Contact Improvisation Sundays
Every Sunday 10:30am -12:00am
at Main Street Martial Arts
Located at 1282 N Main Street Providence, RI
Contact improvisation is an art sport founded and developed by post-modern dancers in the 70’s, who were also trained in martial arts and gymnastics. The form utilizes elements of these disciplines and continues to evolve within individual bodies, communities, and cultures as it is practiced worldwide.
Contact Improvisation is an exploration of the body’s relationship to the physical forces that govern our motion while in physical contact with other bodies. The form can be expressed as highly athletic exchanges – falling and flying through space, and also as quiet, mindful exchanges with very little motion. This wide range of movement potential makes CI safe and accessible to all bodies, ages, and abilities.
Class will grow your capacity to work within states of disorientation and organize the weights of the body efficiently to prepare for the constantly evolving conditions of our environment. You will practice many strategies for giving and receiving clear weight/touch information while expanding your ability to sense the subtle changes occurring in your own body and the bodies of others. Class includes a balance of skill training and improvisational exercises and games that test our ability to adapt and improvise in the moment, challenging in real-time, our functionality and creative choice-making. Learn more at Contact Improv Providence
Cash or Venmo at the door, sliding scale $15 – $20
Monthly Contact Improvisation Jam
Every 4th Sunday | 12:00pm – 2:00pm
at Main Street Martial Arts
Located at 1282 N Main Street Providence, RI
Come practice your CI skills on the mat! All are welcome. Sliding scale $10 – $20 cash or venmo.
PAST EVENTS
Contact Improvisation Class + Jam
Saturday, March 16th, 2024 | 6:00pm – 9:00pm
at Studio Exhale in Cranston, RI
Contact Improvisation class 6 – 8PM, taught by Stephanie Turner explores rolling landscapes of the body. We’ll be practicing low flying and passing weight through the center body. This class will be accessible to beginners and exercises will be scaled for more experienced CI practitioners. Jam will follow 8 – 9PM.
Contact Rebecca Foster for early registration and more info: rjfoster6@gmail.com. Class & Jam: Sliding scale $25 to $50. Jam Only: Sliding scale $15 to $25.
Motion State Arts Festival: AIRSTREAM
Wednesday, February 28th, 2024 | 7:30pm
at The Wilbury Theater in Providence, RI
Improvisational dance performers create instant choreography, following both predetermined and spontaneous rules of engagement.
Rachel Boggia (CT) . Heidi Henderson (RI) . Lila Hurwitz (RI) . Michelle Struckholz (RI) . Stephanie Turner (CT) With sounds by Andy Russ (RI)
Contact Improvisation Workshop
The Barn, 130 Jacob Street Seekonk, MA
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Full day workshop taught by Jungwoong Kim and Stephanie Turner. Experience the harmony of emptying and filling as we work to develop creative languages to expand our movement and thinking.
Contact Improvisation Class + Jam
Saturday, August 26th 2023 | 6:00pm – 10:00pm
at Studio Exhale in Cranston, RI
Contact Improvisation class 6 – 8PM, taught by Stephanie Turner followed by a Jam with live music by Will Farrell 8 – 10PM. Play on your creative and physical edges! By increasing our ability to playfully challenge and be challenged, we help each other grow and improve non-verbal listening skills that allow us to connect to our own impulses for movement as we coordinate with others and our environment.
Contact Improvisation Fundamentals
Saturday, September 2nd 2023 | 10:00am – 5:00pm
The Barn, 130 Jacob Street Seekonk, MA
Full day workshop taught by Stephanie Turner on the basic principles and practices of Contact Improvisation. In this workshop we will practice nonverbal communication, how to organize our weight around a shared center of gravity, and the fundamentals of falling and flying.
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Contact Improvisation Class at Fringe PVD
Saturday, July 22nd 2023 | 3:30am – 5:00pm
WaterFire Arts Center, 475 Valley Street
In this class we will primarily use improvisational scores and games to inspire playful ways into moving with a partner that include sharing weight and working with momentum and gravity. We will also look at creative strategies to activate the inherent wisdom our bodies possess: physical instincts for safety and spontaneous expression.
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Contact Improvisation Class
Saturday, June 17th 2023 | 6:30am – 9:00pm
Studio ONE – Lincoln, RI
Ecstatic Dance with DJ Tara Ma will follow an hour long contact improvisation class exploring cooperative and competitive play. All abilities and skills levels are welcome.
Spring Jam
Saturday, May 17th 2023 | 6:00am – 8:30pm
The Barn, 130 Jacob Street Seekonk, MA
Open Jam. All are welcome. Facilitated by Stephanie Turner.
Bodies of Knowledge: Full Day Workshop
Saturday, March 18th 2023 | 9:30am – 8:00pm
The Barn, 130 Jacob Street Seekonk, MA
Taught by Gisela Creus and Steph Turner at the Barn in Seekonk, MA. Workshop based in contemporary technique and contact improvisation. Live Music by Will Farrell. Limited Space. Registration is now open!
Contact Improvisation Class + Jam *Live Music
January 7th, 2023 | 6 – 10PM
at Studio Exhale in Cranston, RI
Contact Improvisation class 6 – 8PM, taught by Stephanie Turner followed by a Contact Improvisation Jam 8 – 10PM with live music played by Will Farrell. Steph and Will have been improvising together for the last four years around a shared interest in curating music and movement situations that facilitate a deep dive into our bodies and creative facilities. We look forward to sharing our experiments with you! All bodies are welcome.
The Haunted Cellar on Main Street
October 27 | 5 -9pm + October 28 – 29 | 6 – 10pm
at Bear Hands Brewery in Putnam, CT
Tickets at the door,
Black Pond Haunted Trail
October 21st | 6 -9pm
at Black Pond Brews in Killingly, CT
Tickets at the door
JAM Contact Improvisation + Performance
January 20th – 23rd
at the field center in Bellows Falls, VT
3 days of contact improvisation workshops, labs and open jams with Jungwoong Kim + Steph Turner. limited space. Registration opening November 15th.
Bodies of Knowledge: Full Day Intensive
December 11th | 10:00am – 3:00pm
at The Barn in Seekonk, MA
Taught by Gisela Creus and Steph Turner at the Barn in Seekonk, MA. Intensive based in contemporary technique and contact improvisation. Live Music. Limited Space. Early Bird Discount before November 24th!
Outdoor Adult Contemporary Dance
Taking a short Break! Start date TBD
at the Haus of Glitter Performance Lab + Parq
Balancing wildness and specificity, class will focus on bringing awareness to inner sensation as it paces creative expression to reveal the body’s instincts and inherent musicality. Full bodied dance phrases and integrated floor work will practice the coordination of effort and release in the body as a route to finding both our freest and deeply rooted dancing.
Contact Improv Providence
Mondays 7-9pm at 116 Calverly
Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one’s basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self-correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones, bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened. — early definition by Steve Paxton and others, 1970s,
from CQ Vol. 5:1, Fall 1979
Weekly classes and jams are facilitated by Jason Woofenden, Stephanie Turner, Jeff Doff, Shura Baryshnikov and Alexa Barriga. Check out our full schedule and class descriptions – Contact Improv Providence
iTMRW
a 75-minute dance theater piece set to a live performance of a futuristic concept album by Arc Iris, premieres through The American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T)
January 25th + 26th at Oberon in Harvard Square
March 13th at the Shea Center in Turner Falls
March 18th at the La Poisson Rouge in NYC
The year is 2080. iTMRW, the love story of Robert and his android partner, Jenny, unfolds against the backdrop of a world where advanced technology is both a source of, and a “cure” for human alienation: advertisements come in the form of “pop-up thoughts,” entire cities float on islands of trash, female forms are purchased and discarded at will, and aristocrats live in a state of debauchery and despair. The piece takes its title from iTMRW, the mega-corporation that produces and sells every single product known to humankind. Despite societal chaos, the human spirit persists in its quest for love.
Choreographed by Danielle Davidson and Performed by Gisela Creus, Jacob Reagan, Stephanie Turner, Ellen Oliver, Jessica Howard and Orlando Hernandez