Master Class with Jérémie Chetrit

​Contact Improvisation Master Class with Jérémie Chetrit

Open to all movers, professionals, and art enthusiasts!

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Schedule 

Saturday, February 1, 2020

12pm-1:30pm

Location

Private Studio in Austin, TX

Location sent with registration

Tuition

$15 Pre-paid online

$20 At door (cash/credit/check to AM Arts)

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Unwinding

Like wind-up toys, we accumulate energy—kinetic, emotional and psychological—on a number of different levels and orders of magnitude; and then we release it, out of choice or necessity.

In craniosacral therapy and other forms of therapy, we use the word unwinding to describe the process by which accumulated tension frees itself through the body. This process is not always cathartic and explosive; it can just as well be gentle, subtle, small. It follows a meandering (winding!) path of its own, and requires a detailed attention on the part of the therapist who assists and accompanies it out of the unwinder's body.

I am interested in the dance of winding and unwinding.

What can we gain from holding in and building up tension?

How can we make healthy and efficient choices as to how and when we release it?

In this workshop, we will play with winding up and loading springs in both the body and mind, and then refine the art of releasing them.

Some examples of kinetic springs that we might play with:

- spinal spirals and helixes

- loading the myofascial chains

- lifting and dropping

- stops and starts—rhythmic tension

- physical restraint and self-restraint

- and with all of those, practicing safe and effort-efficient unwinding

And some emotional springs:

- generating and inviting emotions, using each other's support to welcome them

- bringing them into the dance and into relationship, with patience and care

- and making art with them!

Then there are also attentional springs…

In any case, expect to challenge yourself, to wind yourself up nice and tight… and then fly like a toy penguin!

About Jérémie

Jeremie Chetrit is a dancer, choreographer, and bodyworker. He holds a BA in Dance from Oberlin College, and has been teaching Contact Improvisation since 2004. He has taught across the USA (including at Berkeley's WCCIJ and at Earthdance, MA), Canada, Italy, and his native France, to dancers of various ages, backgrounds and abilities. His dancing and teaching are informed by his bodywork (Structural Integration and cranio-sacral therapy) and meditation practices, as well as his study of Axis Syllabus.

He has been blessed to work and perform with extraordinary dance-makers such as Kirstie Simson, Nita Little, Scott Wells, and Keith Hennessy, and to study with many of Contact Improvisation's masters and pioneers (Nita Little, Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Martin Keogh, Sara Shelton Mann, Malcolm Manning, Charlie Morrissey, Andrew Harwood, Frey Faust...). In addition to his work for the stage, he is interested in transforming public and shared spaces, as well as inner space -- the space of sensation and perception.

He has just returned from France where his study of clowning has turned his world upside-down. His current work involves trying to figure out which way is up and which way is down as he blends all these worlds together.

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