“Get creative and learn from each other.”
The international American Contemporary Skating Festival offers figure skating artists, choreographers, coaches and professional figure skaters worldwide an annual meeting place and platform for joint exchange.
In workshops about dance on ice and skating-specific movement technique, individual working methods are shared and new ideas are tested in a familiar atmosphere.
A final stage provides space to present own short performance pieces as well as workshop topics and knowledge gained to local, Boston audiences.
In 2020, 2018, and 2017, I had the pleasure of being an instructor for the following festival workshops.
2020 "Virtual Meetup": introduction to approaches of contemporary ice skating
What exactly is contemporary skating?
From different perspectives we will look at and question the topics "contemporary", "contemporary skating" and "contemporary performance on ice". We will learn more about the international development, individual working methods and philosophies of active artists, festivals and organizations in this new, growing genre. In short improvisation exercises we will gather tools to develop our own moving approaches to contemporary skating.
This workshop was a collaboration of IceDanceTheatre-Fusion and the American Ice Theatre | AIT Minneapolis-St. Paul.
2018 somatics and methods of contemporary dance
Somatic approaches and practices of contemporary dance as initiators of gliding
At the beginning of this workshop we explore the accelerating power of somatic and dance movement impulses on our thin blades, discovering new forms of movement, experiencing and responding to changes in our respective balance.
We then develop a sense of dynamic change within a group and learn to pay attention to each other. In group improvisations we try out speeding up and slowing down our individual movement sequences together; taking up changing movement impulses and themes visually and physically, passing them on as well as merging non-verbal "leading and following".
At the festival stage I presented own research excerpts on the specific theme of "gliding acceleration from impulses of changing body parts".
2017 contact improvisation in gliding acceleration
Giving, taking up, transforming movement: manipulating gliding motion through targeted impulses
The focus of this workshop is mutual acceleration on ice and ice skates.
In partner work we learn to feel each other, to give and receive impulses. We sensitize our individual impulse power, observe and feel its effect on speed, balance ability and spatial locomotion of our bodies gliding on blades.