It is a very joyous performance connecting live music and choreography inspired by children moving. Two dancers, two musicians (cellist and violinist) create special environment for shared experience: movement and music improvisations which involve all families. Movement: jumps, rolling, sliding is strongly connected to music. The performance creates touching, unique dialogue between artists, babies and their parents.
It feels like a gentle dream when suddenly – crackle, tackle, chuckle – a mysterious being is coming into the world. And now? | Actress Sandy Bergmann and musician Gerhard Schmitt taje their young audience on a journey: from the very beginnings, passing through stages of metamorphosis and finally unfolding to freedom. Working nearly without language, they explore the road from dreaming to dancing using strong images and sensual action. A cocoon can protect us. But it also makes us cumbersome. Throwing it off will feel airy and free. But it also makes us vulnerable. How can I be strong and soft at the same time? Both vessel and flow? The players are testing it out – trial and error – making the children accomplices in their play with boundless possibilities of being.
Carefree Lightness of Being builds bridges of trust and mutual acceptance. It is a special bonding event for children and adults based on the contact improvisation method. The goal is to create a common space for playing and to show acceptance to your child and yourself by immersing in the now and in freedom from barriers brought about by awareness of the body and relaxation. Starting the class with relaxation techniques will help to integrate the group and, since nothing is as good in brining people together as empathy, the participants will learn from one another. In this project, both children and adults will be each others’ guides and will create a dance class together. Staging scenes and stories through movement, everyone will have the chance to show their inventiveness, work in a group and develop their ability to tell stories using gestures.
How to build a common choreographym through simple movement games? In his workshop Janusz Orlik wants to show the possibility of creating a group dance image, in which all family members will be involved – regardless of age, physical shape or movement skills. Starting from simple exercises and movement games, the dancer and the participants of the workshop will build a choreography that allows everyone to present their uniqueness of movement. The aim of the workshop is not to master complicated steps or difficult sequences of movements, but to experience active being together and the search for one’s own movement expression and freedom in dance.
Can you draw dance? In the workshop, Aleksandra Borys wants to combine movement with drawing: using your body within space with the work of a crayon on paper. This will reveal how dance is “recorded” by children of various ages and how it is seen by adults. The games will merge drawing with movement to release the participants’ (both children’s and adults’) artistic expression and freedom in creating and combining different arts and materials.
Kacper Lipiński is the creator of the F.G.D (Fight Gravity Dance) movement system, which combines the experience of movement with the principles of operating one’s body, used in contemporary dance techniques and widely-perceived martial arts. His classes bring together strength and the freedom and beauty of dance. Soft Force is a workshop which debunks stereotypes about the body of a fighter and that of a dancer. Families who will take part in the workshop will have the opportunity to depart from the traditional divisions within a group. The instructor will show them how strong girls and women can be, how beautifully fathers can move or how much grace there can be a dance-fight between a father and son. During the workshop, fathers can work with their daughters and boys can see that fighting does not mean violence but beauty; mothers can get the chance to feel strong and fathers to feel relaxed owing to the dance-like character of martial arts.
Building trust and a sense of security is an extremely important element of family bonding. By working with covered eyes, by learning to partner each other in movement and by guiding each other in informal dancing, the workshop participants will build some unique bonds. Starting from the simple and well-known game of blind man’s buff, Korina Kordova will guide the participants through a world of movement constructed without the use of eyesight.
Dancing Families is an artistic research project conducted by a group of Spanish artists since 2002. Initiated during a trip to Africa, the exploration of the movement-related interactions that are possible to build between family members have resulted in a multidimensional project extending far beyond Spain and involving professionals and festivals across the world. For over a decade, artists, psychologists and researchers have been conducting workshops with hundreds of families to develop methods which are best suited for the designing of classes which involve all family members, i.e. children, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins etc., in movement activities.
The basic premise of the workshops is to see a family as a group of people who are equal. The participants unite and build intimate and unique bonds, in addition to gaining insight into their own and each other’s emotions. The relaxation movement activities make them feel at ease and allow them to open up to others. Choreographic work in groups comprising members of the same family provides for better understanding and for the building of bonds and trust. Owing to the way in which the instructors release the participants’ freedom of expression, to the lack of division into age or gender groups and to activities that reject the principle of orders and prohibitions, the workshop not only has a relaxing effect on the participants, but also a therapeutic one.
Rhythm and movement have existed from the dawn of history. They accompany humans throughout their whole lives. Already in the womb, the foetus dances to the rhythm of its mother’s hart. All primeval or “primitive” communities displayed the need to express their emotions and communicate with their ancestors and spirits through music and dance. In Africa, music and dance accompany people on important occasions and in everyday life. African women do not part with their babies at all – carrying them around in scarves, they conduct all their daily activities and take part in a whole variety of ceremonies and rituals, during which they sing and dance. Children thus nursed grow, develop and become self-reliant more quickly. They learn about life and, by listening to the sound of drums, they develop an aptitude for music and dancing.
A parent dancing rhythmically with a baby in a nursing scarf strengthens the bonds between them, gives the child a greater sense of security, enhances its development and helps it relax. This activity is great fun and helps mothers regain their form after pregnancy and giving birth. It integrates and teaches the participants to work in a group.
African dancing boosts motor coordination, develops body awareness, releases creativity and helps express emotions. It also fulfils the natural need of “contact with earth” and, consequently, reinforces and affects one’s self esteem and self-confidence.
The classes are intended not only for those parents who already carry their babies in nursing scarves, but also for those who would like to learn the art of tying the scarves (a professional nursing scarf consultant will be present). They are also open to expecting mothers, expecting fathers and their partners.
Shared Energy is a workshop dedicated to the relationship between a parent’s and a child’s body based on moving together in a wide variety of dynamics and energies, in addition to observing how the energies affect the two participants. The aim is to find an individual and comfortable movement-dance that will allow the parent and child to play together, feel relaxed and have fun. The participants will not learn any particular dance steps, but through relaxed movements that refer to the specific energies of dances like ballet, the tango, tribal dance or tai chi movements, they will develop their own parent-child dance.
Starting from simple games based on naming body parts, Monika Kiwak will guide the participants through a series of exercises that will activate their whole bodies. How can a nose or an ear dance? Can a movement that is typical for a particular part of the body be used for naming that body part? Based on children’s natural motor and linguistic expression, the choreographer and all the workshop participants will create a surprising world of animated body parts.
A meeting and presentation dedicated to the history, development and outcomes of the Dancing Families project, as well as to the problems encountered during its realisation. Juan Eduardo López will share his experience and talk about the possibilities of creating twin-projects in Poland. He will also present the extensive visual materials and documentation created during the twelve years of the project’s existence. The lecture will be followed by a discussion with dancers and choreographers who want to develop their technique to work with families