SP25 CONTACT IMPROVISATION FESTIVAL
28.07 – 01.08.2025, 15:00–23:00
15:00–18:00 Workshop with Scott Wells “From Zero to Flying”
18:30–20:30 Contact Improvisation Class (with changing teachers)
21:00–23:00 Jam (Opening Circles at 21:00)
Whole Festival, incl. Jams: 250€ member / 310€ non-member
(Registration for the whole festival vis email to post@marameo.de)
Scott Wells Intensive: 150€ member / 180 € non-member
Individual Classes: 16€ member / 20€ non-member
Jams: 5€ member / 8€ non-member
Program Overview
Monday, 28.07.25
15:00–18:00 Intensive with Scott Wells
18:30–20:30 Class with Andrew Wass
21:00–23:00 Jam
Tuesday, 29.07.25
15:00–18:00 Intensive with Scott Wells
18:30–20:30 Class with Ester Kalosz
21:00–23:00 Jam
Wednesday, 30.07.25
15:00–18:00 Intensive with Scott Wells
18:30–20:30 Class with Ka Rustler
21:00–23:00 Jam
Thursday, 31.07.25
15:00–18:00 Intensive with Scott Wells
18:30–20:30 Class with Hugh Stanier
21:00–23:00 Jam
Freitag, 01.08.25
15:00–18:00 Intensive with Scott Wells
18:30–20:30 Class with Karthik Rajmohan
21:00–23:00 Jam
From Zero to Flying – Intensive with Scott Wells
28.07. – 01.08.25, 15:00–18:00
With CI Erfahrung
REGISTER HERE!
A somatic based approach to Contact and Flying.
We will start with contact practices in which sensation and proprioception lead to refined skills. We will work with physics and somatics that support freedom of flight and expression.(Pleasure ↔ Technique, Somatics → Acrobatics). Zero as in developmental patterns at birth. Zero as cellular touch. We will practice flying, catching, landing, fluid acrobatics, deft maneuvers. For the acrobatics everyone will work at their own level and will learn best by building group safety and trust. I aim to connect the work to somatic knowledge. For example, Jumping ≠ Flying because jumping is muscular action, whereas flying is in the bones and is affected greatly by emotions and attitude. We will be doing favorite Contact Improvisation exercises and current curiosities: created and learned over the decades investigation and indulgence.
Scott Wells has been practicing contact improv for 40 years, teaching for 30 and directs an award winning dance company in San Francisco. He has created works for skateboarders, for boxers and choreographed West Side Story for Sonoma State University. Scott has twice received the Izzie (San Francisco’s most prestigious dance award) for Outstanding Choreography. Scott has toured to Europe for the last 25 years teaching and performing in festivals in Moscow, Barcelona, Budapest, Berlin, Vienna, Zagreb, Bucharest and Ankara to name a few. He has an MFA in Dance, has been practicing Alexander Technique for thirty years, BMC for 15 and has studied a variety of counseling and bodywork practices. His current research passions are Eyebody practice, moving from the organs and contact improvisation.
About the Classes
The Four Heavenly Winds – Andrew Wass
Monday, 28.07.25, 18:30-20:30
Open Level
REGISTER HERE!
The 4 Heavenly Winds
Moving Shape – Moving Space
Static Shape – Static Space
Static Shape – Moving Space
Moving Shape – Static Shape
If movement is deconstructed into shape and space, and if we are always either moving or not moving, it is possible to create 4 states of movement, or 4 Winds. By some measure, we are always in one of these 4 options. In this class we will start with somatically-oriented movement scores and hands-on material to wake up and warm up the relationship between the limbs, and the torso. We will then turn our attention to the 4 Heavenly Winds, exploring the limitations they create to find more possibilities. Shifting towards the duet, we will investigate the contact surface between bodies and the 16 combinations of the 4 Winds.
Andrew Wass blurs corporeal and cognitive practices to discover more potential in his teaching and performance practice. Performance and teaching opportunities have taken him to universities, festivals, and theaters in Europe, the United States and Asia. Wass has performed with Ray Chung, Jess Curtis, Nina Martin, Scott Wells, and Nancy Stark Smith. A member of Lower Left and a graduate of the SoDA program at the HZT in Berlin, Wass completed a PhD in Dance at Texas Woman’s University.
lowerleft.org
wasswasswass.com
Improvisation & Imagination in Contact – Eszter Kalóz
Tuesday, 29.07.25, 18:30–20:30
Open Level
REGISTER HERE!
Improvisation is more than movement—it’s an ongoing conversation between imagination and form. The challenge is to remain internally active, engaged, and alive in improvisation. How can we engage the person in the dancer, allowing personal richness to inhabit the dance? How does imagination shape our dancing, both alone and with a partner?
In this workshop/lab, we will explore the interplay between sensation, form, and creativity, investigating how presence fills each moment of the dance. Through solo body explorations and dancing in contact, we’ll discover the shifting states, textures, and qualities that emerge when we linger with imagination. Drawing inspiration from Randy Warshaw’s What Are We Teaching?, we’ll engage in movement, reflection, and discussion to deepen our experience of (contact) improvisation as an embodied, relational, and ever-evolving practice.
Warshaw, Randy: What are we teaching? Contact Quarterly Sourcebook, Vol. 7 1981-82
Special thanks to Juli Gabor for introducing me to this text and the labbing around it 🙂
Eszter Kalóz is a CI practitioner, Holistic Dance-Movement pedagogue and Yoga teacher based in Berlin. Her interest lies at exploring movement within the interplay of expressive art, therapy/personal development and awareness practice. She has studied Authentic Movement & Somatic Bodywork extensively with Sabine Parzer at the Holistic Dance Institute, Contact Improvisation mainly with Andrew Wass, Body-Mind Centering with Ka Rustler and Nina Wehnert, as well as many contemporary improvisational & movement research methods from various wonderful teachers. Whether yoga or dance/movement, what she offers is influenced by ongoing research into her own body-mind-spirit and therefore has a constantly evolving form, with an open-hearted, playful and sensitive attitude towards teaching and holding space.
Volume and Lightness – Ka Rustler
Wednesday, 30.07.25, 18:30–20:30
Open Level
REGISTER HERE!
This workshop delves into the continuous movement of our embryological development, where we migrate, fold, expand, spiral, and create space within specific time parameters. Using Contact Improvisation as a model, we will explore the expansion of the body from the core to the periphery, focusing on the volume and lightness of movement. We will dance with the volume of our internal organs, expanding outward, while cultivating a sense of lightness and fluidity. By consciously listening, breathing, and engaging in the exchange of giving and receiving, we deepen our awareness and expand the possibilities for movement and presence in our dance.
Ka Rustler creates, performs and shares her research and teachings in an international circuit. Working with pioneers in the field of improvisation, theatre and dance, she has been a collective member of Tanzfabrik Berlin, co-author of multi-layered productions, and performs with numerous artists framing social and ecological contexts theoretically situated within feminist understandings of embodied subjectivity.
As a Body-Mind Centering® Practitioner & Teacher for over three decades, her work experience includes somatic psychotherapy, applications and methods derived from BMC® and other somatic practices, and their relevance at the interface of performance-neuroscience-somatics. She is a member of Cranky Bodies a/company, testing non-hierarchical and cross-generational collaboration in an international collective and continuous work practice, co-founder of the Authentic Movement Research Group Unwinding the Body, and of C.A.R.E. an educational program that supports each individual’s developmental process and teaches how to work in therapeutic and movement fields with this understanding.
Her future work is focused on expanding the integration of somatic practices in both creative and therapeutic contexts fostering environments that promote healing, artistic innovation and social evolution.
Listening to the Dance – Hugh Stanier
Thursday, 31.07.25, 18:30–20:30
Open level
REGISTER HERE!
We will take our time to slow down, and from this space tune in to the subtle nuances that allow for clearer & deeper communication within the dance. The gentle sliding of fascia that indicates direction of movement, tuning to a partners’ breath to ‘hear’ their intention, and waiting in stillness together to allow the dance to arise from your shared connection. These are a few of the ideas and principles we will explore in the session. Establishing a space of patience & allowing, which gives trust to ourselves, our dancing partners and feeling more fully the nature of improvisation in connection. This can lead to more intensely physical dancing with a high level of attunement.
Hugh Stanier is a Dancer, movement educator and facilitator predominantly focused on Contact Improvisation, Somatics & Floor work. He has been teaching and performing for over 20 years. He came to the practice of C.I. as a practitioner at a time when he was searching for a deeper sense of connection to dance and movement. Connection to himself, to others and to the passion for movement itself. Contact opened doors for curious exploration from a safe and nourishing environment, and it is this place that feels so much like home yet so exciting and continually evolving that Hugh loves to share in his workshops.
Reframing Hands: from Taboo to Tool – Karthik Rajmohan
Friday, 01.08.25, 18:30–20:30
Open Level
REGISTER HERE!
In many Contact Improvisation spaces, the use of hands can feel taboo – seen as too directive, too controlling, or too reminiscent of codified partner dance forms. Yet the hands hold rich potential for communication, connection, and creativity.
In this class, we’ll examine how the hands can be used to listen as well as initiate, to follow, to lead, and to support—not with dominance, but with clarity and sensitivity. We’ll play with tone, weight, intention, and direction, opening new doors for improvisation and shared momentum. Together we’ll question assumptions, expand our vocabulary, and discover how the hands—when used with awareness—can become powerful tools for connection, not control.
All levels welcome. Bring your hands, your curiosity, and your willingness to explore.
Karthik Rajmohan is a dancer, musician and yoga practitioner based in Berlin, Germany. He holds a diploma from Attakkalari-Centre for movement arts (Bangalore, India) where he studied various styles of contemporary dance, Kalaripayattu, Bharatanatyam, ballet, body conditioning, art history and anatomy. During dance school he was introduced to Contact Improvisation and Instant Composition, which soon became his main focus and defined the next years. He has worked with several dance companies, arts collectives and social organisations in India and Europe, while developing a teaching practice.
