CLASSES

CLASS CARD

Class Cards may be used for:

• Morning Class

• Thursdays Contact Improvisation Foundations

• Sundays Contact Improvisation All Levels

• BIPOC Contact Improvisation All Levels

*Please note: Class Cards cannot be used for jams.

Class Card Value + Expiry:

• Our regular drop-in rate is $25/class.

• 10 CLASS CARD: $150 ($15/class) — save $10 per class

• 5 CLASS CARD: $100 ($20/class) — save $5 per class

• Class Cards expire June 30th, 2027

Class Format:
After arrival, participants begin with a self-directed warm up to settle, tune to the space and their individual needs. The teacher offers prompts to guide attention and practice with an emphasis on expanding awareness and skill development. Warm-up organically leads into open contact duets or more structured explorations. Class usually concludes with an ensemble score. Facilitated opportunities for conversation and questions occur halfway and/or at the end of class.

See the EDAM Calendar for the Morning Class Teaching Schedule.

Peter’s Format
Offered Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays

• Self-Directed Arrival: Rather than a synchronized warm-up, participants follow their own physical preparation. The teacher provides verbal cues to help sharpen internal awareness and subtle sensation.

• Organic Pacing: Participants make their own way into CI practice, allowing for a personal and intuitive transition into partnering.

• The Score: The final portion of class (20–25 minutes) is dedicated to an improvised score. These parameters vary day-to-day, offering a structured container to explore ways of improvising and composing together.

• Ethos: This class is inspired by a teaching structure that was developed, held and practiced by Peter Bingham in the latter part of his career between 2017 and 2025.

Skills Format
Offered Tuesdays, Fridays

• Solo Movement Skills: Guided warm-ups explore frameworks for solo movement pattering (rolling, floor-work, and across-the-floor patterns) designed to refine our coordination and attention.

• Partnering Mechanics: Each class introduces a specific contact partnering skill, focusing on the physics and mechanics of weight sharing and moving safely with others.

• Specific Practice: The teacher may also lead the group through structured CI exercises to provide a more specific focus on technical or awareness-based refinement.

• Integration & Witnessing: Classes conclude with either a Round Robin or open practice to integrate the specific learning from the day, often utilizing the practice of "witnessing" to support our learning and integration.

Shared Values
In both formats, agency remains a priority. Participants are encouraged to choose their level of physical contact and are always welcome to witness. All classes include time for group reflection and conversation, with the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the practice in more detail.

CONTACT IMPROVISATION
MORNING CLASS

MONDAY TO FRIDAY, 10AM - 12PM

Individual class cost: $25, or pay by Class Card
Drop-in registration is available at the door, no pre-registration is available.
Purchase a Class Card and save: $100 (5-Class Card), $150 (10-Class Card)

Begins: Tuesday, September 8th
Ends: Friday, December 19th
NO CLASS: Wednesday, September 30th

Morning Class offers professional dancers and those at an advanced level of Contact Improvisation a dedicated space to engage in consistent, technical and critical CI training at a high level of practice. Permission to attend is required.

Fall 2026 Schedule:

• Mondays (Peter’s Format) with Hayley Gawthrop

• Tuesdays (Skills) with Olivia Shaffer

• Wednesdays (Peter’s Format) with Francesca Frewer (September 9th to October 28th) and Arash Khakpour (November 4th to December 16th)

• Thursdays (Peter’s Format) with Olivia Shaffer

• Fridays (Skills) with Anne Cooper

CONTACT IMPROVISATION
FOUNDATIONS

THURSDAYS, 6:30 - 8PM

Individual class cost: $25, or pay by Class Card
Drop-in registration is available at the door, no pre-registration is available.
Purchase a Class Card and save: $100 (5-Class Card), $150 (10-Class Card)

A beginner-friendly class focused on introducing (and re-introducing) Contact Improvisation basics. While the class is targeted for those with 0-3 years of CI experience, we welcome all-levels to sharpen their foundational skills and take part in this shared research of Contact Improvisation.

Fall 2026 Schedule:

• September 10th to October 29th: Arash Khakpour

  — October 1st — Special Class with Nica Portavia — REGISTER HERE

• November 5th to December 17th: Francesca Frewer

Class Format:
Class begins with a facilitated warm-up, moving into CI techniques through individual, partnered, and/or group exercises, and closing with a round-robin or score as an opportunity to put our skills into practice and dance together.

Each class may explore a variety of fundamental CI principles including:
- rolling point of contact
- sloughing (sliding)
- meeting pressure (continuity of connection)
- weight sharing
- under-dancing (offering mobile support)

CONTACT IMPROVISATION
ALL LEVELS

SUNDAYS, 12:30 - 2:30PM
with Anne Cooper

Individual class cost: $25, or pay by Class Card
Drop-in registration is available at the door, no pre-registration is available.
Purchase a Class Card and save: $100 (5-Class Card), $150 (10-Class Card)

Anne Cooper has been teaching Contact Improvisation at EDAM for over 20 years. She brings her extensive experience and continuous inquiry to this class, meeting participants where they are at in their dancing and offering ways to dig deeper into the practice.

Fall 2026 Schedule:

• Sunday, September 13th to Sunday, December 20th

• NO CLASS: Sunday, December 6th
  

Class Format:
A guided warm-up leads into a facilitated exploration of CI skills and techniques. This may include individual, partnered, and/or group exercises. Class usually closes with an opportunity to dance together in a round-robin or score.

CONTACT IMPROVISATION
BIPOC, ALL LEVELS
with Natalie Tin Yin Gan (顏婷妍)

SUNDAYS, 3:30 – 5:30PM - see schedule below

Individual class cost: $25, or pay by Class Card
Drop-in registration is available at the door, no pre-registration is available.
Purchase a Class Card and save: $100 (5-Class Card), $150 (10-Class Card)

A class for BIPOC dancers and movers, Natalie holds a welcoming space to learn Contact Improvisation. This class offers a variety of CI exercises and techniques for all levels of practice. Beginners are welcome! Please email us at info@edamdance.org if you have questions about upcoming programming, or you are interested in attending and cost is a barrier.

BIPOC: This class is for those who self-identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour).

Fall 2026 Schedule:

• Sunday, September 13th

• Sunday, September 20th

• Sunday, September 27th

• Sunday, October 4th

• → Sunday, October 11th — BIPOC Jam

• Sunday, October 18th

• Sunday, October 25th

• Sunday, November 1st

• Sunday, November 8th

• → Sunday, November 15th — BIPOC Jam

Class Format:
Class begins with an opening circle and a warm-up, to bring us into our bodies and our sense of awareness. Natalie will offer CI foundations through individual, partnered, and/or group exercises. Each prompt is an invitation to be in inquiry and creativity together as we train our capacity for listening, responsiveness, and play. We will improvise with our many dance partners: the floor, the space, ourselves, and our fellow dancers. Class will conclude with a group score to put our skills into collective practice. 

Each class may explore a variety of CI principles including:
- rolling point of contact
- sloughing (sliding)
- meeting pressure (continuity of connection)
- weight sharing
- under-dancing (offering mobile support)

Anne Cooper is a dancer, performer and teacher who has worked in contemporary dance, dance-theatre, Contact Improvisation-based choreography and improvisation in performance. She  gratefully acknowledges she lives on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She's danced with Peter Bingham/EDAM, Olivia Shaffer, Chick Snipper/DanStabat, Co.Erasga, Lola Dance, Karen Jamieson Dance, Mascall Dance, Kinesis, Harvey Meller and others. She created and presented her own work at The Firehall Arts Centre, EDAM Choreographic Series, The Shadbolt Centre (for Continuum Dance) and others. In 2001 she was invited to teach Contact Improvisation at EDAM by her teacher Peter Bingham. CI teachers she's studied with include Ray Chung, Andrew Harwood, Jaci Metivier, Chris Aiken, Nora Hajos among others. She studied, researched and performed with Nancy Stark Smith, a founder of Contact Improvisation. Anne facilitates the Underscore, (originated by NSS), teaches classes, special workshops and hosts the Open Jam at EDAM, performs with EDAM and occasionally with other companies. Anne is interested in life and living and in sustainability; personally and environmentally.

Francesca Frewer is a contemporary dance artist and Feldenkrais® practitioner living as a grateful guest on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her practice celebrates movement as a conversation with the vast and layered unfolding unknown. Encompassing contemporary dance, The Feldenkrais Method®, improvisation, and Contact Improvisation, her practice and her classes pursue a sense of embodied freedom, expansive awareness, grounded autonomy, and togetherness.

Born and raised on Semiahmoo territory (South Surrey), Hayley Gawthrop is an independent artist living and working on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (so-called Vancouver). Hayley began dancing at a young age, training extensively in ballet, jazz, and contemporary forms, where their love of movement and rigor eventually came into tension with the rigidity of classical dance structures.

Their practice has since evolved to celebrate what they love about dance and the world, while questioning what they wish to change. Hayley has performed and collaborated with artists and companies including Emmalena Fredriksson, Arash Khakpour (Biting School), Antonio Somera Jr., Fight With a Stick, Dumb Instrument Dance, Omer Keinan, Kelly McInnes, The Response, MACHiNENOiSEY Dance Society, and has worked as a dramaturg and outside eye for Emmalena Fredriksson, Kelly McInnes, and Marissa Wong.

Hayley has studied Contact Improvisation with Peter Bingham since 2015 and has danced professionally with EDAM since 2021. Contact Improv offers a framework for following their questions around care, listening, disruption, holding, floating, and flying. They are passionate about gentleness, bodily autonomy, and deep listening. Their classes balance practical skill-building with space for personal inquiry, inviting students to feel thoughtful, brave, and confident in the unknown.

Arash Khakpour (آرش خاکپور) is a dancer and choreographer from Tehran and is privileged to be a dance artist based in the Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver). Arash has been practicing dance and performance for the past 15 years and has been a company member of the EDAM Contact Improvisation ensemble since 2017. He tends to invest in the nuances of prejudices in the body as a way of inviting the unconscious to the conscious, and as a doorway to confront unknown emotions. He sees dance as a process of physical, emotional and spiritual discovery and a mode of transformation. He works with dance as a language that researches the human condition through mythical, historical, social, political and existential interpretations. As a first-generation immigrant, he continuously considers what healing he can bring to the land and communities he works with. He is building a culture of relationality and reciprocity that celebrates the multiplicity of presences and approaches. Arash is the co-founder and artistic director of the dance-theatre-film company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour).

Olivia Shaffer is a dance artist and the Artistic Director of EDAM. Informed by nearly two decades of performance, dance making, and embodied research, her work centers on the merging of practice with artistic expression. A BFA graduate of Simon Fraser University and a certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner, Olivia is committed to exploring how refining brain-body connections can develop our capacity for greater choice and ease of movement. Having shared her work across Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia, she is interested in cultivating spaces that prioritize curiosity and collective care. Olivia is honoured to lead EDAM’s next chapter, upholding the legacy of founder Peter Bingham while moving into the evolving possibilities of the form.

Natalie Tin Yin Gan (顏婷妍) is an award-winning writer, dance artist, and facilitator based in so-called Vancouver. She lives and learns on
the unsurrendered ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Natalie is the Co-Artistic Director of Hong Kong Exile, an interdisciplinary collective committed to devising new stories and expressions of the Chinese diaspora. She is Narrative Designer at sunset visitor studios, responsible for the critically-acclaimed independent video game 1000xRESIST.

Passionate about facilitation and community care, Natalie is a certified teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®, a body-centered trauma-aware approach to the voice. Since 2009, she has studied Contact Improvisation with Peter Bingham and Anne Cooper. As a teacher of CI, Natalie is moved by relationality, poetics, and the emergent. She is passionate about dance class as co-created laboratory, as somatic playground, and as rehearsal for collective liberation.