ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

We are excited to announce the 7th annual Contact Improvisation Dance Festival will take place on Salt Spring Island in 2024.
We will be gathering for 10 days of dance with a medley of classes, jams, silent jams,
music jams, authentic relating sessions, performance night, & nature exploration.
A place where dance, community, art, nature and self discovery all meet in a space of investigation, a time of play.

OUR FACILITATORS

TBC Soon!
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FOOD

All food is included in the tuition.
We source from local and organic foods as much as possible.
Meals are wholesome, diverse, fresh, yummy and abundant.
We consider every food restrictions.
We care for your health and aim at the impossible fart free diet.
(See our chef’s bio below)
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LOCATION

Rhizome Springs
An off grid situation where everyone can camp and live together for the duration of the event.
The views are incredible, the lakes and oceans just a short drive away.
We are presently in terraforming stage. Expect a rugged landscape.
The property is 20 min on a logging road which can be driven by regular cars.
It’s located 25 min from Fulford Ferry terminal and 40 min from Ganges.

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CAMPING, CABINS & AMENITIES

Camping is included in the tuition.
We are on a 40 acre property and there is tons of camping spots to chose from.
Van camping is also possible.
We have showers and use compostable toilets.
Spirit lake and the ocean are a short distance away and we’ll be making daily trips.
We are on a sensitive ecosystem and count on you to respect and honour this land by cleaning up after yourself, preserving water, being fauna and flora aware and embody the animal this land asks for.

CABINS

The Buddhist Centre located next door is offering simple and modest private cabins to rent.  
Price is $65/night.
They include outhouse and hot showers. 
Inquire if interested and we will send photos.

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MARKET TABLES

We have them accessible for you to sell your artful goods. Bring em along! Set your price and manage them.
A great way to cut your cost while sharing what you make and find beautiful.

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SCHEDULE

Schedule TBA
9am to late evening everyday
Classes, Jams, Performances, Labs, Nature, and other synergistic practices
49% Jam - 49% Classes - 2% Magik

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ARRIVAL

Festival runs from July 26th to august 4th 2024
Plan to arrive on July 25th or before with prior arrangement.
Drive yourself, car pool or we’ll come and get you in Fulford Harbour.

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COST

Please note that spaces are limited to 60 dancers. Register and send deposit to save your spot.
Priority to full time attendance
Attendance from the beginning only. No entrance half-way.

$1044 if you are economically constrained, students and underemployed.
$1166 if you are economically balanced, artists, farmers etc..
$1288 if you are economically abundant, happily sustained, supports the art.
In Canadian dollar. Any amount in between is welcomed. 

Deposit of 300$ upon registration required to save your spot.
Paid by email transfer to ssicontactfestival@gmail.com
International student can use Paypal at the same address.
We can also take cryptocurrencies, please inquire.

Payment to be completed by July 1st.
Deposit refundable (-$50 admin fee) until June 1st
Non-Refundable after June 1st
In case of cancelation of this gathering, all deposits will be refunded minus $50 for admin fee.

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We value inclusivity & transparency.

This event is for all experience levels, genders, sexual orientation, skin colour, ages and other physical differences.
-We acknowledge and are thankful for the lands and waters of Salt Spring Island which have been and continue to be home to Coast Salish First Nations and Metis peoples. We are grateful to the Cowichan Tribes, Saanich Nation, Tsawwassen First Nation, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, and the Hwlitsum Claim for this land to be danced on, in utter respect for it’s inhabitant and the ecosystem that nourishes us.

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Come, slide, roll, tumble, leap, pivot, fall, run, rest, reach, touch… be here & book your time off NOW!

Registrations and Questions: ssicontactfestival@gmail.com

Leilani Weis, Chilean.  Teaches, experiments and performs Contact Improvisation and Tango. She has taught CI at the Fine Arts Schools in San Miguel Allende (Mex), to the Narciso Medina Company and National Arts School of Cuba at La Habana.
She was one of the founders of the experimental group “La Orden de los Suspiros” (Mex), and the “Touch Monkey project” directed by Carolyn Stewart performed in California and Texas (USA).
Leilani has trained with different theater groups in Cuba, Mexico, Spain and Italy. Has taught in International festivals in Freiburg and Orvieto and collaborated with the University for Motory Sience in Rome. She is co-founder and co-director of “Central de Movimiento” Company where she explores the improvisation as a way to create moving pieces in combination with other art forms.

In her own words:
My curiosity, my questions are about the physical dynamics that sustain the dance. What body and mind do we need to train to be available to practice Contact Improvisation? What are the roots, the origins that sustain this form? How to teach it without stifling the freedom that it has offered since its origins? How to remain honest about what happens in each moment of the dance?

”The Roots and the Heart of Contact Improvisation”
We will focus on a framework of skills that allow for an increasing safety to enter the unknown with your dance partner, including:
1. Developing a lucidity of touch where you feel your partner, and also feel your partner feeling you.
2. The 3 dimensional falling skills from different heights, alone and together.
3. The dance of the unknown giving up custody of your own centre.

Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is renowned as a leading light in the field of dance improvisation. He is an internationally recognized pioneer of contact improvisation (CI) and a master teacher/performer in both real-time composition and CI. For over forty-eight years he has dedicated himself to the research, development, education, collaboration and dissemination of these rigorous artistic practices as sophisticated performing art forms. Since 1975 his work has evolved through an abundance of research/creative associations and collaborative performances around the globe with the likes of: Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Nita Little, Curt Siddall, Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Ray Chung, Kirstie Simson, Karen Nelson, K.J. Holmes, Daniel Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Alito Alessi and so many more.

Carey French (she/her) is an erotic permissionary and queer ecosexual witch from Coast Salish & Duwamish lands in Seattle, WA. She works with communities as a consent educator, Somatic Sex Educator, and trauma-aware conflict mediator, aiming to dismantle legacies of oppression and domination. Her work centers on pleasure as a healing force, embodied experiences of consent and choice, transforming harm, and creating collective ritual magic. Dancing and group singing are her life-blood. 

At the 2023 SSI Contact Festival, Carey will be hosting conversations on important topics such as inclusivity, consent, sexuality, & group dynamics.

JP Frank (they/them) is based in the land of the Salish Kootenai, now known as Missoula, MT, where they facilitate weekly Contact Improvisation classes and offer intimate touch coaching. They tour offering CI workshops specifically welcome to hesitant and skeptical newcomers and find it very satisfying that this kind of welcoming is resonant to many people who have thus far, avoided CI. JP's most consistent inquiries in CI are relational. Who is here? Who is not here? Who came once and never came back? Can we collectively create brave CI spaces where we can discuss and grow more skillful in moving with the too often deflected dynamics of sexuality, consent, accessibility, and positionality? And when JP is not holding space at CI events, they are probably clowning, moving sensually, or trying to find out who has cookies. JP is excited to bring their decade of experience facilitating trauma-informed movement and multiracial community dialogues to the facilitation of edgy conversations at the festival!  

At the 2023 SSI Contact Festival, Carey will be hosting conversations on important topics such as inclusivity, consent, sexuality, & group dynamics.

Selena La Brooy has been dancing in different forms from a young age.  She discovered Contact Improvisation in 2014 and has been fascinated with it ever since.  She has studied and played with various yoga lineages, developmental movement patterning, BMC, Feldenkrais, breathwork, vipassana, clowning, functional movement and circus arts which colour the lens of her inquiry of the form. 

She is an anatomy nerd, certified rolfer and somatic movement integration practitioner which inform her approach to teaching.  Some of her most influential teachers have been Martin Keogh, Kira Kirsch, Frey Faust, Andrew Harwood, Anjelika Doniy, Karl Frost, Alicia Grayson, Nita Little, Ida Rolf and Monica Caspari.  She is most passionate about ways to make contact improvisation playful and accessible to all bodies by empowering choice, inviting deep listening and inspiring perpetual curiosity into what else is possible. 

She is a core member of the Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation community, Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival and the founder of Rhizome Springs, a community project hosting multi-day Contact Improvisation festivals and intensives on the unceded terrtories of the Hul’Q’Umi’Num and Sencoten speaking people where she is grateful to work, live, teach and play.

Manuel Rochette is a dancer, facilitator, and host of Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival in Canada. With more than 15 years of experience, his personal studies got him closer to teachers such as Martin Keogh, Angelika Doniy, Alicia Grayson, Karl Frost, Ray Chung, Scott Wells, Vega Luukkonen, Kira Kirsch, Paul Singh, Andrew Harwood and more.

His facilitation approach creates an attentive container where skills, states and group spontaneous composition emerges. Curiosities of the moment: Accessing polycentricity, how to increase availability & generosity with the body, opening the backspace, embodied disorientation, falling together, and continuity of movement.

He regularly explores the world dancing and is a relentless jammer while he continues to deepen the practice in classes and workshops. 

Manuel is also a DJ and a gardener from which he sources inspirations and metaphors. 

Sashah Klapkew; This form found me at the age of sixteen and I am grateful for all that it has given me so far. I have been fortunate to study with a number of very potent teachers and each of them has gifted me with something unique to explore. From Peter Bingham, I received the value of studentship and movement inquiry, while Karl Frost supported me in invoking relational curiosity. Ray Chung shared with me a love for the details and from Martin Keogh I was given an appreciation for the power of state. These teachers, among others, have all deeply informed my dance. This form has held me through the most vulnerable times of my life and provided a medicine like no other. Seeing how this container also holds space for others in their human experience I am continually inspired to lean into the somatic relational emergence that is contact dance.

Elizabeth López ~ Retreat Chef

Born and raised in Mexico and deeply influenced by her people's love of food and celebration, Elizabeth brings a colorful variety of flavors and nutrition to the table. She loves to create an ambiance that is both abundant and down to earth, while pouring love and care into every dish. Drawing inspiration from her travels around the world, she crafts a delicious menu that focuses on healthy ingredients, nutrition, vibrancy, and flexibility for those with diverse diets and food restrictions. Expect a plant based, healthy, and satisfying feast of flavors!

 

Sound creates an emotive space and offers timelines to the bodies.

Carefully it can enhance creative movements and sneakily it can hinder them. We allow silence to have a word of order & chaos to be listened to, with wonder.

Clara Shandler
https://www.sidewalkcellist.com/index.html

Dj Matsya
- soundcloud/Matsya
- Ambient soundscapes for Contact Improvisation
- Into Yin Mix by Matsya