Dancing Together Alone

What can we learn about embodied connection when touch is forbidden?

Is it possible to have a physical and affective encounter with a distant person on the other side of the computer screen? In this online workshop series we engage a range of improvisation embodiment techniques for encountering the distant partners connected through the computer screen as the witnesses of our dance. In this sensuous journey, the space between the inner and the outer worlds of the dancer is approached as a mirror through which the presence of others can be revealed and expressed imaginatively as an experience of reciprocity and co-creation.

TRAINING DESCRIPTION:

March 2020: The current emergency and quarantine situation is a UNIQUE opportunity to rediscover the sense of movement, touch and space on which the Tango dance is based in a new and never before explored light. These live sessions on ZOOM offer an opportunity to unite our energies to nurture and develop freedom and awareness. This is a small step in finding new ways to help each other and to grow through dance and somatics.

The guided practice Dancing Together Alone brings into play the sensations, imagery, rules of engagement and movement dynamics of the Argentine tango dance by combining them with the kinaesthetic exploration of the body in movement and its tactile and spatial relationships proper to contact improvisation and other forms of contemporary improvisational dance. Dancing Together Alone engages the central role of somatic movement as a direct and systematic channel for connecting and integrating the body's intelligence into the experience of movement and dance.

Dancer and researcher Raffaele Rufo will facilitate an improvisation-based practice with simple and specific proposals for listening to the body, movement and contact that will gradually lead us to move and dance with a shared foundation at once playful and meditative. We connect, welcome each other, then Raffaele will verbally and physically lead a somatic movement journey on a specific theme to facilitate the experience of integration with one's body. In the second part of the practice, Raffaele will show possibilities and give suggestions for exploring small improvisational pathways in the home space based on images of the body in movement and relationship (e.g., the puppet, the dancing tree, the octopus) and elements of somatics (e.g., flow and tension, grounding, expansion-condensation, weight and pressure). The guided practice will last an hour and a half and will include moments of verbal exchange with participants.

We will be accompanied by the live music of remotely connected musician Lele Pescia who can see us and be inspired by our movements. It will be a fun practice that will help us feel united and creative even in quarantine.

Leading the practice: Raffaele Rufo

Live music: Lele Pescia LEX

BOOKINGS AND INFOS:

The event is part of the research project "Liquid Lead Movement" led by Raffaele Rufo to develop a training process for dancers, performers and practitioners of somatic disciplines for creative, educational and therapeutic purposes. Limited places. Participation with zoom link.

Email expressions of interest to raffaele.rufo@gmail.com.

SAMPLE VIDEOS OF THE PRACTICE:

Is the chair dancing you? https://vimeo.com/453970270

TEACHER’S BIO:

Raffaele Rufo (PhD) is a movement artist and scholar. In the last decade he has been teaching, researching and performing different forms of movement-based improvisation and partnering in Europe and Australia. His current practice interweaves tango, contact and contemporary dance improvisation with performance, ecology, the Feldenkrais method, phenomenological intuition and depth perception language to explore the reciprocity of human and more-than-human processes and agentic forces of embodiment. In 2020 Raffaele was awarded a PhD in dance and performance by Deakin University for the somatic study of touch in tango as an experience of kinaesthetic listening between the dancer’s inner and outer worlds. His academic research was published in the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, in the Journal of Embodied Research, in the Journal of Public Pedagogies and in the book collection Thinking Touch in Partnering and Contact Improvisation (edited by Malaika Sarco-Thomas). His recent experiences also include teaching and facilitating the teachers gathering at the International Festival of Contact Improvisation and Tango in Wuppertal, curating the session on The Public and Touch at the Melbourne Conference of Public Pedagogies, leading workshops for the creativity and communication program of Melbourne University’s Master of Entrepreneurship, and creating/performing The Tango Touch exploration at La Mama Theatre and the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Raffaele’s goal for the future is to develop and disseminate new ecosomatic techniques and perspectives of embodiment which support and promote the role of dancers and movers as grassroots agents of ecological consciousness and cultural change.

Email: raffaele.rufo@gmail.com