Get to know the teachers & artists
Intensive led by
NINA WEHNERT (DE)
Fluid Presence - Heart, Belly, Brain
Body-Mind Centering® into Contact Improvisation
How do we move from the inner fluid presence of the body?
How does our inner continuous fluid movement guide and orient us?
How does our fluid presence shape the way we sense ourselves, others, and the world?
In this intensive, we will focus on three essential centers of our being: the heart, the belly, and the brain. They emerged through embryological movement, formed and rooted through the fluid landscape of our body. Each of these organs has its own nervous system, its own rhythm, and its own way of perceiving — a distinct place of “knowing”. Their ongoing interconnectedness influences our emotional and physical tone, our sensing capacities, our presence, and the way we meet the world and one another in our dances.
We will explore their fluid embryological origins, motions that support regulation, modulation and vitality. We will experience their relationship to arms, hands, legs and feet. From these calm yet deeply alive places we will enter into CI dances.
Through giving and receiving weight, following and orienting through touch, and sensing the shifting pathways of our partners, we will deepen fundamental principles of CI. These practices become fertile ground from which more physically challenging and spacious dances can emerge.
Our fluid presence becomes a source of trust, ease, and multidirectional support — a ground from which openness and spaciousness can arise.
Through clear anatomical guidance, imagery, touch, solo exploration, and partner work, we will invite fine cellular awareness to the foreground. From subtle inner spaces to expansive motion, we will allow tissues, structures, and fluids to express themselves through dance.
Bio
Nina Wehnert is living in Berlin, Germany and Savona, Italy. She is a certified Practitioner and Teacher of Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) and graduated Cranio Sacral Therapy Practitioner. She is part of the directing and teaching team of moveus, the licensed program of the School for BMC® in Germany. She teaches BMC® worldwide at Contact Improvisation festivals, in workshops and dance and yoga trainings. She is dancing Contact Improvisation since more than 30 years, has studied contemporary dance and has been teaching Yoga and Contact Improvisation for many years. She is offering her own BMC® Training in Berlin and Genova. On her website you can find recorded online classes.
www.ninawehnert.com
Classes & Labs led by
Magdaléna Takáčová (SK)
One hour of CI basics with Magda.
It is always good to come back to basics and to roots. Deepening the ability to ground, to take weight, to reach, to fall, to expand is always handy :)
Classes are focused on technical skills and open to anyone who is willing to explore. Very suitable for beginners but could be interesting for long time dancers of CI to recall and remember stuff that was holding them before.
and
Žubra K. Žubretovská (SK)
Embodied creativity
One hour of playful improvisation dance in groups, trios or duos with easy tools to support our creative journey.
We’ll indulge in touching the poetry of the dance and dancing the touch of the poetry. We’ll allow ourselves voicing the movement and moving the voice while echoing in one another motion as well as stillness.
This is an invitation into full presence in which we’ll contain the space and the space contains us.
Bio
She has devoted herself to dance from her young age when she danced classic ballroom dances and gradually she transitioned to modern dance, improvisation, Contact improvisation (CI) and somatics.
She has accomplished a 3 year program “Mindful body“ at Rena Milgrom´s, which enriched her knowledge of Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentanls. Žubra has been expanding her dance skills in studio Druna, DanceLab, Nuevo and Academy of Performing Arts. She participates at workshops and festivals of CI and of somatic where she obtains her impulses and motivations for her work.
Her work involves movement workshops and retreats focused primarily on somatics, improvisation, and authentic movement; somatic meditations; individual sessions and cranial sacral therapy.
Music played by Monika Bucharová - moncello (CZ)
Music emerges from the present moment
Monika weaves together voice, cello, looping, and other instruments in a shared space with dancers. She experiences the time of playing during jams as an opportunity not to be afraid to meet herself, what the space needs, the dancers in the space, and her own restless mind.
"It's a beautiful dose of courage in practice: not being afraid to step into the space with nothing and wait for what emerges. To let yourself be guided. To go through frustration or complete bliss of presence. Not to perform, but not to be afraid to share yourself."
Bio
Monika is active in various fields whose common denominator is music. She currently creates her own music under the pseudonym moncello and collaborates on other musical projects (monjur). Listeners describe her music as inward and intimate, but also playful and raw. She has been regularly playing at CI jams since 2023 (e.g., Long Jam Brno). In the past, she played music in the theatre, accompanied site-specific, acrobatic and storytelling performances, played in the orchestra and various ensembles.
With a background in psychology and music therapy, Monika is now a PhD student and practising music therapist. She perceives music as a precious and magical tool with the potential to connect, heal and soften.
photo: Maysara Volf
Morning practices
led by Pavel Hak & Marco Klokner
Pavel Hak
(CZ)
music & morning practice
Marco Klokner
(SVK)
morning practice
Kid's entertainer
Maya
I’m a mum of two children and I also create my own art at nyjamaja.com. I organize creative workshops for kids and adults using unfired clay. Kids love getting their hands dirty, so I let them 🙂. Together, we’ll create clay pictures that you can take home as a souvenir of the festival.