Cyrus Khambatta, an award winning dance teacher, performer and choreographer from the USA will be visiting the UK as part of his European teaching tour. We have the good fortune of him coming to Winchester to run a one day Contact Improvisation workshop.

This one day workshop integrates elements of Contact Improvisation (CI) with elements of contemporary partnering and performance work and is suitable for anyone who is interested in developing there Contact Improvisation Skills, alongside those interested in Contemporary Dance or Performance. Some basic CI or Dance experience is required. Please get in touch if you are interested to come.

The day will start by emphasising a focusing within the body that stimulates a micro-awareness of highly articulated surfaces and mini-pathways, that expands the physical tools and versatility we have available in our body-to-body dialogue, to create a rich palate of inter-body communication.

Using Cyrus' own release and "fitting" technique, we will grow attention to the minuscule shifts in the architecture of two bodies as well as the internal “state” this creates in our own body, engaging an experiential feedback loop to develop a sensory road map to our partners body and simultaneously our own personal experience (feelings, memories and associations).

Using this expressive capacity and this articulated body awareness, we will see how to instigate the dances we desire to have, fully capable of subtly or bigness, focus or expansion, momentum and dynamics or stillness and clarity.

We will also extend fluid but decentralised anatomic structural elements into a self-generated spatial environment, sustaining multi-sensorial tracking to spawn a depth of expressive and physical awareness, both with partners and in the solo experience.

Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself into this in-depth inquiry into the dance.

Cyrus Khambatta Biography:

Cyrus Khambatta graduated from New York University where he founded Khambatta Dance Company (originally: Phffft! Dance Company). He has created and/or performed both improvised and Contact-inspired choreographed works presented throughout the USA and Europe, as well as in Russia, Latin America, Canada, Mexico, India and Brazil by companies such as Ririe Woodbury Dance (Salt Lake City), Pisorojo (Caracas) Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance (Seattle), Evergreen Ballet and others.

His Contact Improvisation-inspired work received California’s Daman New Choreography Award, he was chosen for the National Dance Project’s Regional Dance Development Initiative and recently was nominated for an Albert award. He has performed and/or taught with improvisers such as Chris Aiken, Nina Martin, Katie Duck and many others.

His work with his company has been presented by venues including The Spoleto Festival USA (NC), the Choreographic Centre of Tours (France), The National Centre for the Performance Arts (Mumbai, India), The Vancouver International Dance Festival, the San Francisco International Arts Festival and The Central University of Venezuela among others. As an improviser he has performed/taught at Freiburg CI Festival, 1001 Festival (France), The New York and Washington D.C. Improvisation festivals, Seattle Festival of Dance and Improvisation, Dartington College (UK), Bialystok Dance Festival, Kontakt Budapest among others and most recently facilitated the 4th of July Earthdance Jam in Massachusetts.

He runs the Wild Meadows Farm CI Intensive, produces The Centrum Jam in Port Townsend, WA as well as the Seattle International Dance Festival (www.SeattleIDF.org).

For more info www.KhambattaDance.org