Winter Programme
3 weeks of Contact Improvisation
Aegina, Greece
Cradled in the Dance Yurt, we will dive deep into BODY as the Sea holds us, a breath away.
Six renowned international teachers come to share their latest CI research. The format is simple: each week is taught by two teachers, and you can come to all three weeks or any of them.
We will be a small, intimate group and share life together in the big old house of Oikia. Open space in the evenings for jams, film screenings, discussions and sharings around the fireplace.
Come, Join us!
Week 1
January 4-9
Bari Kim
Bari Kim
MUTABLE, MUTUAL, VULNERABLE
Bari brings us back to the original question: What happens while I dance in contact with another person, with the earth, and with gravity? This proposal aims to open a space of observation within the dance itself, its movement, and its physicality. The creative chaos; where multiple states of attention coexist: listening, responding, leading, following, emergency, emerge, merge. We stay with and dance everything that precedes fluidity, softness, and aesthetics. Mutable, mutual, and vulnerable.
Katja Mustonen
Katja Mustonen is a dancer, teacher and choreographer from Finland. She graduated as a dancer in 2004, and for the past 20 years she has traveled around the globe working with dance. In dance, she is interested in the holistic performer, where strong physicality is joined with active imagination, energy work and embodied wisdom. Her special strength is in Contact Improvisation, partnering and improvisation, but she is versatile within dance depending on the context as a performer, maker and teacher.
Always More than One
We will slide, roll, jump and collide in and out of contact with the idea of always more than one. Materials will alternate between solo, duo, trio and group-scores. We use touch to orient and negotiate relations within time, space and bodies to cultivate the dynamics of the present. We play with tasks that require multitasking/-focus to move beyond habitual responses. Exploring always more than one invites us to discover and deepen strategies for the unknown and engage with spontaneous dancing together with others.
“To move is always to activate the time of the event, to feel-with the varying velocities of time’s multiple rhythms. Time, moving us, moving time.”
*The name of the workshop is borrowed from a book by Erin Mannings ”Always More Than One: Individuation’s Dance. This is her quote.
Week 2
January 11-16
Kostas Gerardos
Kostas is a Greek dancer, choreographer, and educator with over three decades of experience in contemporary dance and performance. Alongside his choreographic career, he has taught contemporary dance, Contact Improvisation, composition, and performance in professional schools and universities in Greece and abroad. His teaching draws on decades of research into natural movement, anatomy, gravity, and momentum, and studying these basic principles of human movement lead also to the development of his Flow in Motion method.
Holding and Carrying
How can we support another body’s weight without straining our own?
How does a simple “hold” transform into a fluid, continuous dance?
“Holding and Carrying” is an intensive workshop dedicated to the art of Lifting and Supporting within the practice of Contact Improvisation. Throughout this workshop, we will shift our focus away from muscular effort and toward the smart use of skeletal alignment, gravity, momentum, and breath.
We will explore how to offer a safe, stable base (holding) and how to transport (carrying) our partner through space while maintaining the organic flow of the improvisation.
Johan Nilsson
Johan first discovered CI in 2004, and since then has been participating as a teacher and performer in dance events internationally. He is regularly teaching classes and organising CI events.
Johan is also a trained gardener and teacher in Biodynamic farming and Permaculture. Alternative methods, plant forces, and a deep relationship with the natural world are a great source of inspiration for him. In dance and improvisation, he experiences the same fascination as when he was a child playing in the forest, in contact with nature.
Connecting Bodies – Peak Presence // Contact Improvisation and Ecosomatics
For a few years Johan’s work in dance and gardening tends to blend more and more into the practice of Ecosomatics, a way to work with the dignity of human kind and the future of the living earth. Learning more about our own systems through studying the large ecosystems, and training our empathy for the large systems based on our own somatic system.
We will use meditative scores and somatic exercises as tools to connect and reconnect, striving for interconnectedness. Together we dive into a movement practice and a dance form where we give into our instincts and learn about easily accessible movement patterns that our body knows from the long path of evolution.
Week 3
January 18-23
Kira Kirsch
Kira Kirsch is a movement artist, educator, researcher, curator, and community weaver based at Lake Studios Berlin. For over 20 years, she has developed collaborative approaches to movement through the Axis Syllabus, somatic practice, and Contact Improvisation, teaching internationally and cultivating spaces for embodied learning.
The Body Orchestra is Kira Kirsch’s evolving movement practice, emerging from more than twenty years of research in dance pedagogy, biomechanics, somatic inquiry, Contact Improvisation and contemporary dance.
The Body Orchestra // Axis Syllabus – Somatics – Contact Improvisation
Sit. Lie down. Stand. Move. Listen. Breath plays the scales of tissue tone. Fluids ebb and flow. Bones whisper their grand time scale shape shifts. Fascia conducts forces through elastic reverberations and a wave like movement in your spine is singing of an omnipresent pulse. Together all these rhythms form an incredible dynamic polyphonic system. An orchestra responding to gravity, touch, music, space and one another with sheer endless variations.
Itay Yatuv
Itay has trained as a contemporary dancer in New York, Italy and Israel and has been practicing and teaching CI internationally for 20 years. Itay is also a long term Aikido practitioner, a practice he loves to integrate in his dance work. In the last 15 years, Itay has been developing the Contakids method which invites children and parents to play together through movement and touch. In recent years, he has also been developing the ‘Bona Dance’ project, which invites adults with no previous experience to take up dancing.
Playing with Conflict and Flow // Where Aikido Meets Contact
With 18 years of Aikido practice, I’ve discovered profound connections between the martial art’s focus on peaceful conflict resolution and the dynamic interactions inherent in CI. This workshop is grounded in the unique synergy between these two practices, aiming to enrich our understanding of movement and connection. In the studio, we’ll blend technical work both from Aikido and Contact Improvisation to create a playful and enlightening experience. We’ll engage in guided exercises that focus on identifying, negotiating, and creatively resolving physical ‘conflicts’ that arise when our movements and intentions meet.
Aegina, Greece
The Dance Yurt is part of Oikia Karapanou, a beautiful center surrounded by pistachio trees and located just a short walk from the beach.
Structure of our Programme
The program unfolds over three weeks in January 2027, structured as three 6-day intensives.
Each week stands on its own, while also weaving into a larger journey. You can join for one, two, or all three weeks, depending on your availability and desire for depth.
Join 1 week
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Early Bird, Nov 30th- €720
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Normal Price- €830
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The price includes full board
Join 2 weeks
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Early Bird, Nov 30th- €1,320
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Normal Price- €1,480
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The price includes full board
+ 2 nights in between
Join 3 weeks
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Early Bird, Nov 30th- €1,840
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Normal Price- €2,100
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The price includes full board
+ 4 nights in between
Choose Your Weeks
All 3 weeks
Jan 4–23
Bari Kim & Katja Mustonen
Konstantinos Gerardos & Johan Nilsson
Kira Kirsch & Itay Yatuv
Join us
Week 1 · Jan 4–9
Bari Kim & Katja Mustonen
Join us
Week 2 · Jan 11-16
Konstantinos Gerardos & Johan Nilsson
Join us
Week 3 · Jan 18-23
Kira Kirsch & Itay Yatuv
Join us
Week 1+2
Jan 4–16
Bari Kim & Katja Mustonen
Konstantinos Gerardos & Johan Nilsson
Join us
Week 1+3
Jan 4–23
Bari Kim & Katja Mustonen
Kira Kirsch & Itay Yatuv
Join us
Week 2+3
Jan 11–23
Konstantinos Gerardos & Johan Nilsson
Kira Kirsch & Itay Yatuv
Join us
Contact us
FAQ
Who is this programme for?
Our Winter Programme is suitable both for seasoned CI practitioners and also for those who are just beginning to dip their toes into the practice.
How to get to the Dance Yurt?
The Dance Yurt on Aegina island is easily accessible with public transportation – one hour metro ride from the airport to the port of Piraeus and from there a beautiful short ferry trip to the island.
What will a week’s programme look like?
The week’s programme will be structured with a 2-3h morning class after breakfast, followed by lunch and rest/free time to explore the island. In the afternoon, another 2-3h session, followed by dinner. In the evening, we will take time to rest, connect outside the dance, and also offer more structured optional activities, like a film screening, discussion or night Jam!
