Contact Improvisation with Live Music with Ethan Hunter 

Sylvia Staehli Theatre

Friday 22 July, 6—8pm

The joy of dancing with live music, tuned to the many dances in the room. What a treat!

A wonderful night of dancing for anyone with any Contact experience (however small), and a great opportunity to drop back in if you haven’t been around for a while.

There will be a lead-in by Martin Hughes to get us all physically warm and in the same movement “space” together.

Our musician is Ethan Hunter, a sound designer/artist who composes gritty electronic soundscapes, through the use of dreamy synths and deep percussion he aims to push the boundaries of the expected and fall into the unexplained.

The Emergent Edge – Developing an Improvisational Performance Practice based on Whimsy, Strategy and Skill with Kevin Jeynes

Upstairs Studio

Saturday 23 July, 10am—12pm

Together, through doing, reflecting and sharing, we’ll inquire into how improvisation can be developed and honed as a performance form and a performance resource, and be equally applicable to dance, language and sound-making.

Kevin’s approach to improvised performance has, over the past 20+ years, traversed the pleasing plains of cohesion and the slippery slopes of disintegration in movement, sound, song and text. He has performed extensively throughout Australia at venues in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and at Improxchange, Berlin. He was a member of ‘Making Space’, an improvisational research group in Brisbane, from 2003 to 2007, and co-founder of the ‘Froth’ Performance Venue in Brisbane in 2008.

After moving to Melbourne in 2012 Kevin curated and regularly performed in the ongoing series ‘un-attache d’, and ‘Up the Ante’ at the Cecil Street Studio and since 2019 ‘Now Pieces’ at Dancehouse. He has appeared in the shows, Squinting, 241 Years, Hare and Dog, Straw-men, Words Flail, Tooth and Claww, Margins, Finely Tuned-Roughly Grated, Tall Storeys, Flight and Tryptych.

He is interested in how we each find our form as improvisers, and how this form continues to develop, re-form and emerge

Hustle Workshop with Madfox

Upstairs Studio

Saturday 23 July, 6—8pm

Hustle is a partner dance style that originated in New York in the Latinx and Puerto Rican community. This dance style is heavily influenced and inspired by Salsa and Bachata. In this class, Madfox will guide you through the basics of following and leading, movement and relationship to music, and hustle vocabulary.

Afro Workshop with Kwabo Grace

***POSTPONED***

Delve into African modern dance culture and join Kwabo Afrodance Workshop.

This dynamic, fun and inclusive workshop delivered by Gracieuse Amah also known as Kwabo Grace is more than your usual dance workshop, as you immerse in an authentic experience to understand the foundations of African dance, from origins, grooves, musicality, culture, values, philosophy and body techniques.

YOU DON’T DANCE AFRO, YOU FEEL IT AND EXPRESS IT!

The first hour will be dedicated to drills of steps and understanding of the cultural meaning of the dances whereas the second hour will be focussed on learning a dance routine.

How to Participate in Street Dance Culture with Jam on Toast

Skylab

Sunday 24 July, 6—8pm

In this panel discussion, we aim to talk about street dance, culture, and how to participate in it.  Recently, the street dance scene has witnessed an influx in numbers, more specifically in Naarm, which brings up conversations about ‘how to partake in’ when engaging in this space.

Topics of the talk can be found below:

– Battle etiquette

– Cypher etiquette

– Cultural appropriation in street dance

– University dance clubs and street dance

The talk will be chaired by Oliver Le of Jam on Toast and we are privileged and honoured to have the following panellists on board:

– Lamaroc

– Efren Pamallican

– Dennis