Constellating The Senses
(These are the 2023/24 retreat details.
24/25 details will be announced later this year)
Join us in a new year retreat in Contact Improvisation Dance
with Manuel Rochette and Selena La Brooy.
The retreat will include a harmony of classes, jams, solo exploration,
potlucks, sauna and a new year celebration.
Undeniably, we are beings capable of great accomplishments. And in our enthusiasm for doing, making, and creating we too often forget to simply allow a state of release and curiosity to take us into the world. Yet, in a place of such a surrendered state, how can we also emanate clarity and direction without losing this state of readiness that tension too often masks, and lethargy dampens?
In this 6 day immersion, we will dance with these questions in mind;
How does my attention shape my movement choices?
How can my senses guide me towards novel effortlessness?
Can the paths of less resistance and the one less traveled become one?
How can I bring my totality to the dance while remaining in integrity with myself and my capacities.
How can I find synonymity between relaxation and clarity?
Physically, we’ll be investigating tensegrity, yielding, tonus, and ergonomics, as a mean to find new pathways.
We’ll research embodied availability to discover greater width of connection
thru poly-centricity; the skill of being responsive from multiple centres.
We’ll explore with blindfolds, sound and somatic practices to enliven our sensitivity.
This retreat will be aimed at a yin/yang balance to access both inner and outer worlds of our dance.
While the focus will remain on learning, many jams will be included in our time together.
The overarching intention of this retreat is to make a step toward freedom of choice,
broaden our moment to moment decision making abilities, and equip ourselves with tools that facilitate an ease into eclectic skills.
And, in our sensing bodies, to constellate together as a group and feel a sense of belonging to investigate this form as a whole.
This intensive is for dancers who have a grasp on the fundamentals of CI. If you have doubt on your abilities, please reach out.
~~:~~:~~:~~ BIO ~~:~~:~~:~~
Manuel Rochette is a dancer, facilitator, and host of Salt Spring Island Contact Improvisation Festival in Canada. With nearly 20 years of experience with the form of Contact Improvisation, his personal studies got him in touch with 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 is at the nexus point where skills, states, play and spontaneous composition merge. His dancing style aims at creating ever-changing pathways, opening to novelty, modulating patterns, and the use of momentum and release. Curiosities of the moment: Accessing poly-centricity, how to increase availability & generosity with the body, opening the backspace, falling together, and continuity of movement. He has explored many continents and communities dancing and has harvested gems from all of them.
Manuel is an avid jammer while he continues to deepen the practice in classes and workshops. He is also a DJ and a gardener from which he sources inspirations and metaphors.
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.
~~:~~:~~ INFO AND REGISTRATIONS ~~:~~:~~
COST: (Includes some food, see details below)
$490 - Economically deprived, students and underemployed.
$530 - Economically challenged: artists, farmers etc..
$580 - Professional rate: Happily sustained, supports the art.
Deposit of 250$ upon registration required to save your spot.
Paid by email transfer to ssicontactfestival@gmail.com
International student can use Paypal at the same address.
Payment to be completed by December 15th
Deposit refundable (-$40 admin fee) until Dec 1st
Non-Refundable after Dec 1st.
In case of cancelation of this gathering, all deposits will be refunded minus $50 for admin fee.
THE FORMAT:
-Days will start at 10am and will go into the evenings/night.
-Three days of investigation and dancing (Dec 29-30-31)
-New year eve Celebration Party on the 31st at night.
-New year day: rest day, laundry day, nature day.
-Three more days to deepen the material (Jan 2-3-4)
Other Activities will include nature exploration, saunas and potlucks
The new year celebration will be semi-private and will include Djs.
We’ll be inviting the community to join us.
This is an all levels workshop however having acquired the “fundamentals” is necessary to join this retreat. Contact us if you have doubt.
FOOD: 6 lunches & 3 dinners will be provided. Participants take care of their own breakfasts. We'll have tea and coffee and snacks to provide all day.
ACCOMMODATION: We make an effort to find a place for every dancers. If you have a friend on island, we recommend you contact them. We have a few local people who are offering small spaces, futon, common space accommodations for a very reasonable price. We are also presently looking for a big Airbnb house to rent for many dancers. Let us know what is your preference and budget.
VOLUNTEER: To keep the cost down, we kindly ask that every dancers do 1 or 2 volunteer shifts in the kitchen. We are including this as part of the practice. No dancing will be missed.
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.