina Settarte and they have been organizing in the last 15 years improvisation and videodance festivals, research projects, in collaboration with different institution of Apulia region, where they live.

Camillo Vacalebre lives and works in Brasília. Is a teacher of the Alexander Technique, graduated at ATCA – Alexander Techniek Centrum Amsterdam, and a member of ABTA - Associação Brasileira da Técnica Alexander (Brazilian Association of the Alexander Technique). Is a choreographer and dancer, graduated in 1994 at CNDO/EDDC (Center for New Dance Development/European Dance Development Center), dance department of the Institute of the Arts, in  Arnhem, Holland. Dances Contact Improvisation since 1989. Profoundly inspired by the work of Eva Karczag, learned Contact Improvisation from, among others, Susan Shell, Karen Nelson, K.J. Holmes, Felice Wolfzhan, Randy Warshaw, Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Alito Alessi, Ray Chung and countless dance partners. Has been teaching Contact Improvisation for 15 years in academic institutions and independent centres in Brazil, Italy, Denmark and Argentina. www.camillovacalebre.net www.tecnicaalexanderbrasilia.blogspot.com www.contatoimprovisacaobrasilia.blogspot.com