Thomas Kampe & Franco Zita

1st-7th August

Joining Forces / Composing Power

Contact Improvisation - Feldenkrais Method® -  Martial Arts

In this workshop we will use principles and concepts drawn from MARTIAL ARTS and  from The Feldenkrais Method ® as resources to support and strengthen our movement skills and practice of Contact Improvisation.

We are aiming to access our natural movement potential to find ease, clarity, freedom, and a greater range of movement choices .

Each day we will explore ‘Awareness Through Movement’ group work, and ‘Functional Integration’ hands on practices as tools to develop a state of detailed listening, effortlessness, and connectedness in our dancing.

Through exercises, solo improvisations and partner explorations based on Aikido, Push Hands, and T’ai Chi we will work with intention, economical use of force, directing of energy, spiral movement pathways.

This will lead into refined sensory dialogues through touch - developing into powerful, playful and expansive Contact Improvisation dancing.

The Feldenkrais Method® is regarded as one of the most sophisticated and refined  movement education systems developed in the 20^th century . In innovative, playful and precise ways, it uses the intelligence of the human nervous system to enable us to find new movement possibilities and pathways within our dancing. The Feldenkrais Method®  is based on principles of physics, biomechanics and an understanding of learning and human development.

  Thomas Kampe has worked with movement for the last 25 years. He worked as performer, choreographer and director in Germany and Britain, and works as Senior Lecturer for Dance at London Metropolitan University. He has taught somatic approaches towards movement education mainly for performers in different settings around the world. He is a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method ®, which forms a foundation for his teaching of dance and movement.

   Franco Zita begin his training  in the fields of improvisation, theatre and dance in ‘84, studying with Ingemar Lindh and Roger Rolin (Institutet for Scenkost), Horacio Czertok and Cora Horrendorf (Teatro Nucleo), Gilbert Maillot, Antonio Carallo e Benèdicte Billet (cie Pina Baush), Ornella D'Agostino, Katie Duck e Julyen Hamilton, Frey Faust, Jordi Cortès Molina, David Zambrano.He studied Contact Improvisation con Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, K.J. Holmes, Didier Silhol.

He started to study  martial arts as Tai-Chi first with Franco Mescola, J.Yang Ming, Wing Lam and than with Franco Gervasio, graduating the degree as teacher in the italian Traditional Kung Fu Academy. He studied 8 years Aikido having his 1° Dan with H.Hosokawa, J. Fujimoto e H. Tada. He teachs regulary Tai-Chi e Kung fu.

He takes part from 1985 in different projects and performances in theatre and improvisation  in Italy, France, Belgiium, Austria, Germany with, among the others, Teatro Origine, Teatro Koreja, Teatro Kismet, Carlo Formigoni, Institutet for Scenkost,Patricia Kuypers e Franck Beaubois,Kirstie Simson, Gabriella Maiorino, Claire Burrel, Ornella D'Agostino, Karim Sebbar, Ursula Sabatin, Julie Serpinet, Oleg Soulimenko, Cassandra Jackson, Sarita Beraha, Andrea Keiz, Didier Silhol, Africa Navarro, Kay Grothusen and musicians as Pippo D'Ambrosio, Felice Mezzina, Nicola Pisani.