Since 1976, Nina Martin has been a dedicated force in the development of postmodern dance as a performer, choreographer, organization builder, and teacher. For nearly twenty years she worked in New York City as a professional dance artist and major activist in the downtown dance community. From 1995 -2000, Martin was co-founder of Lower Left, instigating a postmodern aesthetic in dance and community philosophy in southern California. Since 2001 she has been carving out a dance destination in remote Far West Texas close to Big Bend National Park on the border with Mexico. 
As a performer, Martin toured nationally as a member of David Gordon's Pick Up Company and was in the original cast of Martha Clarkeﾕs Miracolo D'More. She was a member of the New York based Channel Z, a performance collective, that she co-founded with Stephen Petronio, Randy Warshaw, Diane Madden, Paul Langland, Danny Lepkoff, and Robin Feld. Cynthia Novack highlights Martinﾕs role in Channel Z in Sharing the Dance, a comprehensive study on Contact Improvisation and American Culture. Martin also danced with Steve Paxton in "Beyond the Mainstream," a production of the PBS Dance in America series. Additionally she has performed and collaborated with numerous artists including Deborah Hay, Simone Forti and most recently in collaborative performance with Mary Overlie and Lower Left. 
As a choreographer, Martin founded Nina Martin/Performance, which she directed from 1979-1994. Martinﾕs choreography and collaborations have been produced in New York City at PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace, Creative Time, Movement Research, and La Mama ETC. Her work has been produced in the US and internationally in Seattle, Austin, San Antonio, and Cleveland, Helsinki, Holland, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Venezuela and Russia. Nina Martin/Performance received choreography fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1984, ﾔ85, ﾔ86 ﾔ87, ﾔ88, ﾔ89), the Jerome Foundation (1985), the New York State Council on the Arts (1988, 1990), Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation (1989, 1990) and "Meet the Composer" Composer -Choreographer grant with Michael Daughtery (1991). In California she was awarded a ﾒDance Makersﾓ grant from the Irvine Foundation.  In San Diego Martin received three Tommy Awards for her innovative choreographies and community activism.
As an organization builder, Martin served as a board member for Movement Research, a major producer and educational resource for new innovations in dance. Martin co-founded the New York Dance Intensive, a unique full-time postmodern performance training program. In 1992, Martin gathered a network of professional dancers to form Locktime Performance where she began developing her unique dance investigations called Rewire/Dancing States and Ensemble Thinking. After moving to San Diego, Martin spearheaded Lower Left Performance Collective. Martin has annually created work with Lower Left as well as creating commissioned work for professional dancers such as Tonnie Sammartano, Jennifer Keller, and various university companies. 
As a teacher, Martin has secured a place as a master teacher, through her classes in Articulating the Solo  Body, Rewire/Dancing States, Contact improvisation, Hamilton Floor Barre, and Ensemble Thinking. Martin has been on faculty at New York Universityﾕs Experimental Theatre Wing, Trinity University La Mama Program, University of California at Los Angeles Dept. of World Arts and Culture, University of California at San Diego, San Diego State University, the School for the Development of New Dance in Amsterdam and Arnhem, and Helsinkiﾕs National School. She is also a featured teacher at many festivals including the Seattle Festival for Alternative Dance, Dance Weeks in Vienna, the International Summer School of Dance Tokyo and The International Festival of Movement in Yaroslavl, Russia.  Most recently she was guest faculty at New York University and Mills College and was a featured teacher at CI 36 Contact Improvisation 36th Anniversary.
 

Workshop

Contact Improvisation - From a Body/Brain Approach

Every session will deeply investigate the contact form as a newly creative practice. We will work on how to keep original, individual impulses flowing while dancing in "harmony" with another.  We find new ways of dancing with a partner by examining different kinetic and neurological states in the contact flow through Nina Martinﾕs ReWire: Dancing States which is a system that explores motivating movement from a Kinetic State and from a Neurological State.  The first trains us to recognize the bodyﾕs desire to move and the second state trains us to work from the brain in a pure way that bypasses ﾒMindﾓ as much as possible.  The dancing that ensues from these avenues of investigation is truly authentic and offers a fresh vocabulary for your Contact dancing by breaking habitual patterns that foreclose on other opportunities for expression. Concepts from Martin's Articulating the Solo Body and Ensemble Thinking will also inform this series of classes.

Martin Sonderkamp is a German freelance choreographer, dancer and teacher who works throughout Europe and the US. Coming from a background in visual arts and professional experience as a percussionist from 1989-1993, he has earned his degree in dance (1994) from the School for New Dance Development, SNDO, a department of the Amsterdam Academy for the Arts (AHK) where he has taught regularly from 1995-2001 until he moved his base to Istanbul, Turkey. Since 2008 Mr. Sonderkamp lives in Berlin, Germany. Mr.Sonderkamp has worked as a teacher for Technique and Improvisation for many dance institutions and organisations throughout Europe and the US. 
Known for his improvisation skills, M. Sonderkamp has performed improvisation at festivals and venues in the US and Europe, including amongst others Klapstuk Festival/Belgium, St.Marck's Church/NY, Dance Theater Workshop/NY, Judson Church/NY, The Corcoran Gallery and Marvin Center Theater in Washington D.C./USA, Centro Cultural Contemporaneo Barcelona/Spain, Korzo Theater/Den Hague, Theater a/d Werft/Utrecht, Fijnhout Theatre, Amsterdam Muiderpoort Theatre, Amsterdam and the Frascati Theater, Amsterdam.
 
His collaborations include choreographers/dancers Sharon Smith, Amanda Miller and Katie Duck, musicians/composers Anne LaBerge, Andy Moore, Alexander Waterman, Arnold Haberl and video artist Isabelle Vigier. 
Martin Sonderkamp is a performer and founding member of Magpie Music Dance Company, which performs throughout Europe, US,A Russia, Asia and Brazil. He has furthermore danced in numerous performances as guest artist with Amanda Miller and her company Ballet Freiburg/ Pretty Ugly in Germany. 
 
Since 1993 Martin Sonderkamp creates performances amongst which are On The Fence, White Noise Eye Lid, Switch and the solo performances Millennium Mantra, Borrowed Tongues and Scale. His work has been performed in theatres and festivals in Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey and the USA.
 
Received financial support from German Goethe Institut Washington, Goethe Institut Zagreb, Goethe Institut Belgrade, Goethe Institut Istanbul, Goethe Institut Bukarest, Goethe Institut Sofia, from the German Embassy Vilnius and the Dutch Embassy Zagreb. For the summer 2002 Mr. Sonderkamp has been granted support from Dansateliers Rotterdam for research focusing on dance, electronic music and video. In 2005 he was part of a team of invited artist at TanzQuartierVienna, researching teaching methods within contemporary dance.
Martin Sonderkamp received scholarships from Stiftung Kunst und Kultur des Landes NRW, Germany in 1998 for studies at Trisha Brown Company in New York and In 2000 where he worked as a choreographic assistant for Amanda Miller at BallettFreiburg/PrettyUgly Dance Company nominated for the Video Dance Prize 1998 from Stiftung Kultur Cologne. 

Workshop

The workshop focuses on the collaborative process between artists whose interest lies in practicing and performing improvisation. We will explore modes of perception, strategies and games that facilitate improvisational performance practice.

 is a Dancer, Improviser, Shiatsu therapist, Engineer, Teacher, Student.
Lior practices various forms of movement, dance, body/mind and awareness, including: Improvisation, Contact Improvisation, Butoh, Shiatsu Therapy, Yoga, Vipassana Meditation, Tai-Qi, Qi-Kong.
Lior teaches, studies, and performs in different locations - Israel, Europe, US, Japan. He currently lives in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
My current interests are: 
- Improvisation as performance art - how can I fill an empty space? How can I fine-tune myself as performer to get closer to the "human-string" that vibrates in all of us?
- Contact improvisation as performance art and exploring the physical aspects of CI
- Performance in public spaces / site-specific work
- The search for balance between my profession as an engineer and my passion for dance, body-work, meditation... 

Workshop

The Invisible Teacher
The invisible teacher is the teacher that resides inside each and every one of us.
This can be our best, most knowledgeable teacher.
The invisible teacher is also my option as a workshop teacher to make myself invisible, to trust my students and whatever is happening now, and by that to give space to all the invisible teachers to put up their heads, to teach me, to teach us, to guide into discovering and rediscovering my own dance.
In this workshop we will try to invite the invisible teacher inside us.
Each day will begin with soft slow and close-to-the-floor fine-tuning of the body/mind into feeling, into listening, into moving, into meeting. We will then take the quality we create in our body and in the group, as well as using some detailed exercises, into contact improvisation ﾐ a dance of listening, meeting, discovery, and curiosity - and into open dancing and jamming, where we can invite our invisible teacher to guide us into our own dance, and have fun while we do it.

The Composer, Performer and Improviser Daisuke Terauchi received his Master's Degree from Elisabeth University of 
Music in Hiroshima in 1999. He has studied under Koji Tomotani, Jo Kondo. He has taught at Shiratake elementary school and Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima.
He has produced 2 CD's entitled "Thread, works by Daisuke Terauchi I" and "Wordless poetry, short pieces for voice 
by Daisuke Terauchi".
He creates works in various mediums including chamber music, live performance and improvisation. 
As improviser, he has improvised with the various fields of artists, such as a dancer, painter, calligrapher, and computer musician. He has produced and joined some CDs. 
One of his CDs is published by Ayler records. And he joined and be invited to concerts and music festivals as composer or improviser in a lot of places in Japan, Netherlands, Belgium, France, German, Korea, Austria, Lithuania and Spein.
http://dterauchi.com 

Workshop

Sadira Aryan Smith is from Brooklyn, NY. Originally a tapper, she started her concert dance training at the Fukuoka Kanako Ballet School in Kyushu, Japan. She is a Jacobs Pillow Scholar, a Richard Ellner Scholar, and has worked with the Paris Opera Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet with Julie Taymor, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Buglisi Dance Theater, David Gordon and is currently with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Sadira holds a BA with summa cum laude standing in East Asian Studies and Government from St. John’s University and continues her childhood practice of aikido.

Workshop

"Only four hours!  Let's practice speaking and understanding as much as we can about dance in English and feel strong about asking questions if we don't understand."

born in Osaka. Becoming a monk in Thailand, sitting in a monastery in India, it took him a while before he realize that desires are not something to renounce, rather something to live with. He met Contact Improvisation during his under grad in Wesleyan University in USA. After being back in Japan, he enjoys giving CI workshops and performances. He is currently a doctor.  

Workshop

Just let the voice out as you let go your body. You cannot help talking, mumbling, roaring, screaming... This is not an "English class," but helps you to get used to it. It's a Contact Improvisation Workshop with your vocal cords wide open.

CIFJ member
She is a dance improviser, choreographer and a teacher from Osaka, Japan. She has studied and danced in New York City as a company member of Joy Kellman among others. She has begun CI activity in Japan with the strong influence and the recommendation of Nancy Stark Smith who was visited Japan and taught her workshops. In 2000, she founded C.I.co., a Contact Improvisation Company. Since then she has been a leading figure in teaching, organizing and performing CI in Tokyo and throughout Japan. In 2005, she participated and taught intensive workshop in Contact Festival in Israel. In the summer of 2006, she taught a workshop in the Magpie Collective Workshop and performed with the Magpie Music and Dance in Amsterdam. She took part in Asian Improvisation Art Exchange@Mullae in Seoul 2008.
Now she is creating and studying to search and mix the Asian Culture in their dance improvisation.

CIFJ member
She is a dancer, improviser, photographer and teacher based in Tokyo. She received her Master of Arts in dance education from Ochanomizu University in Tokyo.  She went to New York in 2002 to study dance for one year, with a scholarship from the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists. She founded her own dance company "ZINZOLIN" in 1996. Their piece was selected by Joyce SOHO Presents, DUMBO Festival, The Brooklyn Museum of Art and The Cool NY 2004 Dance Festival in NY. After she came back to Japan, she also started to work with Chico Katsube, as a member of C.I.co. She is also known as a photographer, and have good feeling for taking dance pictures. She took part in Israel contact festival in 2005, 2007,and Asian Improvisation Art Exchange@Mullae in Seoul 2008. Now she is creating and studying to search and mix the Asian Culture in their dance improvisation with Chico.