FLYING & FALLING, Adrian Russi
| About masterclass: | From basic skills to first shoulder lifts
Techniques for flying and falling are often considered to be quite complex and for advanced dancers only. But in fact the skills to land softly on the floor and to rise up with ease into the upper space can be a theme even for your first class. And as CI is a dance form where the body is constantly listening to gravity and playing with balance and off-balance, flying and falling through the levels and through the space is part of your experience from the very first moment you start dancing contact.
That’s one reason why this intensive will start with basic skills and exercises to challenge your perception: to deeply understand that flying high is much more a question of solid basic skills, of sensation and the ability to cleverly organize your body than a complex or even unreachable technique (except for strong men or light women!) You will discover that the main principles are the same whether you are moving quite close to the floor or up on your partners shoulder, the greatest differences being more momentum, more thrill, and starting to flow through the levels as you gain more experience and get into the higher spheres.
My intention is to work with precise movement techniques (solo and with a partner), to offer exercises that will help to differentiate your perception and to open your awareness, to use bodywork for softening not only your body but also your mind, and finally to play with simple improvisation scores and free dancing to integrate the new movements. There will be space for verbal exchange to deepen the understanding of the material and to learn from each other on different levels.
You will probably sweat a lot and have lots of fun while flying and falling through your dances. And hopefully you’ll be looking forward to the next jam to experiment with the full range of flying and falling within its very subtle parts!
Participants should have a solid base in CI.
| | About Adrian Russi: | Adrian Russi is a CI-teacher, performer and body therapist, who has been involved in Contact Improvisation since 1992. After he studied New Dance at “bewegungs-art” in Freiburg/Germany he continued his education with many different teachers, among them Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith who developed CI in the early seventies with a group of other movers.
Adrian Russi is teaching CI mainly in Switzerland and gets invited regularly to international festivals. In his teaching he is focusing on the technical aspects of CI (ease, precision and strength) as well as on matters of perception (sensation, connection of inner and outer space, of bottom and top) and a creativity coming from a distinct body-awareness. For him the pleasure to play, deep engagement in the dance, and respect for others are the basis for gaining the most possible in dancing CI.
As a performer he is working with different international artists and his performances are primarily based on free improvisation including dance, dance-theatre, voice and live music.
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