Bodies in Composition is a training program focused on instant composition, also known as real-time composition or improvisation.
The program is structured around three weeks of workshops between January and July 2027, led by four major teachers and choreographers in the field of improvisation : Alban Richard, Rosalind Crisp, Kirstie Simson and Charlie Brittain.
It is intended for professional dancers, with the aim of creating an opportunity to study, research and deepen this practice within a privileged context of collective research. The choreographers will be teaching in English, creating a space for a European community of dancers to come together.
Observing, continuing, modifying, imagining.
I would like to share with you some movement tools by observing the favorable conditions of each situation. The situation is the resource upon which one has to be able to create evolution. How can we remain open and available ? How can we project ourselves into the future, while identifying possibilities ? How can we avoid modelling (having a plan) but allow things to mature (without ruling out any possibility) ?
Our capacity to adapt requires us, in order to understand what is at stake between ourselves, others and the world, to identify not only our environment but also the elements that shape our individuality. Our intimate beliefs, family and professional contexts, and our expectations of the future are all filters that impose limitations on us and distance us from our potential.
Through a series of experimental and improvisational workshops, using observational constraints focused on our bodies in movement, we will work on trusting ourselves and relying on the effectiveness of our choices.
From the raw, untamed mush of our material bodies to her particularly articulate and playful compositional tools, Australian dancer and choreographer Rosalind Crisp invites dancers to fire up their artistic attention, even while sinking into their bodily sensations.
Rosalind will share her practice, which relentlessly explores the attention of the dancer to the production of their movements in real time. Her research method focuses on the beginnings of movement from the messy materiality of our bodies—breath, weight, flesh, sensations, and bodily imagination. Her choreographic tools offer clear and accessible ways to follow, extend, delay, disrupt, inhibit, or capture this emerging movement as it unfolds, thus engaging the audience from the very first moments. The research will focus on solo work, although very often accompanied by partners.
She offers dancers the means and the permission to guide themselves, both in the studio and on stage. Her compositional tools are constantly evolving and constitute a rigorous model for autonomous artistic self-learning.
What is it like to watch and be watched? This beautiful vulnerability is the ground for the ‘transparency-of-self’ that is inherent in the sincere practice of improvisation. The material, and the ‘in-the-moment’ choices we make in response to what emerges, engender depth, intimacy and a Life-affirming sharing of who we are.
The spirit of the improviser is a daring one: performing with ‘nothing’, remaining open to what emerges in each moment. As we challenge our ‘fear of failing’, we are called into accountability: to ourselves and each other, as we face the unknown. Can we transform negative to positive? Collective support allows the practice to strengthen us as we meet the challenges of Life – the ultimate improvisation of presence, care and daring.
Essentially a spiritual practice, investigating what improvised performance is demands rigor and focus as we reveal to ourselves and each other, through our responses, our rooted humanity. Facing everything, avoiding nothing. This is the opportunity improvisation-performance affords us, a deep process of learning and transforming.
We will explore the relevance of this work in the context of the deeply challenging time we are living, where uncertainty is our living reality. We will create and practice performing, witnessing and ‘sharing’ improvisations. Focussed discussions offer opportunities for sharing experiences and insights.
Learning, supporting, play, reflection and collaboration are fundaments as we enjoy collectively creating, and being created.
