The poetry of the movement. Anjelika Doniy & Leonardo Lambruschini

Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, and Bodywork

Five intensive days in the beautiful context of Casina Settarte immersed in nature among olive, fig, and almond trees, with beaches nearby. We will investigate on the body motion in the natural enviorenment and in the space surrounding it, alternating between indoor and outdoor activities.
We will be experiencing moving and dancing following inner impulses, finding pathways inside the body and relating to others with an inner guideline. In Moving there is no right or wrong, just the sensation of connecting to our bodies, sensing and sharing the weight with somebody else, finding new ways of moving and expressing.

Contact improvisation offers a playful, self-defined way of connecting to other dancers. It becomes a joyful game of give and take. Authentic Movement is a beautiful tool to connect to an inner moving impulse. It is a possibility to express feelings, images and information from the subconscious that come through our bodies. Bodywork teaches us about inner alignment and touch qualities, it is also a wonderful way to let our nervous system integrate our experiences. We make room to process this in sharing. The dance is our teacher.

Through this two very complimentary practice we will explore:
eyes open, eyes closed responsiveness to our partners and surroundings, change of states faculty of vision – part of the dance

photos by Olga Berdikyan

BIO
Anjelika Dony – www.angeldance.ru
I have studied to be a choreographer, I´ve been taught various skills of training and means of teaching the body of another person. In my “archive” there are many stage pieces from folk dance to ballet miniatures. My work in the Theatre has been the tastiest. The actors, direction and dramaturgy broadened my mind and my image of the dance art form. I began to see how the art of charming the audience is created.
Since I´ve met contact improvisation and the first CI teachers, I practice the art of de-educating the body of another person, disentangling the illusions about movement and dance.
I think that the human being is already perfect the way it is created, and I believe in nature and it´s laws.
I´m prompted in life by the ability to fall in love unconditionally and undoubtedly with people, movement, mountains, journeys, ideas. This ability has helped me to learn everything that forms me right now. This is what teaches the others.
CI is the only dance that helps me overcome the limits of personality and transform my consciousness. In this sense I´m the student, not the teacher. The better I learn, the more chances the others have to learn something from me.
My special interest in contact improvisation is clarity. Clarity towards the practice. Honesty towards how I move my weight in the space of Gravity. Attention towards clearing the dance from the personal. Letting things happen as they do.
I´m grateful for meeting such teachers as Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Benno Voorham, Lisa Nelson, Esther Gal, Alexandr Girshon, Yaniv Mintzer, Yorg Hassman, Martin Keo and many others.

Leonardo Lambruschini
Actor, dancer and performer. My journey in the performing arts started with the theatre, dance came afterwards. Then, when I encountered the Contact Improvisation, it was magic at ‘first sight’. Acting, playing and dancing were finally melting together as a whole. I dance as a student, as a teacher and as a performer with an unquenchable “thirst” for exploration and… for the ‘wonder’ on what happens in that ‘middle-land’ that is created in the process of receiving and returning, of uttering and listening to. I love the creative process that leads people to formulate plans and actions that promote the movement as a form of artistic and personal evolution and social expression. Contact, confidence, movement and reliance are the central focus around which the teaching and the practice are developed, both for adults and children. Above all the reliance on the present moment as a fruitful and complete source of inspiration and meaning. I’m appealed by the places and contexts where several art forms meet, communicate and create something new, transcending languages and differences. I am also the co-founder and Art Director of Spazio Seme www.spazioseme.com , an international cultural Arts Center in Arezzo (Tuscany) . There, we create opportunities for research, organize and manage festivals, intensive workshops, performances, artistic productions and residencies. In particular I develop and lead classes for children (ContaKids, PlayContact) and I teach Contact Improvisation for adults and students at Art Schools and Universities. I am one of the organizers of the ItalyContactFest – www.italycontactfest.com – an international festival of Contact Improvisation.
I am grateful to have met artists and masters like Angelika Donij, Nita Little, Leilani Weiss, Esther Gal, Claudia Schnürer, Itay Yatuv , Steve Batts, Martin Keo and many others.