Meet the Team
We have an international team of teachers and facilitators guiding us through the festival journey. Each sharing with us their unique research and years of experience.
Below you will find the wonderful 2019 team. Teachers for 2020 are soon to be announced, watch this space!
VEGA LUUKKONEN
Intensive Teacher
FINLAND
I am dancer, dance teacher, performance artist and bodyworker made in Finland, but currently based in Berlin, India and nomadic temporary moments in time and space. I studied formally in Finland at the Theatre Academy of Finland (TEAK) and Metropolia AMK; I graduated with an MA from TEAK in 2008 as dance and theatre teacher. Though – I guess my dearest high-school and university in dance and contact-improvisation has been the Finnish contact community, where I have learned so much, by sharing the dance and rolling point with the other spiraling beautiful finns…
ULLI WITTEMANN
Intensive Teacher
Germany
I have had a passion for movement and growth since I was a child. After practicing ballroom dance and hip hop as a teenager and studying different martial arts forms for many years (judo, aikido, kickboxing and boxing), I fell in love with contact improvisation in 2001, while studying as an actor at the University of Performing Arts in Frankfurt, Germany.
After my diploma and eight years of performing more than 1000 shows as an actor in the German State Theater system, I decided to change my focus from performing to teaching. I now share my ideas and experience in contact improvisation, acting, awareness and communication in Munich and abroad. In recent years I have taught intensives, workshops, classes and retreats in India, Thailand, China, Japan, Israel, Palestine, USA, Canada, Turkey and many European Countries.
Zuzanna Bukowski
Contact/ Acro/ Orga
GERMANY/ Poland
Festival organiser, dancer, yogi, life coach, online marketing specialist, musician and life artist. I teach yoga, contact improvisation, communication and online marketing. My last few winters I have spent in Goa, India, supporting contact improvisation festivals there, and I do the same in the summers in and around Berlin.
Contact Improvisation and somatic movement have changed not only my body but my way of thinking and looking at the world. They have influenced my work as a life coach and communication trainer and as a yoga teacher. I have started to dare more and fear less. I particularly love to see the links between movement and cognitive work. Enjoying the interconnection between all these disciplines, I now organize workshops and one-to-one sessions with creative minds and entrepreneurs. I love to find out what people really want and how to get there on their own terms—in dance and in life
DOLORES MARKS
Water Dance/ Orga
GREAT BRITAIN
Festival organiser, nomadic artist, water dancer, performer, teacher of Contact Improvisation and Somatics. Since 2015 I have been traveling through Thailand, Philippines, India and Europe sharing CI and Water Dance. I am a student of Somatic Movement Education programme at the School for Body-Mind Centering in Germany.
“CI is a unique dance form and tool I use to support myself in the world; each dance is a insight into my state of mind and my bodies’ mind. With CI and BMC practices I am cultivating a deeper awareness of my body’s consciousness. Though the perception of touch, the practice of listening to sensory feedback from interaction and play with others we can better know ourselves. This research gives space for the imagination to freely flow in movement, celebrating expression and physics of the body’s wisdom, and thriving in the present being.”
Ely Bourchard
Orga
Canada
Alice Rose
Musical Director
Denmark
Singer & Songwriter.
Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Alice Rose plays and sings beautiful, mesmerizing and thoroughly modern music that captures the essense of the old world and the new. Her one-woman performances, her stunning vocals, her jugglers skill using samplers, computer, beat boxes, strings, casios, keyboards, harmonicas and toys–all come together in a delicious concoction of electro-folk–equal parts trip-hop, pop, electronica and dance. She is a true adventurer in the music world today and is constantly exploring new ground.
Hugh Stanier
Intensive Teacher/ Contemporary
UK
Hugh is a Freelance Dance artist specializing Contact Improvisation and Contemporary Dance. He trained at Northern School of Contemporary Dance and has worked as a performer and teacher for over 10 years. Throughout the past few years he has been training in different movement disciplines- from Contact Improvisation and Yoga, to Circus and Tai Chi – to gain a deeper understanding of the body and the power of moving with presence and awareness. He teaches with a variety of different approaches to all ages and abilities, with a focus on creating an inclusive and open environment in which participants can feel free and able to discover new ways of moving. A space of ‘serious play time’!.
Human Moves
This this class offers a diverse experience of movement, improvisation & contact-improvisation. We will explore some core principles vital to understanding and finding freedom in the body. Exercises will focus on investigations to deepen a physical knowledge of the body in motion both alone and with others. Building up a functional understanding of the underlying physical principles and structures of contact improvisation, as well as widening the trust to our instincts, impulses and intuition.
Exercises will alternate between contact and solo work to connect to our own body as well as to the group as a whole. Together we create an open, safe space to feel free to discover new ways of moving and being.
Sasha Dodo
Contact/ Butoh/ Theatre
Russia
Independent nomadic artist, poet, director, performer, organiser of creative projects, teacher of dance improvisation and performance, photographer and film maker.
I like unstable, unexpectable and playful environments where perception of body and space shift all the time, where all knowledge about what is going on becomes poetic.
To enter such an unstable environment we need to have a lot of stability and base, meaning techniques of self-organization while supporting the weight of the others in the moments of spiralling, flying, falling, rolling and also plasticity of consciousness.
We are going from the base to the un-base, the state where we can play with our base – and that is exactly what makes it wider and deeper.
Daniele Sardella
Contact/ Acrobatic
Italy
Sveta Bird
Contact/ Contemporary
Ukraine
Professional dancer, performer, dance teacher, modern dance choreographer, teacher and organizer various events of contact improvisation. Certified massage therapist (Chiang Mai School, Thailand), modeling designer (polymer clay crafting), economic degree.
Over 20 years of regular practice in different dance techniques. Working with several dance groups and show ballets in Kiev (Ukraine) including P.Virsky Ukrainian National Folk Dance Ensemble.
12 years of regular practicing, teaching and performing of contact improvisation in different countries (Ukraine, Russia,Spain, Germany, Finland, Poland, Moldova, Brazil, China, Malaysia and others.)
Exploring and practicing different approaches to movement such as authentic movement technique, axis syllabus system, release technique, body-mind centering, hatha yoga, acro-yoga, Laban movement analysis and Butoh dance.
Traveling masses: Constant Impermanence
Recently I’ve found very fascinating to go deeper into observations of the mass shifts in my body and beyond – the constantly traveling centre of the masses even when there is no physical movement. The process of redistributing and following the directions of mass shifts (weight) while moving seems never ending.
We will build our journey by practicing concrete physical methods together with very abstract mental approaches to enrich our dance skills and maybe even make a little glance at some metaphysical aspects of moving.
Just to enjoy CI – one of the best ways to express the dance if the universe.
Daniel Dragoescu
Holistic Dance
Romania
Performer, dancer, sound designer, music producer/DJ, filmmaker, movement coach.
Sampradana is a multi-side artistic project always looking to expand the musical and movement exploration through a fusion of various music genres, dance styles and
creative collaborations. As a sound designer he collaborated in theatre projects. As a performer and dancer he merges different artistic forms (butoh, contact improvisation, urban freestyle) and he collaborates with theatres and with theatrical groups . Under the same alias he creates visual poems and short dance films.
TIKKI MASALA
Ecstatic Dance
BELGIUM / GOA
Matthieu Azul
Singing Circle/ Contact
France
My story with singing and music began 10 years ago when friends introduced me to the magic of singing circle and rainbow gathering. I realised how powerful it is to come together to share beautiful mantras and songs from different cultures and languages. It brings me the greatest joy to join people together in celebration of love and unity through song. I’m honoured to be invited to different places and festivals around the world. And to have the opportunity to combine my passions for music and dance.
Virginia Negru & Catalin Diaconu
Contact Improvisation Romania
Virginia and Catalin are partners in life and in dance. They are very different and they use this to find complementarity and learn from each other. Virginia is a dance performer, CI teacher, traveler and philosophical practitioner. At the present moment she facilitates CI classes, jams & workshops, performs with the dance & theater company PETEC and also organizes Contact Bucharest Festival. Catalin is one of those artists who don’t know they are artists, or at least that’s what Virginia thinks. Even though he has a day job as IT support he also produces electronic music, plays guitar and drums, and dances and performs with PETEC
Since 2015, after an intense period of traveling and dancing, Virginia focused more on creating practice frames for CI and building up the CI community in Bucharest, directing her energy in one place. And for Catalin the last 10 years were a mixture of enjoying the stability of a job but also anguishing by postponing his dream of traveling. So now they have decided it’s time to dive together in a traveling adventure sharing at the same time their passion for dancing, music and improvisation through teaching and performing. It’s now or never.
The flow of opposites
Movement happens because of contrasting forces. There is gravity pull and there is the opposing reaction of the materials that do not let our body simply melt into the center of the earth. There is also friction, and there is inertia, both containing opposition in their functioning. Commonly opposition is seen as something undesirable, but actually this is what creates change, movement redirection and newness. So when we look closer we discover that contrasting forces are at the same time complementary forces.
We want to work in our class with the analogy of water and stone, as an example of contrast that generates movement. This metaphorical view on movement and CI principles will lead us to practical understanding and organic embodiment of technicalities of Contact. It will help those that practice CI to rediscover, deepen and refresh their improvisation by revisiting movement patterns that became mechanical. And for those that come for the first time, or feel beginner, the class will offer an organic way to learn the CI basic principles of sharing the weight, rolling the point of contact, reaching, pouring, lifting, falling.
‘Same thing, new eyes’ or ‘Newness of the simple’.
ALON RITTER
Voice&Dance/ Con-Tango
ISRAEL
Alon Ritter is a certified Feldenkrais teacher. Contact-Improvisation, Tango and Voice & Movement Improvisation teacher. His unique methods and approach to movement & therapy have allowed him to travel around the world, leading workshops in Germany, London, Switzerland, Israel, Russia, Ukraine and Greece to name but a few.
Feldenkrais for dancers- “Awakening the Center” :
A feldenkrais awareness through movement class that will focus on the ability to move from our body’s center in a organic and elastic way. We will focus on floor work.
Con-Tango:
A class that will focus on the meeting points between this two amazing forms of dance. We will try to explore what can a contact dancer gain from the language and form of Tango.
Julie Aloha
Water Dance
France
Julie Aloha is passionate with the body, mind, heart connection. She as being masseuse therapist for 11 years.
Offering Intuitive bodywork, Yin Yoga, Water dance, Watsu, Womb healing, she believes that the right therapy is the one that embraces all aspects of human life.
Igor Halizev
Contemporary / Contact
Russia
Igor has been engaged in contemporary dance since 2006, his main interest being Contact Improvisation. He explores methods of integrating dancing with physical and movement practices from his earlier training, such as judo, aikido, capoeira and deep massage. After meeting the famous dancer and choreographer Frey Faust, he began actively studying his Axis Syllabus system and ways of applying the ideas and principles of Axis Syllabus in contact dance.
Co-founder and ideological inspirer of the research dance-movement project Nobody Knows Movement Theater (together with Sasha Dodo).
Initiator and co-leader of the laboratory of contact improvisation and related practices CiLabsUs (together with Sasha Dodo).
Creator and developer of the Inertial-Wave Movement practice, which incorporates elements and principles of the Axis Syllabus system adapted for daily independent training in limited space.
He teaches Contact Improvisation and Inertial Wave Movement at regular classes in Moscow and at various international festivals.
Rosalind Holgate Smith
Contact/ Contemporary
UK
Rosalind(UK) is a Dance Artist and Somatic Movement Practitioner. She creates immersive installations and performances for gallery and site-specific environments. She has been passionate about Contact Improvisation since encountering it as a student of Fine Art and Choreography at Dartington in 2009 and now teaches internationally. Besides Contact Improvisation her practice is informed by Body-Mind Centering, Authentic Movement and Skinner Release Technique. She holds a Masters degree in Dance, Creative Practice and is also a Yoga Teacher and Shaw method Swimming Instructor, which combines the Alexander Technique.
Website: Rosalind Holgate Smith
SARANTAKI SARANTOULA
Contemporary/ contact
Greece
Born in Greece, living in Germany
Sarantoula is a freelance movement artist in the field of Improvisation and Contemporary Dance. She has worked as a performer, dance maker and teacher in Europe. She got introduced to dance through somatic principles and martial art – BMC, Yoga, Medical Qi Gong – which supports&allows her to develop an integrated body and kinaesthetic awareness. During her education in&at TIP- Bewegungs art, school for contemporary dance and improvisation, she expands her knowledge in Release Technique, Floor Work and Contact Improvisation. Her teaching integrates different movement approaches which focus on creating a playful, available ground where the body gains trust and articulates multiple layers of movement.
Website: Sarantaki Sarantoula
Guru Suraj
Contact/ Art
India
MICHELLE BERRANGE
Yoga
SOUTH AFRICA
Michelle has been teaching Yoga & Meditation full time since 2009. Her development as both teacher and practitioner has drawn on experience and inspiration and trainings from different styles of yoga over the many years. Michelle is inspired by the precision and alignment focus of Iyengar. She connects deeply with the authentic Hatha principles of action and non action and its traditional philosophy and spirituality.
A nomad who teaches in the UK, Europe, the USA and Africa, she has been based teaching and studying in India since 2014: deepening her wisdom in the ancient healing therapies of Yoga, Massage, the study of Ayurveda and the power of Dance.
“Yoga to support the Dance……”
Morning Yoga classes will be restorative in nature, especially working with postures to help ease compressions and tightness in the lower back, neck, and shoulders.
Website: Michelle Berrange
MANDY RUANGRIT
Contact/ Orga
THAILAND/AUSTRALIA
Mandy is driven by a desire to connect more deeply within herself and with other souls. An instinctive leader and community organizer, she regularly guides journeys of circling in sisterhood and new moon circles. In recent years Mandy discovered the joy of contact improvisation and has been playing and exploring in the world of CI as often as possible. She feels that CI offers a unique opportunity where we can peek to our world within, that CI is an inner reflection of our approach to our outer world. Contact is LIFE!! Mandy is trained in the healing modalities of Chi Nei Tsang (Chinese abdominal massage) and Therapeautic Thai Massage, including the use of ancient Thai massage tools to perform delicate and intricate myofascial release work. If you are curious to learn more, please ask her! She loves to share the experience of these ancient healing practices and offers one-on-one healing sessions.
Yulia Orlova
Yoga
Russia
Irina Trippel
Contact / Guest Teacher
Germany
Irina is a cultural pedagogue, dancer and networker born in Kirgistan, based in Freiburg. Her passion
goes for collaborative projects that connect meaningful interaction with the body as an artist,
group sharing practices and various body-mind connecting practices.
A major interest of her is it to unite the necessary dialogue between feeling and thinking as well as
experiencing and reflecting.
She is practicing and researching within the field of human body language since 10 Years. Her
bachelor thesis „Contact Improvisation- percieving, moving and creating in relationships“ brought
her a deeper and wider understanding of the origin of the form.
And by now she is massively inspired to contribute to its continues shaping.