2013
 The sixth annual Sierra Contact Festival
A peer-oriented contact festival geared towards experienced dancers July 16-21, 2013 at Sierra Hot Springs, Sierraville, California 3.5 hours east of San Francisco, CA, 1 hour west of Reno, NV
The Festival is co-produced this year by Leslie Castellano and Karl Frost. This year, we will have a special (but not exclusive) focus is on investigating “jamming”, ‘not just doing jams, but exploring what we do, what we get out of it, and different possibilities. In addition to the nightly jams, many laboratories and discussions will focus on the jam experience and alternative structures for jamming, including explicit rules, varying sets of intentions and understandings, and special focus jams exploring specific themes. Some special focus jams will be structured by invited facilitators, and others will be left up to the interests and dialogue of the participants. In keeping with the idea of a focus on jamming, we are not going to be doing the curated presentations that we have done other years. There will be places for people to offer presentations of work during the afternoon lab sessions, but the mornings will be jams, with at least one space having a short skills based training and warm-up by experienced teachers, and one space having a special focus jam. Weekend only attendance: This year, we are explicitly making the event in two parts. Tuesday – Friday will be more laboratory oriented and Friday- Sunday will open up for a larger group and be more jam oriented. During the week, we explore the art of jamming, structures and intentions of jamming, how to collaborate on creating interesting atmospheres, group happenings, and fulfilling personal investigations. Part of the intention is for these explorations to then feed into ‘hosting’ a bigger weekend event, in which the research on jamming feeds into the jamming of the weekend. — While both the performing and the experiential wings of the contact world are intended to be represented at the festival, the unifying principle will be an invitation to those invested in the artistic and intellectual exploration of contact, regardless of perspective. The festival is intended as a non-hierarchical event where all are invited to follow their interests and to come together for exploration based on affinities of research.
The aim is for a contact festival which is geared to the desires of experienced and professional contactors and in which there is a high degree of dialogue, active physical and intellectual investigation, and autonomous pursuit of curiosity around the possibilities presented by contact improvisation.. For more information, see below and/or contact Leslie Castellano at festival@bodyresearch.org ————— More Details… Experience requirements: All participants will be expected to be experienced contactors… intermediate to advanced contactors who have a solid grasp of contact fundamentals. Those coming should have basic understanding of classic contact concepts like rolling point of contact, weight sharing, use of alignment and structure for support, physical listening. While considerations will be made for alternately able-bodied dancers, all This by no means implies that the explorations of the festival will be limited to classic contact explorations, merely that all will have a shared basic skill set in contact improvisation. The Hot Springs The Sierra Hot Springs retreat center is a moderately rustic hot springs retreat center bordering on the Tahoe National Forest in the Sierra Nevadas, just outside of the small town of Sierraville, CA. the grounds are expansive with plenty of space for camping. The primary hot springs include a large warm pool appropriate for (quiet) watsu/water dance, a smaller hot pool and cold plunges, plus a sauna. On the other end of the property is the smaller Meditation pool, for silent soaking. The general atmosphere of the place is quiet, with rules of no alcohol and no pets. children are welcome with “appropriate guidance” for a quiet atmosphere. We will have use of their studio/workshop room and will also be setting up our own outdoor dance studios, using the infrastructure from Contact Camp at Burning Man. For more information on the hot springs, visit their site at www.sierrahotsprings.org . Also, please do read over the Guest before registering. The Dance Spaces outdoors — 60 foot diameter (2700 sq ft) parachute tent with floors of recycled vinyl billboard over carpet (the effect is of a lightly padded marly). indoors – a 750 sq ft studio space (this year with wrestling mats for the floor). plus the warm pool for water dancing and all the forest land you could want for nature explorations. Food Food is provided. Vegetarian meals all days, with meat options on some days. If you have special needs, write to festival@bodyresearch.org Lodging Included in the hot springs/facilities fees is camping on site. Bring your own tent and sleeping gear. For additional fees, one can get a room or dorm bed in the lodge. Note, this year, we plan to rent out the whole lodge for the weekend (so we can go later into the evening). This means that on the weekend (Fri/Sat nights), there will be a subsidized rate for rooms on a first come first served basis. Write to festival@bodyresearch.org if interested. Fees and Registration
to register, contact sierra@bodyresearch.org and send a deposit via the paypal button below (pay the rest at the festival) |
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