Contact improvisation sessions with Aistė Jančiūtė
In June and July, we invite you to contact improvisation sessions in the Sapieha Palace. The current exhibition ‘Refuge’ presents a video interview with Steve Paxton entitled ‘Without Shaking the Kink’ (artists Bojana Cvejić and Lennart Laberenz). We invite you to try out this contemporary dance technique with your own bodies, while stepping from the words in this piece.
Contact improvisation is one of the art forms of dance and improvisation, where communication takes place through movement in contact with another. Touch is one of the essential tools of contact improvisation and invites you to explore and discover new trajectories of movement. This dance form helps to establish a better relationship not only with one’s own body, but also to awaken a curiosity to move, to be playful and spontaneous. Free movement, touch and non-verbal communication can bring unexpected insights about oneself, the environment or the world. In these sessions we will communicate through movement, listening to ourselves, our partner and our environment. We will focus on body sensations, touch and fluid, empathetic movement together.
These sessions are open level – no dance experience necessary. Bring (or come wearing) loose, unrestricted clothing, we will move barefoot (or with socks) during the session. If you wish to change in the palace, please arrive 15 minutes before the session and you will be escorted to the dressing room.
The sessions will be led by Aistė Jančiūtė.
Aistė has been teaching contact improvisation classes and workshops since 2013 and has been actively involved in building and supporting the contact improvisation community in Vilnius. Aistė has studied contact improvisation and performance art from experienced teachers such as Eckhard Müller (DE), Daniel Schwartz (AR), Katie Duck (NL) and Alfred Genovesi (UK), Angel Doniyaus (RU), Ray Chung (US), Yaniv Mintz (IL), Anya Cloud (US), Daniel Lepkoff (US), and others. Aistė is also interested in other movement practices: yoga, active meditation, contemporary dance. This year Aistė graduated from The Institute for Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy (UK).