Nica Portavia (Italy)
September 28th - October 1st
EDAM - 303 E 8th Ave
EDAM is delighted to host guest artist Nica Portavia (Italy) for a two-day workshop intensive and a special class this Fall. Nica brings their extensive Contact Improvisation research to this training, with a particular attention to gravity. Their teaching is infused with philosophical, social and political lenses and centres empathy and shared practice.
DEAR GRAVITY
Experienced CI Level Workshop
Mon-Tues | Sept 28 + 29th
10:30 AM - 4:45 PM (lunch break 1 - 2 PM)
FULL WORKSHOP PRICING
$125 - EARLY BIRD (Until Aug 14th)
Sliding Scale:
$150 - Subsidized Rate
$200 - Regular Rate
$250 - Supporter Rate
SINGLE DAY PRICING
Sliding Scale:
$85 - Subsidized Rate
$110 - Regular Rate
$135 - Supporter Rate
Dear Gravity, thanks for inviting us to fall.
A body-mind-anthropological-imaginative journey to study the weight of our sensations, our reflexes, to study our attention and how it moves and is being moved.
We will focus on some principles of Material for the Spine (MFS, Steve Paxton), studying our skeleton, the relations between parts that can allow movements and dance.
We will investigate spirals, puzzles, walking as foundation and centers as initiators.
We will explore the space as a spherical place where all directions are imaginable and possible.
We will research our way to be round, our way to adapt with pleasure to this planet earth supporting us, our weight, our steps.
We will research the principles of CI in their technical, philosophical, social and political aspects.
We will study touch as a way to communicate, researching fascia and how it is adapting, responding and transmitting information, choices, and directions.
We will meet other people focusing in how we meet, how we are open to interdependency, how we receive the impact of any encounter.
We will practice readiness, availability for changes, possibilities to re-direct, transformation and disorientation as a way to multiply horizons.
Through this dancing research the invitation is to create new practices for collaborative spaces of growth and relational knowledge.
We will research some of those topics through our dance:
-if empathy is something we can practice
-if together is different than alone
-if precarious is the new way to be rooted
-if solidarity is just a word or is a shared practice.
(UN)STABLE Togetherness
Open CI Level Class
Thurs | Oct 1st
6:30 - 8:00 PM
$25 - Subsidized Rate
$33 - Regular Rate
$41 - Supporter Rate
Contact Improvisation is, to me, a deep metaphor for life.
We are beings made of relationships — with ourselves, others, and the world around us. In a world that shifts faster than we can predict, CI offers tools to navigate presence, unpredictability, and connection. This practice invites us to feel, to fall, to listen, to be supported by gravity and one another. It’s a way to study our attention, our reflexes, our ability to adapt, re-direct, transform.
We will research the technical aspect of CI, diving deep into this endless research that this practice offers.
We will share masses, stories, imagination, and dances.
We will focus on touching and being touched, moving and being moved, listening as a transformative skill, attention as a tool to navigate in our dances.
What if practicing to be unstable together became a resource to find different ways of being alive in this planet earth, spinning so fast?
Nica Portavia
I was born in Fano, Italy, from an Italian father and a mother from Lebanon. I started dancing as a child, following a Professional Dance School program in Giordan, then in Spain and finalized in Italy. I am a dancer, teacher & researcher, and performer in the field of Contact Improvisation.
I discovered CI many years ago, and mainly trained abroad with many teachers including Steve Paxton, Daniel Lepkoff, Charlie Morrissey, KJ Holmes, and Karen Nelson. I followed the training Material for the Spine, by Steve Paxton, where I had the big pleasure to meet and study with Steve, diving completely into his research. I also followed a 3 year training called Tatto Interno (Deep Touch) that is about the relation between fascia and the nervous system.
I'm currently co-teaching with Karen Nelson our project called 'Faking it with gravity' and we are performing together our research-work called 'Smaller' that is traveling around the world. I’m also co-teaching with Charlie Morrissey at Tanzfabrik Belin school a workshop called Gravity Dances. I have taught and teach in France, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Russia, Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Portugal, Mexico, and USA.
I am the organizer of national and international events, including the ItalyContactFest (an International CI Festival which takes place in Italy and has now reached its eleventh edition www.italycontactfest.com) and EVERYBODIESAREPOLITICAL, a tightening about politics and dance. With my CI community in bologna we are exploring the topic of IMPACT, dancing in public spaces and creating documentation and writing.